What in Tarnation has Disney done to Artemis Fowl?

This month in ‘there is nothing in this world that Disney cannot fuck up’, we examine the trailer for that Artemis Fowl movie that should have been made when Asa Butterfield was still young enough to play the lead.

The trailer subjects the story to numerous indignities that include a pathological case of seeing things through rose-tinted spectacles, a number of stupid mistakes and a baffling case of diversity for the sake of it.

I would crack my knuckles before beginning, but Artemis hates that.

Rose Tinted Spectacles

‘There is a tendency,’ writes Doctor J.Argon, ‘to romanticise Artemis. To attribute to him qualities that he does not possess’. The trailer is replete with these, most of which look like a puerile attempt to make Artemis Fowl look like the right kind of fairy story.

When one looks at Artemis, it is always apparent that there is something distinctly off about him. Apart from the unsettling effect of his near-translucent skin, which makes him look more like a vampire than a human being, Artemis either intimidates or terrifies the adults around him and is the scourge of psychologists, waiters and schoolteachers. When the series begins, Artemis demonstrates a psychopathic ruthlessness and lack of compassion, but has enough vulnerability seeping through the cracks to remind Butler (and consequently, us) that deep down, he’s a boy who misses his dad and doesn’t want to disappoint him.

On the other hand, Disney’s Artemis (played by Ferdia Shaw) is a cute kid in sunglasses whose obtuse slow-motion-walking towards the camera makes him look like some infuriating tween who thinks he’s a criminal, as opposed to an infuriating tween who is one. He also looks less terrifying than Mulch Diggums unfastening his bum flap, which is not only annoying and ineffective, but makes the whole thing seem like some asinine attempt to make Artemis seem less intimidating and less nasty than he actually is.

The trailer’s rose-tinted spectacles are at their pinkest when it comes to the portrayal of Artemis and Butler’s encounter with the sprite in Ho Chi Minh City. The lady is shown regenerating and floating about like a fairy godmother. She has also magically become hot and not green. As anyone who has read the book will know, it didn’t go like that.

In order to get his hands on the sprite’s Book, Artemis first attempts to bribe her, before poisoning her with holy water and threatening to let her die if she doesn’t comply. He also isn’t keen to stick around, and leaves her in dark, filthy surroundings with her own bodily fluids pouring out of her orifices.

Then there’s the question of why Artemis would want to sit around waiting for the sprite to regenerate, when he has the Book to translate? If Artemis is sure of anything, it’s his priorities. These include not looking scared when he’s terrified.

Stupid mistakes

1. Why is ‘Haven City Express’ written in English, not Gnommish?
2. Why does Fowl Manor look nothing like an estate built in the 1400s?
3. Why is Artemis firing a weird bazooka-looking thing? First, he doesn’t have enough strength in his wrists to lift one. Second, Butler would never let him use it.
4. Why does Butler have a bow and arrow? Where’s the Sig Sauer?
5. Why does Butler have hair? And why is he wearing those ridiculous blue contact lenses?

Diversity for the sake of it.

Before going into why this movie seems to be guilty of diversity for the sake of it, it should be stated that Artemis Fowl has plenty of diversity already. First up, Holly Short. Holly is the first woman to work in Recon and encounters all sorts of shit for it, including sexual harassment. Holly is also described as having a ‘coffee complexion’, which implies that women from a wide variety of ethnicities could have been cast in the role (incidentally, Lara McDonnell, who plays Holly, is white). Second, there’s the issue of Butler. Butler is a biracial half-Asian, half-Caucasian who can sometimes pass as Chinese. So will someone please explain to me why Judi Dench has been cast as Julius Root, who is male, and Butler is played by Nonso Anozie, who is black?

In trying to make this production more ‘equitable’ by casting a woman as Julius Root, Disney has completely destroyed Holly’s character arc and the struggles she faces as the first woman in Recon. In the books, Holly has no matriarchal figure to talk to about being the anomaly in an all-boy’s club, with the possible exception of Wing Commander Vinyaya, whom she never sees. Holly’s real mentor, Julius Root, is a fairy defined by militaristic masculinity. He’s a hardened veteran with the manners of a cave troll who enjoys insulting people, yelling till he’s red in the face and smoking a noxious cigar until everyone around him passes out. Root can’t relate to Holly’s experiences as a woman and would never try to do so, even if he wanted to. He treats her with the same brash insanity as everyone else, and as a result, she becomes a better police officer. Casting a woman as Root completely destroys that process. Instead of Holly’s usual troubles, film-Holly will have to content herself with the overly-simplified ‘Root made it as a woman in Recon. Therefore, I can do it too’. Sigh.

Then there is the matter of Butler. First, let us sit back and contemplate the absolute shitstorm that would ensue if a biracial person with no black ancestry was cast as a black character. Second, let’s consider the impact that casting a black person as Butler may have on the character.

At the age of ten, Butler enrolled in Madame Ko’s Training Academy in Israel, where he would spend the next eight years learning to be a bodyguard. It is the Academy’s location that gives me pause. The experience of a black child raised in Israel would be very different from that of a kid who’s half-Asian and half-Caucasian. Israel is rife with discrimination against Ethiopian Jews, Israelis whose ancestors lawfully obtained citizenship under the Law of Return. 43% of modern Israeli families will not even contemplate their children marrying Ethiopian Jews because Jewishness apparently doesn’t cancel out the imaginary evil of blackness. If the shared horror of centuries of Antisemitism is not enough for Ethiopian Jews to be allowed to go about their business in peace, what on earth makes Disney think that Butler’s experience as a black non-Jew growing up in Israel would not create a vastly different individual from the one in the books? After a childhood replete with racist unpleasantness, would Butler be so eager to pledge his life to a white family, and allow himself to be ordered about by a snotty white boy? Why would he not do what many other Butlers have done, and go to work in Saudi Arabia? (though I’ve heard the Saudis don’t like black people either). Frankly, I’m amazed the I’m Offended Police aren’t screaming their heads off about the white-master-black-servant relationship between Artemis and Butler that this casting creates, but I’d rather have them consider the possibility that if Butler had been black, he might never have ended up with the Fowls in the first place.

In my humble opinion, this version of Artemis Fowl is going to be significant to posterity as an example of the negative effects of diversity for the sake of it, and little else.

So will I go and see it?

Probably. I just can’t guarantee that I’ll be objective.