A little close to the release to not be seeing anything on the shelves right? I feel like Disney is usually a few months out with their stuff. I haven't heard or seen anything.
People complain about the stupidest things. (no really isn't a Chewbacca costume also "wearing somebody elses skin"? Heck isn't that what costumes largely are?) Weirdly Disney does not tend to jump the gun on merchandise for their animated properties. At least ones that are neither proven nor inherently "toyetic". You didn't see much Frozen Merchandise until after it hit big. Even stuff like Toy Story didn't start seeing Toy product until the second movie and it officially became a franchise. The exceptions are certain properties that seem to have toy stuff built in, such as Big Hero 6 and Cars (strangely "Toy Story" was not viewed this way and it took years to actually get the Buzz Lightyear toy seen in the movie made.)
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a basic line of dolls though. My youngest daughter already wants some just from watching the trailers.
While I certainly empathize, I'm not sure what the alternatives would be... Did they expect Disney to not turn a lead character from their new animated movie, into a costume? I'm sure if Disney didn't do a Maui costume, some people would be upset. Did they expect the tattoos and muscle suit not to be a part of the Maui costume? Especially when the character's actual costume is nothing more than a skirt made of leaves, and a necklace of teeth.
No matter what they did, they would have lost. Make the costume white? Now they are whitewashing. Keep it as it is, now they are appropriating. Don't do one at all? That's just as bad. If they just put a grass skirt, necklace and tattoos you could apply yourself, some folks would have still flipped out. There are people in the provided link complaining that even putting the tattoos on the costume is appropriating. There was literally no winning here. People were waiting to jump on this no matter what they did.
I actually understand the complaint against cultural-appropriation, but this is a Disney movie -- there was going to be merchandise, because Disney. Regarding the costume -- they only way around it that I could see, is make the costume like those shitty ones we had as kids, with the character's face on the front of the shirt. That, coupled with the grass/leaf skirt, might have worked... but it would have been tacky as hell. Sadly, I think the signal that Disney may get from this, is doing a movie about these characters is more trouble than it's worth... and that's a shame.
I think we drifted into that "if you don't know what's going on, you can't be told" topic. But I agree with the doll sentiment, I'd like to get some for my kids but it's weird not seeing anything. I'm a little surprised Disney is so cautious. Unless we see stuff by mid October, I think it doesn't bode well for their confidence in the film.
So far for Disney the overall reception towards this film seems to be dammed if you do and damned if you don't.
Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson probably doesn't give a shit if kids wear a costume of his character's skin, because WWE has sold full body costumes of The Rock for years.
