Although I have grown to become bored of most hit action films, I am genuinely looking forward to the new Star Wars film, coming out this winter.  Knowing Disney, and all of the high expectations set on this film, it will be a visual masterpiece.  I just hope that the storyline will be entertaining, and not boring and predictable, as many science fiction films, and Hollywood films in general, have become.

The link to the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

The Power of a Trailer

Just around the same time that the newest trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released on Thursday, the valuation of Disney’s shares increased by $2 billion dollars, up 1.1%.  This makes you realize just how much Disney relies on hit films to keep the company going.  After all, it was The Little Mermaid that kept the company from going bankrupt.  Disney, which purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012, is looking to capitalize on this new company, just as they have successfully done with Pixar and Marvel.  While this has been financially successful for the company, it is also scary to think of the monopoly that Disney will have on the entertainment market if they keep buying smaller companies.  At what point, if any, do we set regulations on just how big Disney can get?

The link to the article I am referencing is below:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-disneys-stock-after-the-new-star-wars-trailer-made-its-debut-2015-04-16

Whose idea was it really?

Recently, a woman in Detroit sued Disney, claiming they stole the idea for Frozen from her story “The Snow Princess.” She claims Disney is guilty for including the following aspects that are the same as her own story:

■ A princess possessing magical ice powers who eventually goes into hiding.
■ A kingdom made of ice and surrounded by mountains.
■ A sibling in search and rescue of the sibling with the magic ice powers.
■ A journey up a mountain with snowy guards protecting an icy castle on the mountaintop.

While it is possible that the Disney film included aspects of this story, I find it very unlikely that the lawsuit will get very far.  After all, it is likely that Disney screenwriters came up with this story on their own, or at least made enough adaptations that it is their own unique story, as they have done when adapting other stories.

The link to the article is below:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/04/16/disney-sued-detroit-frozen/25852595/

The Princess and the Frog in a “post-racial” era

In a blog by Wilson Noah Mazile, he analyzes The Princess and the Frog, and how the film ignores the racial tensions and realities that occurred during the time period the film was set, especially in a city like New Orleans.  However, he sees the positive aspects of this, as it teaches young children that people of all cultures and socio-economic backgrounds can live together in harmony.  It also teaches children that interracial marriages are no different than marriage between two people of the same race, as Tiana is black and Naveen is presumably Caucasian.  Mazile realizes that we have not yet reached a “post-racial” period, but we are moving in the right direction.  This being said, he also realizes that African Americans should learn their history, so there are some issues with the way this time period was depicted in the film.

I think the idea of depicting a “post-racial” society is interesting.  Many films and television shows still portray characters that are divided by race, and for a long time there were very few interracial couples.  Even though that is starting to change, there is still a long way to go.  Children will apply what they see on television to their life, and messages of acceptance and harmony are much better ones to be telling than those of racism and hatred, which is why I can see how Mazile approves of this film.  However, I believe that Disney decided not to address race in this film to avoid controversy, and did not necessarily decide to depict a post-racial society in order to send a positive message to children. 

The link to his blog is below:

http://sites.psu.edu/wilsonmazile/2015/03/27/civil-issue-blog-princess-and-the-frog/

How different would the film have been if Prince Naveen were black?  Would this have been a better thing, or does an interracial message send a stronger message?  More importantly, would Disney ever make a film that features a white princess marrying a black prince? This is interesting to consider, and there is no clear answer. 

Response to “After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers Its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes In on Its Racist Past” by Richard M. Breaux

This article did an interesting job of tying race and gender together in relation to Disney films.  Breaux, who is critical of Disney’s depiction of race in The Princess and the Frog, does offer some valid examples of when Disney could have tried to be more historically accurate.  For one, the chances of Tiana opening a restaurant, let alone a fancy one, in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era are almost nonexistent.  There were also other smaller things, such as the fact that the street cars in  the film did not have a portable screen, even though those in New Orleans at the time would have in order to separate blacks and whites.  Small things like this definitely could have been included in the film.  However, I can understand why Disney did not want to address race in this film, considering the fact that it is a children’s film, and their feature films are meant to be entertaining more than historically accurate or informational.

One interesting argument I found in this article was the one made by Lillian Randolph, the voice of Mammy Two Shoes in Tom & Jerry, who realized that if stereotypical black roles were taken out of Hollywood, then many black actors and actresses would no longer have jobs. This puts black actors and actresses in a hard position, as they have to decide between keeping their cultural integrity and risking their career or accepting some demeaning roles in order to live a comfortable lifestyle.  This argument can also be made today for women who have to play seemingly sexist roles.

 Despite the shortcomings with this film, it really does seem as if Disney tried to make a film that would not seem offensive to the African American community, as this is the group of people that would end up purchasing the most merchandise related to the film.  I found it interesting that they met both with Oprah Winfrey and members of the NAACP in order to make sure the representations of black characters would not receive excessive criticism.  The goal of this film was to introduce a new black Disney princess for young black girls to identify with, but the real intentions of this film, like every other, were to do well both in the box office and with related film merchandise.  The relatively modest success of this film could be a testament to the fact that Disney has not yet figured out how to incorporate diversity into its films successfully.

Response to The Princess and the Frog

This was my first time watching The Princess and the Frog, and my initial impression was that it did an adequate job of portraying the time period.  While it did shy away from addressing race relations during that time period, that is to be expected from a Disney film, and most children’s films.  Jim Crow laws and the unfair treatment of blacks in the United States is a real issue, and something we should not just pretend didn’t and still does not exist.  However, there are other ways of addressing this issue, and I can understand why Disney did not want to include this as a part of their story.  This being said, there were still subtle ways that this issue was addressed, such as the fact that Tiana’s mother was the housemaid of ‘Big Daddy’ La Bouff.  It was also portrayed by the fact that Tiana and her parents lived in the ghetto of New Orleans, while the prominent white characters lived in a mansion.

Another controversy that has come up with regards to this film is the portrayal of Tiana, who critics have claimed is really a “white” princess with black skin.  Personally, I do not know how the Disney animators could have made Tiana’s character any more “black” without succumbing to certain stereotypes.  It also makes me wonder what exactly critics were looking for in a black princess.  At the end of the day, she stays true to her roots and her father, making her a human like anyone else, and confining because of her race also does not solve the problem of race portrayal. 

I also felt as if this film did a good job of gender portrayal.  Tiana is a hardworking, independent woman who can take care of herself without the presence of a man.  She remains focused on her goal of opening a gourmet restaurant throughout the film, not giving up on her and her father’s dream.  Prince Naveen, on the other hand, is a completely insufficient on his own, relying on what he hopes will be the wealth of the La Bouff family to allow him to continue to live his lavish lifestyle.  This “reverse sexism,” in the context of other Disney films, sends a good message to children that men and women are not confined to specific roles, but rather that a woman can be just as independent as a man.  On the whole, I feel as if The Princess and the Frog was a progressive film in Disney’s standards, and the fact that it wasn’t as successful as other princess films likely has more to do with the fact that many children and adults may not have been ready for a black princess.