maybe, but how is Disney "protected" from the soccer moms when it looks like the attached image?

Get off this gaming forum then. Games are for kids. Go smoke your pipe at your gentleman's club and philosophize or plan war or whatever you do there.

I don't know, I just can't see myself (or any other adult man tbh) really enjoying a Disney princess movie...but each to their own, I guess.

I'm not going to sit in here and come up with excuses for being young at heart because I really shouldn't need to.

Not all games are...some at least are explicitly intended for mature audiences.
But tbh I'm somewhat ashamed of still spending time on pc games...it's not something I mention to most people in real life.
And I don't think they'd let me into some gentlemen's club :-))))

Seriously, do some soul searching or visit a psychologist. You're ashamed so much, you're probably Japanese.

I think western societies have in fact became infantilised, but watching "children's" movies and reading "children's" books is not part of that problem. There is nothing inherently inferior about those simply because tehy are primarly aimed at a young audience. They can still be, and often are, superb artistic achievements. Honestly I always found the distinction of children/grown up books and movies etc. to be a false one. What matters is the quality of it. Winnie the Pooh is a "children's" book and 50 Shades of Grey is a "adult book". But it's the grown up people who choose to read 50 Shades that I would consider infantile. Harry Potter is a "children's" book and The Wizard of Earthsea is the grown up one, yet even as a kid I vastly prefered the latter. A kid may not "get" everything in a "adult" book, but that is not a bad thing - it leaves something to think about. It challenges the intellect and imagination. And kids like that. When we are children we have our eyes opened the widest- that's the time to be shown great and brave ideas.

The quality is all that matters, not arbitrary assignment to some "audience age group".

I think it depends on the kind of children's book/movie...e.g. here in Germany they sometimes show movies from the former Eastern bloc (like the CSSR) based on fairy tales on TV...when I've got nothing else to do I might find myself watching something like this, and not be ashamed of it...I tell myself those movies at least have some artistic merit and are sort of an innocent pleasure.
Disney on the other hand I regard mostly as commercialized trash tbh....
I can understand the desire for escapism, longing for the certainties and simplicity of childhood...I find the world rather depressing on the whole and adult life isn't that fun on the whole.

Maybe ashamed is the wrong word...but do you think you'll win the respect of other people or impress women by recounting your "achievements" in gaming?
More likely you'll be seen as some weirdo loser....
Harsh but true.

I agree that Disney princesses are a bit more delicate, even though I wouldn't care if a grown-up man enjoyed them, it would be his business, after all.

Anyway, I think that the Harry Potter series is wrongly connotated as a kids series. Sure, it's fantasy and people tend to think of fantasy as a genre only enjoyable by kids; but the story turns darker and includes more and more mature stuff as you progress through it that, in the end, you're only reminded that it was intended for a younger audience because of the age of the characters.

as an adult male it really depends on which Disney princess movie for me. I don't need perfect representation to enjoy something

I never could understand the whole idea of "representation". It's ridiculous. I don't need to share the characters gender, age or social background to empathise with them, or find their story interesting. I just need it to be well realised. For example, when I was a kid being a boy never stopped me from enjoying Jim Hanson's The Labirynth. It never even occured to me, that the protagonist being a girl could in any way dampen my enthusiasm for such a great film, and I could come up with plenty other examples.

Usually I wouldn't comment a thing but dude... you've nailed it. I don't even know where to start.
Promised myself I wouldn't get mad when giving away some thoughts on this particular issue but... but...nah, nevermind. Don't want an angry mob chasing me with torches no sir ;P

The most nasty jawdroppin' moment, in the most terrifying way possible, was when I was studyin' literature at college (aka the finest* institution in the entire subcontinent, yep) and found out that no one -but me- saw "The Battle of Algiers" but EVERYONE (me being the exception but f**k I didn't mean it!) saw that Nemo cartoon and stuff. When it comes to books, oh boy....


* never saw so many _____________(insert eenymeenyminymoe curse, I mean, word in here) in my entire life ;(

representation in this sense only really matters to those who can't or wont see humanity outside of "identity politics" thus making human interaction "problematic" (shudder) for everyone

good example you gave
indeed, I didn't need to be a female field mouse to enjoy watching Mrs. Brisby in "the secret of NIMH"

Battle of Algiers...that's that movie from the 1960s about Algeria's independence struggle against the French? Great movie (even though too sympathetic to the insurgents for my taste), saw it (or parts of it) some years ago, obviously still very relevant with its discussion of torture and spiraling violence in counter-insurrection operations.
Can't say much about Nemo, isn't it a cartoon about some fish? Anyway, I agree...a lot of people are depressingly stupid, and not curious at all about the world.