Conclusion Blog Post

This class has been really influential on my views towards Disney. I have been pretty open since the start of the class on how Disney has played a large role in my life. At first it was The Jungle Book that really moved me and then Mulan solidified my long love for all things Disney. Disney was an escape for me, literally and figuratively. I look back at my trips to Disney Theme Parks or finishing my work then watching Mulan and singing every word with my sisters with great fondness. They will forever be some of the happiest memories of my life. I didn’t expect much from this class to be honest; I am a poor writer and I thought we would just be analyzing the villains in these animated films. However, I was wrong. This class revealed Disney's true colors and by doing so exposed their ability to hide those true colors through a culture of secrecy and deceit.

Decoding Disney revealed the intricacies of making the villains and the subtle messages they conveyed. One aspect of Disney that this class revealed that really surprised me is the image of Disney conveying anti-homosexual sentiment. Having a lesbian sister and a gay uncle, I don't know whether to feel angry or ignorant to the fact that the songs we were singing and the plots we were captivated by were derogatory in nature. The same myriad of feelings came to me when this class revealed the gendered messages the Princes and Princesses reinforce. I remember running around my kitchen table with my sisters singing Disney songs like "A Girl With Fighting For" like it was yesterday. While that moment was great and will forever be great, my memory of that moment has soured because I realize we are praising strong, smart, and independent women like my sisters, but almost as housewives that serve their husbands.

Additionally, Decoding Disney has revealed that Disney conveys villainy in ways other than a typical villain. For example society could be viewed as evil in Mulan, or WALL-E, or Wreck it Ralph. 

Wreck it Ralph, the last film we watched for this class deepened me view towards villainy the most. Ralph was born into being a video, like many of the people born into crime. Ralph portrays villainy in a new light in that he just wants to be good but constantly feels like an outcast. By doing so, Ralph becomes if not the first, one of the first villains to show that he has feelings and that they are hurt. By creating Ralph, Pixar has perpetuated an idea that people, even villains, could be good and that the good guy and the bad guy often aren't that different.

More Sneak Peaks of Emma Watson as Belle

The Live-Action remake is set to be released on March 17, 2016. As the date rapidly approach, all we can do is wait and hope for updates. On 11/16/16 the Huffington Post published an article with a video demonstrating side by side pictures of the original The Beauty and the Beast and the remake. In conclusion, the live-action remake looks awesome and I can't wait. Here is the link to the article.

MULAN LIVE-ACTION IS COMING!!!

While partaking in my weekly scour of Huffington Post, in which I look for interesting and current articles on Disney, I came across this article and couldn't be more excited. Disney on 10/04/16 announced that they will be creating a live-action remake of 'Mulan', arguably my favorite Disney product of all time. While Disney has announce its intent on hiring a Chinese lead to play Mulan, I really hope Disney uses this as an opportunity to correct some of their mistakes they made when creating the original 'Mulan'. By mistakes, I mean cultural appropriation and gendered messages. Time will tell if Disney fixes these mistakes, but until then I will try to patiently wait. 

Wreck-It Ralph Live Blog

I didn’t know what to expect at first. I knew Ralph was played by John C. Reilly and that Sarah Silverman played Vanellope Von Schweetz, but both actors tend to be very raunchy. I was curious to see how these actors would tame their humor for an animated children’s movie, which is very out of character for these two actors.

You can tell it is a Pixar movie from the start, the graphics and the subtle humor poked at relatable and current issues are the two telltale signs.

The movie starts and from the start I am confused about who was speaking at first. We hear someone speaking. We see Ralph from the start but he isn’t directly addressing the camera. Also I started to realize how from the start Ralph is pretty depressed and is almost opening up to the audience as if they are his therapist.

I ultimately, realized it was actually Ralph. I thought this was a very interesting way to open up the film. Especially once the arcade closes. While interesting, the idea of things coming to life once the store closes has been very common for animated films. 

The way this film introduces and portrays not only Ralph, but ‘bad guys’ from other games is quite different. From the start we see ‘bad guys’ in what seems like an AA meeting opening up to one another. They actually refer to themselves as bad guys which is unpresedented. Casts villains in new light. They have feelings.

 

 

The bad guy affirmation (“I’m bad. And that’s good. I will never be good. And that’s not bad. There’s no one i’d rather be than me.”) is hilarious. Such sensitive villains is just a funny concept.

I found that Game central station being a extension cord was a very smart touch.

