Disney theme parks – the new target of terrorist attacks?

As it turns out, the Transportation Security Administration has trained security teams in places like SeaWorld, Disney World and Busch Gardens to spot potential terrorist behavior at these parks.  While the indicators, which include wearing a disguise (aka Mickey Mouse mask), whistling, exaggerated yawning, and excessive laughter, may be a little ridiculous, the reasoning behind the training is not.  When one thinks of the biggest destinations for Americans, theme parks - especially Disney theme parks - come to mind.  On hot summer days, these theme parks can get very packed, and could become targets for a potential terrorist attack.  It is scary to think that your safety could be at risk when trying to take your family on a fun vacation, but the sad realities are that security is an issue everywhere, and theme parks are not exempt from this rule.

The link to the article I am referencing is below:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/16/mickey-mouse-blog-blog/

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.

In light of the movie we recently watched, I think I just found the most adorable rendition of Carl you'll ever come across:

Adult remakes of Disney movies?

The most recent episode of Saturday Night Live featured a mock advertisement for a live remake of Bambi, featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Bambi, Vin Diesel as Thumper, Tyrese Gibson as Flower, Michelle Rodriguez as Faline.  While this comedy sketch was not meant to be serious, it is interesting to think about the possibilities of turning some of Disney’s feature films into serious adult films.  This is actually something that I could see being done, for example, with the princess stories, considering that many of the original stories that were told in Europe in the Middle Ages were not intended for a young audience.  Instead, they had deeper meanings and significance that could only be understood by adults.

Despite this possibility, I do not see Disney making films intended for an older audience anytime soon.  After all, their main goal is to provide entertainment that is suitable for the whole family.  However, it would be interesting to see other film production companies, or even one of Disney’s subsidiaries, take up this challenge.  Those are films that I believe a lot of adults would be interested in seeing, considering so many grew up watching the originals over and over again.

The link to the article with the video clip is below:

http://deadline.com/2015/03/the-rock-bambi-remake-saturday-night-live-1201400655/

Where is The Incredibles 2?

One of my favorite animated films of all time, The Incredibles (2004), has now been out for over a decade, and somehow a sequel has not yet been released.  This has left me dumbfounded, considering how successful the original film was.  The general consensus, even among my friends today, is that The Incredibles 2 would be, quite frankly, “incredible,” and we would all definitely go to watch it in theaters.  Hopefully the sequel, which was finally announced as under development last year, will live up to our almost impossibly high expectations.  Possible dates for its release are November 22, 2017, or June 15, 2018, dates that Pixar has already revealed are release dates for future, unnamed films.  Watching this film would be an “incredible” experience to have during my last year in college!

The link to the article where I found this information is below:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-incredibles-2-release-date-news-plot-rumors-two-mystery-dates-penciled-in-for-sequel-136537/

Coasting on Previous Successes

As we saw with Alice in Wonderland (2010), or as we have sees this year with the remake of Cinderella, Disney has started to turn their animated films into live-action movies, allowing them to recycle storylines and characters and still get away with it.  In fact, they are becoming very successful doing it, too.  The remake of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton, made over $1 billion in the box office around the world.  Maleficent (2014), the remake of Sleeping Beauty, grossed $758 million, despite mixed reviews.  We will also soon see other Disney remakes, such as The Jungle Book in 2016, starring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and Idris Elba, and Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.  This, in my opinion, is a brilliant financial move.  I just hope that these new films are not bland, boring remakes of Disney classics.

The link to the article where I found this information is below:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/disneys-lucrative-long-term-creative-plan-focuses-on-human-remakes-of-cartoon-classics/articleshow/46722041.cms

It’s All About the Money

While critics argue back and forth about symbols and meanings of Disney films, and classes such as this one are devoted to analyzing them, we sometimes forget to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  In this particular case, the bigger picture is that Disney has one goal: to make money.  I have already discussed this in previous posts, but I found another interesting article titled “3 Reasons Why The Walt Disney Company Is Brilliant,” which highlights how Disney shareholders have received a 221% return on their investment in only the past five years.  Despite the controversies brought up with many of their films, Disney executives can still go home at the end of the day knowing that their company is and will continue to make billions of dollars each year.

