Johanna Davis

I actually hate this movie. I've never had that experience with a mainstay Disney film before, especially not one of the Disney Princess lineup films. I've found some of them underwhelming before, but never personally offensive. The moral is so poorly handled it's actually insulting. The film shames a victim for her justified unwillingness to trust a person who deeply hurt her to the point of trauma and who has shown no remorse for how she has affected others, only caring when the consequences of their actions personally affect them. The film demands more of the victim than the perpetrator, putting the onus on the victim to personally sacrifice more of herself to correct for the actions of the person who hurt her, and essentially forces the victim to make herself vulnerable and surrender her power and protection to the person who hurt her again. A person who never has to do anything that isn't in their own self-interest for the entire movie. The film demands Raya make herself vulnerable to more pain for the unearned convenience of Namaari, someone who abused Raya's trust to hurt Raya and is very smug and remorseless about it for years until Namaari herself is negatively affected by her own actions, someone who blames Raya for the consequences of Namaari repeatedly proving herself untrustworthy, someone who never apologizes or takes responsibility for what she has done. All for the sake of a message about the virtues of blind trust that the movie itself doesn't believe in enough to follow, since it arbitrarily punishes and rewards the characters who actually give blind trust. The film teaches that you should open yourself up to people who have hurt you and who have not shown any sign of change or even remorse for hurting you. Namaari should have willingly sacrificed to make amends and put her trust in Raya, to prove that she could change and to show Raya that people can earn trust. Not the other way around. Even aside from that, Sisu, the third main character, is literally too dumb to live, which is why it's astounding that they validate her naive perspective at the end. I feel like there were pieces that could have been great, and the animation and some of the land designs are beautiful, but the structure was too rushed to get attached to many characters or appreciated many places, and the characters they did focus on were too tied into the horrible lesson. Do not watch this movie with children. Do not watch this movie if you have been hurt by somebody. This movie views like it expressly exists to invalidate victims, like you the audience are wrong if you do not personally give the people who have uncaringly hurt you in the past the opportunity to hurt you again. It is worse than bad. It is harmful.

I started watching Season 2 before Season 1, and never got around to watching Season 1. The pros were that I loved watching the creative things the competitors create. The cons are... in multitudes, and the pros did not make suffering through the cons worth it for me. The judges are so awkward and have no chemistry--they almost look like they don't want to be there, and it makes for a less than pleasant experience when the camera focuses on them. It also makes the admiring pedestal the show constantly puts Zumbo on feel really artificial and weird. Also, by episode 4 I started noticing that one contestant consistantly avoided receiving consequences for bigger mistakes than the ones made by those who were chosen for the elimination challenges, and I started getting suspicious over the fairness of the judging. Sure enough, I googled the season and found out that the contestant I suspected the judges were biased towards won the competition and that this was controversial because many viewers thought this individual had done worse than their competitor. My suspicions weren't an outlier; the show is commonly accused of being rigged. This made me unwilling to invest my time in watching the rest of the episodes, because their ultimate conclusion felt unfair and pointless. Zumbo's better on Sugar Rush, where there are more charming and charismatic people around him for the camera to focus on--but honesty, I would sooner recommend the Great British Bake Off and Nailed It! to those interested in baking shows. Even if I don't always agree with those shows' judges, there's a feeling of honesty and genuineness in those shows that Zumbo's Desserts just doesn't have. I love the creativity that can be displayed in baking shows, but this one just made me disappointed.