Who knew pirates could be so fun to watch?

While trying to decide which Disney movie I would like to explore more in depth for this class, I rewatched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first movie of what would become an extremely popular series.  Like all movies of the action/adventure genre, I was discomforted by how impersonal violence and killing is in the movie.  When it occurred to a main character, it was a little more realistic, but for the most part, lots of horrendous acts were made and almost seem normal in the film.  This is obviously a trend across all Hollywood, but it is interesting that Disney, which is known for creating family-friendly films, decided to follow the lead as well.

Like I said in one of my previous blogs, Disney Pictures makes movies that sell, and sadly since violence sells so well in our modern culture, Disney was just making another smart business decision in creating this film.  I also realize that chances are, during that time period, pirates were not the most peaceful group of people to inhabit the earth.  And I will not lie; I really enjoy watching the Pirates of the Caribbean films, but not as much for the fight scenes as for the witty lines by Johnny Depp. That is why I enjoyed the Ocean’s Trilogy so much (although I realize they were not created by Disney), as the protagonists used brainpower over gun power to carry out their crimes. 

Following on what I was saying earlier, it is also interesting to note that there are very few instances where slaves are shown, although during that time period, sadly, slaves would have been a prominent part of the British Empire.  This shows another instance of how Disney made an economic decision over keeping to the historical facts, since it would make it much harder to enjoy the fun-natured Captain Jack Sparrow if audiences knew he was smuggling slaves across the Atlantic.  While it is fine to enjoy a movie like this, I think people should also make sure they are educated on topics like these, and don’t base their entire understanding of history on movies like these, since they tend to be fairly inaccurate.

Disney-themed Marketplace Dinner

Last week, Marketplace decided to have a dinner themed around Disney movies and characters.  That night, my friends and I went a little early so we wouldn’t catch the main dinner crowd, but were surprised to find that a long line had already started to form, and ended up having to wait about 20 minutes.  Whether the line was long because students were really eager to see what a Disney-themed dinner would be like, or they just wanted to try something different from the fairly routine Marketplace menu, I cannot be sure, but I’m guessing it was a mix of both.

At the entrance was a huge canvas with the famous Disney castle painted on it.  Right after you swiped in, there were Disney characters all dressed up in costume ready to take pictures with freshmen.  Once you entered the cafeteria, there were a variety of foods, like Nemo’s Fish Chowder, Mufasa Steamship Round of Beef, and Pooh’s Honey Glazed Spare Ribs, that kind of made my friends and I uncomfortable (after all, wasn’t one of Nemo’s struggles in the movie that he wasn’t caught and eaten?).

This dinner reminded me of just how influential Disney movies were to all of us growing up, and how a large majority of students were at least a little excited to see what would be served that night.  As much as we all think we have grown up, there are parts of our childhood that will stick with us, and Disney is a large part of many peoples childhood identity.  At some point we will also likely play Disney movies for our own children, and bring them to Disney theme parks, showing how Disney has come to unify people from multiple generations.  It’s something I can even talk about with my grand parents, as they remember watching Disney films when they were growing up.  Whether or not Duke students were actually at the dinner that night to experience Disney one more time is not as important as the fact that of all themes, Disney was chosen, and it did create quite a stir among the freshmen class. 

Is it really Walt Disney’s fault?

So far we have read several articles that are fairly critical of Walt Disney for who he was as a person and what he stood for as an influential human being.  Many of them, such as “The Disneyfication of Children’s Culture” by Henry A. Giroux, put the blame on Walt Disney himself for propagating a view of conservative, white America that he likely was in favor of.  I do not think, however, that all of the blame should be put on him, since his views of what is and is not good must have come from somewhere.  It’s not like Walt Disney himself defined beauty or race relations.

The goal of Disney, at the end of the day, was to make money.  He was going to make movies that would sell, and in his prime time, there were very specific gender roles, and race relations were fairly nonexistent.  I believe that Walt Disney made films like Cinderella or Peter Pan because he knew that white, middle and lower class America would consume them, and many would see nothing wrong with the stories being told.  What this does is it puts the blame on those who were consuming these films happily, and those who agreed with the ideologies in the films.  Parents showed their children these films at the time because they likely agreed with the messages being portrayed.

What I am getting at is that there is a much deeper issue that needs to be resolved in America, where sexism, racism, homophobia, and many other issues were and still are seen as common place and even good to some people.  What Walt Disney did was see a market that was not being exploited and create a business that he believed would make money, which is the ideal of basically any capitalist who ever lived.  While some may still blame him, understandably, for engraining these ideals into the nation’s youth, I think authors like Giroux should take a step back and look at the bigger picture, and start to question why Disney thought it was okay to make the films that he did.

Response to “The Disneyfication of Children’s Culture” by Henry A. Giroux

While reading this piece, I was exposed to a new phrase, “children’s culture,” something I had never heard of or thought about before.  Children’s culture, which can play a large role in the development of a child, is something that is truly overlooked, and something that many people either forget or just don’t believe exists.  After all, children do grow up, and many turn into adults that are very different from how they were as children.

