Kids 

During the rise of fascism in Mussolini's Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father's expectations.

Mulan had to struggle to feel like herself and see herself properly. Some of us have to strive to have our reflection mimic what’s inside. We have to crawl. We have to fight.

As this critic continues to look back at some of this Summer's films I have taken in, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the most overall unsettling trends in Hollywood over the last several years.....sequels, reboots, and remakes. Look, I am all for seeing more than one film for certain originals that made a splash, ie: "Jurassic Park", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Transformers", etc.

The live-action remake brings adventure and shows viewers why representation is important in a Disney Princess movie.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.

Writing great villains is about striking a balance between charming and evil, so we love them but also love to see them lose.