The link to the article is below:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/28/3-reasons-why-the-walt-disney-company-is-brilliant.aspx

Despite claims that there are racial and gender biases portrayed in their characters, this map proves that there is diversity in the backgrounds of characters in Disney and Pixar films.

Response to Up

I first watched Up when it was released in theaters in 2009; however, I found that I had forgotten a lot of the plot when rewatching the film for this class.  Overall, I felt as if Up did a good job of breaking down stereotypes, and the story was definitely one that both children and adults would enjoy watching.  It addresses some serious issues, such as death, infertility, and the inability to fulfill childhood dreams, which give it a serious undertone, while characters like Russell and Dug lighten the mood.

One aspect of the film that I had forgotten about was that Carl and Russell arrive near Paradise Falls towards the beginning of the film, since that, I thought would be the main conflict in the film.  The middle part of the storyline, with the addition of the talking dogs and Charles Muntz, to me was a deviation from the main point of the film, which was about Carl fulfilling Ellie’s childhood dream and in the end finding happiness in spending time with Russell.  The conflict with Charles Muntz, and his Spirit of Adventure, and the chase from talking dogs added a science fiction aspect to the film that I enjoyed, but it did confuse me a bit, as I was not sure of the reasoning for them being an integral part of the story.  I wonder if Up would have been as successful if Carl and Russell had embarked on a “typical” journey through South America, and then finally found the falls at the end of the film.

One aspect that surprised me, especially with regards to the popularity and box office success of the film, was that Carl, of all people, is the main character.  In most other animated films, the main characters are young, or filled with energy, adding life to the scenes.  This is the case with Disney princesses, who are bright and cheerful, or with superheroes, who are strong, powerful, and very active.  However, Carl is none of these things.  He is old, grumpy for most of the film, and requires a cane to walk.  Except for the beginning, there are no particular parts where he adds life to the scene, but rather the film relies on Russell, Dug, and Kevin to do this.  This, to me, proves that Disney and Pixar do not have to follow a generic formula in order to create blockbuster hits, but can experiment with new ideas and still come up with great films.

Response to “Home Is Where the Heart Is: Pixar’s Up” by Dennis Tyler

Watching this film, I was surprised at how little it felt like the storyline followed that of a traditional children’s animation feature film.  The main character is an old, grumpy man, as opposed to other main characters who are often young and overflowing with energy.  The traditional constructs of a family are not present, as Carl and Ellie were never able to have a child of their own, and Russell comes from a broken family, with a father who lives with a woman that wasn’t his mother, and who barely visits.  As this article points out, Carl and Ellie both also come from non-stereotypical families, as Carl’s is “quiet, Puritanical, and inexpressive,” and Ellie’s is described as “loud” and “raucous,” whereas the “traditional” family would lie somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.

This article opened up my eyes to some of the issues with the message being told in this film.    The biggest problem, in my opinion, is the way Ellie is treated as a character.  As Dennis Tyler points out, she evolves from an outgoing, energetic child to an “unassuming” adult by the end of her life, changing to be more like Carl.  As an adult, we never even hear her voice.  While it is true that people do lose energy as they get older, it does seem as if this change is congruent with the evolution of their relationship.  However, another argument could be that Ellie changes after realizing that she will not be able to give birth to their child, and the change has less to do with Carl turning her into a quiet, obedient housewife.  Another issue that this article brings up is that Ellie is never able to fulfill her dream, while Carl is able to fulfill hers as well as his own, of having a child, by becoming the substitute father for Russell.  However, it could also be argued that Carl’s relationship with Russell is not the same as him having his own child, and Carl will never be able to raise Russell as his own.  As you can see, while Tyler’s arguments do have substantial backing, there are also some convincing counterarguments to what he is saying.

The way Disney and Pixar use animation techniques were also very interesting to me, and something I had never heard or thought about before.  Tyler explains how in this film, “character traits of actors were exaggerated to give the animated characters the quirky individuality of “real people.”  This was something I could visualize immediately, as the movements of Carl from Up or Cinderella, were much more realistic than, for example, those of Charlie Brown or Bugs Bunny.  Another way Tyler argues that viewers identify with characters is by making their faces less realistic and more iconic, which is why Carl and Dug are less realistic depictions of a human and a dog than Carl Muntz and his other dogs.  This is the opposite of what I would predict. After all, the point of exaggerating movements was to make characters more realistic, and as a result easier for people to identify with.  However, Tyler makes a good point that by making a face more iconic, it is less identifiable, and as a result viewers can imprint their own representation of this character, becoming more attached to that character. This is a strong argument in my opinion.  All in all, I came to realize just how complex it is to create animations, whether it is by hand-made drawings or through computer animation.