Usually the princess is clumsy and bad guy is very slick. With Ralph in Hero’s Duty, it is now its vice versa. Ralph the ‘bad guy’ is quite clumsy while Sergeant Calhoun is fearless and smooth. I found the portrayal of gender through Sergeant Calhoun to be very progressive (not sure if done on purpose or relevant). She in a sense saves the entire arcade. There hasn’t been one Disney princess to ever perform the final, climatic rescue.

The cops in Sugar Rush are donuts and their hounds are devil dogs; this movie slays me.

                                                       

Finally, we are introduced to Vanellope von Schweetz, my favorite character in the film. Von Schweetz isn’t like most young girls created by Disney. Von Schweetz is first introduced as an obnoxious and irritating little girl that only cared about herself. However, as time goes on we realize that she has been constantly bullied and is an outcast among her own. While she appeared rude at first and while she has been bullied her whole life, she is actually quite funny and loving.

Ralph ultimately received the medal he was so desperately after, but ultimately that medal didn’t provide him with the satisfaction he thought it would. Ultimately the game is going to be shut down and Ralph is told “Now you can live alone in the penthouse”. Such a comment perpetuates the idea that money/objects aren’t everything. My father has always told me he knows a lot of very wealthy people that aren’t happy and a lot of people who may not have nearly as much money as others but couldn’t be happier. I think both messages kind of emphasize the importance of friendship.

Obviously Fix-it Felix gets the girl at the end because what Disney story would be complete without a guy getting the girl.

Lastly, how do all the racers in Sugar Rush remember out of nowhere that Vanellope von Schweetz is princess all of a sudden?

Anderson Response

“Post-Apocaplyptic Nostalgia: WALL-E, Garbage, and American Ambivalence toward Manufactured Goods”, an article written by Christopher Todd Anderson, analyzes the deep underlying messages conveyed by the Disney movie, WALL-E. The article is rather critical nature, and its critical nature can be seen before you even read the article…in the title. The title basically is a euphemism calling America out for its culture of wastefulness, and such a critical title draws you in from the start. The article starts broad, a technique we have been implementing in Decoding Disney (The Class I Make This Blog For). Anderson refers to apocalyptic literature and cites some famous apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films in order to establish similarities between the examples cited and WALL-E. Smoothly and seamlessly, Anderson transitions his focus to the ability for such films to create powerful scenes that invoke nostalgia for physical, manufactured objects. Through such a flowing transition Anderson is able to start to narrow in on his argument. This nostalgia that Anderson refers to is a key component of WALL-E, after all, WALL-E is quite the sentimental hoarder.

After about the first thirty minutes of the film, which basically consisted of shots with no dialogue of a polluted, barren world, Anderson concludes that this film was created to perpetuate the idea that “present-day patterns of consumption and wastefulness are suffocating the planet and making it uninhabitable.” While the film persistently criticizes how much we consume as a nation, Anderson notes that it also emphasizes nostalgia for obsolete manufactured objects. In order to bring evidence to support his claim and strengthen his argument, Anderson intelligently cites the scenes in which there was camera focus on the Sputnik, Pong by Atari, and VCRs; in addition, he demonstrates the way they were nostalgically portrayed. Astutely, Anderson emphasizes the paradoxes of the messages WALL-E is sending. While I found the movie thinly veiled in criticism, I never realized the paradox of WALL-E’s hoarding and the focus on outdated manufactured objects with the criticism. Moreover, Anderson essentially labels WALL-E as a blatant attack against three targets and they are big corporations like Wall Mart, individual consumers, and recent technological advances. It was at this point that I was most confused. Anderson was building a seemingly flawless argument, and then he listed “twenty-first century style corporations” as a target of WALL-E’s criticism. When we refer to such companies the first company that comes to mind is Wall Mart. They dominate media with advertisements. But slowly I started to realize that Disney itself could be considered one of those powerful corporations that mass produce products and have excellent returns. Why would Disney criticize itself? This is where the argument in my mind took a worse. The rest of the argument was very interesting. Anderson implements many techniques we have been working on in this class and by doing so formed a very strong argument.

Plus Size Disney Princesses

Is this what we want to see? Historically, Disney princesses have been criticized for dangerously small waste lines and delicate features. In the attached Huffington Post article Disney princesses are created with much fuller body features. While uncharacteristic for Disney and while it might portray a message that size doesn’t matter, these princesses are casted in a very sexual manner. We must remember that the target audience for these films is young children. We could make plus size Princesses that don’t pose provocatively.