Both of my parents have PhD’s, and were university professors at different points in their careers, so I grew up being taught to look at everything with a critical eye.  They also encourage my brother and I to look at different issues from a variety of angles before making informed decisions about something.  Despite all of this, I don’t ever remember either of them explaining to us how sexist or racist Disney movies, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Aladdin really were.  They didn’t tell us that while it might be ok to watch the movies, we should be aware of some of the really messed up parts of these films.  It is especially interesting considering that both of my parents are fairly liberal, and would not endorse the conservative America that Walt Disney loved so much and tried to portray in many of his films.  Whether they did not realize these undertones, or did not see the harm in letting my brother and I watch these films, I am not sure.  But, as Giroux is trying to explain in his piece, there are some not so subtle messages being portrayed over and over again in Disney films, and it is something that should no longer be taken lightly.

To be honest, I also did not pay much attention to how sexist or racist some of the classic Disney films were.  Giroux’s point that the female characters in The Lion King are always “subordinate to males and define their sense of power and desire almost exclusively in terms of dominant male narratives” hit me in an unexpected way.  Even though The Lion King was always one of my favorite movies, and I have seen it many times, I never thought twice about the fact that the only characters with power in the film were male.  Or that Aladdin, the good guy, basically had the characteristics and voice of a white person, except for the fact his skin is a little (just a little) bit darker than that of a white person.  It’s interesting to think of all of the subtle undertones I will begin to see as I rewatch Disney films with a critical eye.

Response to “Challenging Disney Myths” by Janet Wasko

Growing up, I heard the name Walt Disney from time to time, and I obviously saw the Walt Disney Pictures logo before watching any Disney film.  However, I never realized how influential he was as a person during his lifetime.  Not only did his company create massively successful animated films, but he also managed to gain popularity as a celebrity of his own, which is something that captivated me while reading the piece “Challenging Disney Myths” by Janet Wasko.  The author claims that Walt Disney, in reality, was not the easy going, nice guy that he painted himself to be, but instead was “authoritative, moody, and demanding,” and that he claimed complete credit for projects that he did not work on by himself.  This selfishness is even evident in the name Disney chose for his company.

Considering the way great advertisers and businessmen are able to create alternate personas, I have to wonder if Disney only created the persona of someone with a “perpetual positive attitude” because he knew it would positively impact his business, and not because it was the man he was or even the man he viewed himself as.  This would explain why he acted as if he spent much of his childhood years growing up on a farm in Missouri, and fantasized about life in small-town America, when in reality he spent much of his childhood in urban settings, like Kansas City and Chicago.  Another possibility is he was dreaming about a life he had never had.  Even though his father was physically abusive, his “fondness for warm and happy families” may stem from a longing deep down for a life he wishes he could have lived.  All of his stories, and Disney stories in general, tend have happy endings, something that was not always the case for him growing up, having to move several times due to financial insecurity.

Walt Disney’s role as a ruthless capitalist and in political issues also revealed a side of Disney that was new to me.  I was surprised, for example, that he played a role in the formation of the MPA, which for a time in the 1950’s, worked to weed out any communist threats in Hollywood.  Whether what he did was a good thing is still up for debate, but it is interesting so see that someone who spent much of his life making animated films for families also used his powers to further a political agenda.

Like many other kids in this class, I grew up watching Disney films.  My parents bought them for me to watch at home, and they were played for us at school and summer camp.  Disney was such a common place word that I began to associate it with all animated feature films.  I always wanted to go to Disney world, and "experience" what is would be like to live in the fictional worlds that I saw on the television screen.  Getting older, there's something about these films that still makes me feel like a 6 year old.  I remember, during my senior year of high school, how excited my class was when the teacher told us we would be watching The Lion King.  As much as we were ready to grow up and go off to college, adapting to a new lifestyle where we were officially becoming adults, Simba and Mufasa had a way of reminding us of our childhoods in a way that very few things can do.

Speaking of The Lion King, it is very interesting to see how much Disney films shaped kids view of the world.  Having traveled to several African countries quite frequently when I was younger, and then moving there later on in my life, I was often asked if Africa was anything like The Lion King.  Because it was, for many, their first time seeing anything related to the continent, it was eye-opening for them to realize that flushing toilets, roads, and hospitals did exist, and that expansive plains with no infrastructure did not envelope all of Africa.  In the same way, my view of other parts of the world or other cultures were also influenced by movies like Mulan and Pocahontas.

Re-watching Disney films as someone who is technically considered an adult, I have realized the subtleties that blew right over my head when I was younger.  The complex plots and intelligent humor have made me realize why my parents say they also enjoyed watching Disney movies with my brother and I.  While they appear very simple and enjoyable on the surface, when you dive into the analogies and metaphors in the films, one realizes how much time and effort the creators put into some of the most popular movies of all time.  I am looking forward to re-watching Disney films from a new perspective while in and after I have taken this class, to see if they have the same effect on me as they did when I was younger.