Response to Gael Sweeny’s “Timon and Pumbaa’s Alternative Lifestyle Dilemma”

Before reading this article, I had never heard thought about or heard of the concept that Timon and Pumbaa were gay.  I had always just considered them to be buddies, having fun in their secluded paradise.  But after reading the examples Sweeney gives, I realize that these characters border on being overtly gay, which completely blew my mind at first.  These two characters, who would not actually belong in the African savannah, especially as partners, added the drama and sarcasm that kept the movie lively and interesting, instead of somber and intense the whole time.  That being said, the way they were crafted sheds light on the changing ideologies of Disney animators at the time.

Overall, I liked Sweeney’s article and the argument he was making.  He uses the “they say/I say” argument style that we have discussed in class to his advantage by first explaining who was criticizing Disney for not committing to “family values,” and what their arguments were.  He then, instead of disagreeing with their points about sexuality, and especially homosexuality, explains how their arguments actually are sound, and as a result how this was a monumental change for Disney.  In other words, he is not disagreeing with the religious conservatives about the lack of homoerotic signs, but he is saying that these signs are good instead of bad.  As a result of his argumentation style, I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he had to say. 

I find it very funny and a bit surprising that the Disney animators decided to make Timon and Pumbaa act stereotypically gay.  Considering that conservative, white America was the group of people that Walt Disney catered to and identified with in his original feature and short films, this shows a drastic change in the ideologies of the animation studio.  While it may have been fun for these new animators to get back at anti-Disney advocators in groups associated with the Religious Right, producers may have feared losing viewers by “promoting” a happy gay couple.  This may explain why the two buddies don’t actually say they are committed to one another, but instead just say they are “best friends.”  No matter how controversial animators wanted to be, they still had to be realistic and not alienate viewers.

In light of the film we have been talking about recently, I decided to change my laptop background:

Small comment, larger implications

I am currently driving down to Miami with the Men’s Crew Team for our spring break trip.  As we began to enter the vicinity of Florida, our coach commented, “Who wants to stop by Orlando and visit Disney World?”  While this comment was a joke, and no one gave it a second thought, it had me thinking about just how big of a name Disney is.  It has gotten to the point that Florida is synonymous with Disney World, and vice versa.  After all, my coach is a graduate student studying something engineering-related, and it has likely been a while since he last watched a Disney film on his own.  On top of all that, there were other interesting places that we could have checked out on the road from Duke to Miami, but Disney World was the one that really stood out. 

I have a feeling that the familiarity of Disney’s name is only going to continue to increase, as Disney continues to build theme parks around the world, and broadcast films in multiple countries. Disney will no longer be a name that is popular only in the United States, but it will be big across the industrialized world.  We see Disney making moves for this to happen, not only with their theme parks, but also with TV shows and movies being released with more diverse characters, and in multiple languages, to attract a broader viewership base.  While this can be a good thing, it will be especially important to make sure that we do not take everything in these films for granted, and that we make sure the messages being told are ones of acceptance and harmony.

Calculated costs: when and where to give scholarships

Earlier this month, Disney announced plans to launch a Corporate Scholars Program, which means $1 million will be donated through the United Negro College Fund, in order to “offer financial assistance to high-achieving African American students in underserved communities across the country.”  This is a great program, both for black students, and for Disney.  The very last line of the article (written by ABC) reads, “Students must have an interest in pursuing a career in the entertainment industry, among other requirements.”  In class, we have discussed that a large percentage of the people working for Disney, as animators or in powerful positions, are white men.  This, to me, seems like another move by Disney to increase diversity among the corporation’s employees.  Offering scholarships and internship opportunities to gifted African American students, and having them study something related to the entertainment industry, puts them in the perfect position to be hired by Disney in the future, which is likely the goal.  This is an interesting approach, as it is a win-win situation for both Disney and the gifted students.

The link to the article is below:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/walt-disney-company-announces-corporate-scholars-program/story?id=29418740