The Rock’s Maui Wig Cannot Hurt You
Moana’s live-action trailer dropped out of nowhere today and people are upset about The Rock’s wig. Dwayne Johnson playing Maui in live action and his hair is dividing fans on social media.
Now, if you following The Rock for any amount of time, you know that he is bald. Which is going to be a problem, because Maui, the deity from Moana, has flowing locks of hair. In normal filmmaking, that means we go for a wig, install that bad boy and keep it pushing. However, conversation around the film seems to have been hijacked by discussion of the unit in question.
Sure there are some takes that will make you laugh. All over social media, the takes continue to roll in. One fan account (CINEMANYA) joked, “ They literally top the Rock with a wig and called it a day.” Channel 6’s Spencer Hall said, “That’s Kenny G.” And, we’ll update you if we learn that Johnson can play the saxophone.
@camcmrns added, “ But visually this does not give Maui, this gives the Rock and a bustdown [tk] wig.” One can only imagine the terrifying amount of CGI it would take to make a man already pretty massive like the Rock into the proportions of Maui.
One erstwhile commenter named Oscar put a lot of what folks were saying into a tidy bow. “It’s so funny that they spend presumably hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie so the Rock could dance around in a wig.” For this writer, it’s just nice to see people having a good time. Folks are still going to go see this movie in droves. Let’s not kid ourselves. Moana, at its core, is a film for children.. As long Johnson is doing all of the kinetic movement that you would expect out of Maui, mission accomplished. Bonus points if his version of “You’re Welcome” comes anywhere close to the animated variant.
The Rock’s wig and the live-action Disney cycle
We do this every year, so strike up the band. It’s time to have discourse about a live-action Disney remake. For those of you playing at home, a little over a year ago, we did this with Lilo and Stitch. During that cycle, The Internet was obsessed with the idea that no one needed to remake the beloved animated classic. Which, fair! As a result, there was nothing that inflammatory to say and it died down pretty easily. It also helps when the project being adapted is as old as the original Lilo and Stitch is.
However, this time we’re doing Moana, which is going to be even more catnip for people chasing likes on social media. That means, this was bound to happen, maybe not on day one, but bound to happen. Adults who are a little bit too invested in the information environment we’ve built for ourselves have to have an opinion about a movie made for 10-year-olds. Yes, We can all enjoy how silly this massive man in a lustreless wig is.
Round we go with Moana
But make no mistake about it. Moana isn’t even on the first version of this discourse for the franchise in the last 3 years. Remember Moana 2? Folks were upset that it was getting a theatrical release rather than living out its existence on Disney+ like originally planned. Then it did great in theaters and none of that ended up mattering at all. Almost like this is just critics doing the marketing for a film inadvertently. All those views count the same, after all.
I cannot pretend to know whether or not the new Moana will be good. The movie is still months away. However, I’m not going to bet against the box office performance of a franchise that was literally the most streamed movie/show on the Internet a couple of years ago. That would be a take almost as misguided as that hairpiece.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
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