Recently, Lindsay Ellis released a video essay re-examining The Little Mermaid. More specifically, she spent over half the video commenting on the kind of pseudo-feminist bad-faith critiques against Ariel and the rest of her fellow Disney Princesses that cropped up all over the place during the late ’00s. But of course this is only one facet of something far more prevalent than Ellis could discuss within the scope of her video essay. Consider the following partial list.

• Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and other such socialites who were famous for simply being famous (also, for having reality shows and sex tapes).
• Britney Spears and her mental breakdown.
• Lindsay Lohan and her rampant drug abuse.
• Megan Fox, the Michael Bay starlet whose minimal acting talent was in her ample T&A.
• Courtney Stodden, who got married at 16 to Doug Hutchinson, then a 51-year-old actor.
• Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who attacked the girlfriend of her ex-boyfriend.

Back in the late ’00s, these were only a few of the women considered fair and acceptable targets for the most hateful of mockery and derision, even among self-professed feminists. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Apple iPhone made its debut in 2007.

With the rise of the commercial smartphone, the phrase “at your fingertips” has never been more literal. The internet in all its form and splendor, the sum total of human knowledge and communication, now available in a palm-sized tablet and reliable enough for instant wireless access anywhere in the world. This naturally meant a prolific growth in clickbait articles, hot takes, memes, and other means of dominating attention to generate ad revenue. An all-encompassing multimedia onslaught unlike anything ever seen in human history, relentlessly ongoing through the present day and into the distant future.

Only now, almost fifteen years later, do we have enough experience with all of this that we can learn how to live with it. And only now, almost fifteen years later, do we have the hindsight to realize how wrong we were in the late ’00s.

It’s easy to draw a straight line from “1 Night in Paris” — the sex tape released without Paris Hilton’s knowledge or consent in 2004 — to the infamous iCloud nude leaks of 2014. Even now in 2021, we’re still grappling with the scourge of “revenge porn”, recognizing it for a horrific breach of privacy and a form of sexual violence, struggling to pass laws against it. If we knew then what we know now, would we have kept on laughing at Paris Hilton and her sex tape, or might we have had those discussions a lot sooner?

Kim Kardashian has admittedly done a lot in the intervening years to keep her infamy going. But look at where she is in 2021. “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” is finally going off the air after 20 goddamn seasons, and she’s finally divorced Kanye West, so that’s a whole lot of baggage sloughed off. Kardashian has also made steps toward securing a law degree, with the stated goal of working as an advocate for prison reform, and she’s been working against a miasma of scornful laughter the whole way. Laughable as this would’ve sounded ten years ago, maybe it’s worth giving Kim Kardashian a second chance if it means she can make a sincere good-faith effort at a worthy cause.

As for Britney Spears, she was the subject of the recent #FreeBritney online campaign and the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary that aired on FX earlier this year. This proved to be a flashpoint, renewing discussion about conservatorship, mental illness, and of course Britney Spears herself.

Lindsay Lohan has made a couple of splashes here and there, but nothing that came anywhere close to reviving her career. I’m not saying that the rampant media coverage and ridicule led directly to her drug addictions and fall from grace, but I’m sure as hell we didn’t make things any better for her. Considering how much talent she had as a child actor, it’s saddening to think of the career she might have had. Mark my words — when Lindsay Lohan dies, the world will be awash with crocodile tears about how it’s such a waste and she deserved so much better.

Megan Fox’s career has undergone a fascinating re-evaluation of late. In particular, Jennifer’s Body is now widely regarded as an underrated cult classic far ahead of its time. It’s easy to see in hindsight that her early career was both made and broken by Michael Bay, but she’s got a couple of movies coming up this year and the reception for last year’s Rogue was all right. I’ll be eager to see where Fox goes now that she’s older and wiser.

Courtney Stodden came out as non-binary a couple of months ago, and their divorce from Hutchinson was finally completed last year. Apparently, they’ve spent the past year running an OnlyFans account, recording an album, writing a memoir… basically, it sounds like they’re trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with the rest of their life. Like a lot of us did during the pandemic.

Then there’s Lisa Nowak. She was of course a direct inspiration for Lucy in the Sky, that godawful Natalie Portman movie from 2019. Wretched as the movie was, it nevertheless made a convincing argument that Nowak needed professional help far more than she needed nationwide mockery. For all her faults, she was one of the rare few who got to be an astronaut, and we must remember to give her credit for that much. And anyway, the viral #FloridaMan meme has rendered her own Florida misadventure almost quaint by comparison.

To be clear, I don’t mean to blame anyone for joining in the laughing and shaming back in the day. If I wanted to go pointing fingers and throwing stones, I’d start with myself. It’s hard to describe to someone who wasn’t there, but the peer pressure and the mob mentality were intoxicating. This was groupthink on a level that had never been seen before in human history, certainly not in this way. If you think the online social media landscape is disorienting and addictive now, just try to imagine how enthralled and lost and panicked and confused we all were when this was new.

The important thing is that now we can move on. We can learn from these past mistakes to be better feminists and more ethical media consumers. We can never undo the damage done to the lives and careers of so many women back in the day, but we can hopefully find it in ourselves to give them a second chance.

Which brings me back to the Disney live-action remake trend that prompted Lindsay Ellis’ video essay and this whole rant in turn. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: All of these Disney live-action remakes are being produced by some poor stupid exec who still thinks we’re all living in 2010. And that’s not enough anymore.

In her video essay, Ellis posited that the Disney Princess backlash was borne of frustration over how Disney is effectively raising and indoctrinating our children. I submit a second possibility: The classic Disney animated films had simply gotten old.

A decade after the Disney Renaissance, the style and tropes of Disney Animation had grown stale and predictable. We wanted something new, something that reflected modern sensibilities. Cut to 2021, and Cruella made it perfectly clear that Disney is still clinging to the memes and hot takes of the late ’00s. Thus the films are dated and tired out of the box.

We need better than this and we can do better than this. We’re making so many mistakes and learning so many lessons at such a constant rate, it’s that much more important for all of us to try and keep one step ahead. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. That’s what Disney should aspire to do, and it’s what we all should aspire to do.