Honest Trailers - The Little Mermaid

Having just watched The Little Mermaid , I watched the YouTube video Screen Junkies made for it. The video is hilarious and actually addresses some major themes and messages of the films. I would highly recommend checking it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA-eyG7lUv8

Response to Trites' "The Little Mermaid"

Trites has very strong opinions about The Little Mermaid and I have very strong opinions about Trites. I enjoyed reading the article, but I disagreed with most of what Trites said. Here are many of the specific points with which I disagreed. (For simplicity, Anderson’s mermaid will be referred to as ‘the little mermaid’, and Disney’s mermaid will be Ariel. All quotes are taken from Trites’ “The Little Mermaid”).

• Quest for soul versus mate
• I believe Ariel was following her heart and the little mermaid followed her brain – in a way, the little mermaid uses the prince to get an immortal soul
•  Ariel being materialistic
•    I don’t believe Ariel is materialistic – she is merely curious and following her heart
•  Negative portrayal of Triton
•    Trites depicts Triton as a symbol of masculinity and dominance – I believe Triton plays the role of a caring father who is trying to help his teenager
•    After Triton destroys all of Ariel’s possessions from the surface, the movie makes it very clear that Triton is upset with what he had to do; he is only trying to protect his daughter
• Ariel as “incapable of autonomy”
• Ariel is very autonomous and is constantly making her own decisions and forging her own path
• Despite everyone telling Ariel her what to do, she acts as she pleases – if anything she is too autonomous
• The little mermaid’s love relationship
• Speaking of Anderson’s mermaid, Trites says, “She has the leisure to develop her love slowly into an intimate relationship” - Trites unfairly avoids criticizing Anderson’s tale
• The little mermaid has no ‘leisure’ as every step on land brought the pain of two swords stabbing through her legs
• The ‘intimate relationship’ involved a female who had her voice taken away and was not able to express herself
• The loss of voice
• Trites scorns Disney for taking away Ariel’s voice and unfairly tries to defend the Anderson’s mermaid for making a righteous sacrifice 
• Ariel only wins her man after she got her voice back – shows the power of female voice and expression
• Ariel’s “pain-free sacrifices”
• Ariel gave up everything she had to follow her heart. She gave up her voice, family, friends, and risked her life
• Evil is ugly and good is pretty
• Ursula takes the form of a pretty human female, but Disney portrays her as being just as evil
• Ariel can’t defeat evil
•  Ariel saves Eric early in the movie, and Eric saves Ariel in the end – gender equality
• Stretches
• When describing Ariel’s infatuation for Eric: “This implies that the only beings worth marrying are those who are perfect and that perfection is not only somehow attainable but is actually necessary for a man to be lovable”
• Anything sexual was difficult to read and is perhaps more difficult to quote. These exaggerations were at times comical
• Flowers: “they prefigure the human genitalia the mermaids will seek”
• Blood from Ariel’s legs: “flowing blood prepares the girl for menarche”
• Ursula’s layer palace: “womb like inner chamber” with a “grotesque parody of the female anatomy”
• Ursula’s body: “breasts seem suffocating…female body as ominously menacing”
• Ursula tentacles: “eight phalluses”
• Near the end of page 150, the discussion of phallic imagery veers into comedy – it is appalling and not worth quoting 

The Little Mermaid

For the first time in my life, I saw The Little Mermaid from start to finish and I was very entertained. Here are some of the things I observed:

Comparing The Little Mermaid and Snow White

• Over 50 years separate these two films, so it should come as no surprise how different the styles are 
• In The Little Mermaid, animation is used to supplement the story rather then be part of the story itself
• The Little Mermaid is a much more complex story, it has more developed characters, and the dialogue is meatier 
• Same basic story where a princess is in love and there is a happily ever after

Ariel 

• Very different than Snow White
• Ariel is far more rebellious, independent, and driven character
• Ariel's attire is far more revealing (and not just because she is a mermaid) 
• At first I thought Ariel's character sent a positive message to the audience (the opposite of Snow White)
• Women should be independent and assertive, and they should forge their own destinies
• As I watched more of the movie, Ariel seemed to be foolish and a brat
• People all around her are trying to protect her and she pushes them away
• Ariel acts irrationally and puts herself in danger
• She is a misbehaved teenager and in the end, she is rewarded for her actions 

Love story 

• Unlike Snow White, Ariel chases after the one she loves and the man is the one waiting 
• Very superficial relationship
• The prince almost marries another women because of a song 
• Like Snow White the relationship is something that is accepted, not developed 
• A movie like Up gives more depth to relationships
• Ariel gives up her voice to chase after the prince and this sends a bad message
• Giving up one's voice is a symbolic gesture - finding her love is more important to Ariel than her being able to express herself 
• She doesn't need a voice to win the prince over - as Ursula indicates, a women's body is all that a girl needs to win a man

Other comments

• I loved the music
• Lots of slapstick humor, but not as much as in Snow White
• Some characters act foolishly, but none display the same kind of condition that we see with Dopey
• All of the men in the film are good hearted and the women display far more negative traits

Img1:http://www.impawards.com/1989/little_mermaid_ver2_xlg.html
Img 2: http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/1600000/Flounder-and-Sebastian-little-mermaid-ariels-beginning-1602539-485-324.jpg

Modern Family Disneyland

Tonight in the Bassett common room an episode of Modern Family was on the TV, and it was set in Disneyland! I only saw the last 10 minutes of the episode, but it is funny to see how TV shows portray Disney. Disney is so universal that everyone understands and can relate to all of the detailed Disney references.


http://disneyexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/full-cast-modern-family-disneyland-episode.jpg

Decent Films

My uncle, Steven Greydanus, is a movie critic who runs his own blog, writes articles for various periodicals, and co-hosts a cable TV show. He lives just 5 minutes away from my home in New Jersey and he is a fascinating man to talk to, especially when it comes to films. He created a website called DecentFilms back in 2000, and through this site you can access his blog, the articles he writes and much more. 

I love having spirited debates with my uncle and I'm a huge fan of his writing. (It sounds like I am advertising for him, but I think it's so cool that I know a successful movie critic personally!). Having just wrote an essay on WALL-E, I did a search for the movie on his website and I found two articles and a review on the film. I will be sure to read these! I would highly recommend checking out DecentFilms. The link to the website is: http://decentfilms.com
http://americamagazine.org/sites/default/files/styles/400px_wide/public/media/2015/blog/images/steven_d._greydanus_photo.jpg?itok=0l1-IOPz

Dopey's Legacy

I think that Schwartz, Lutfiyya and Hansen address a very relevant issue in how Disney portrays people with intellectual disabilities in Dopey's Legacy. I thought the topic was very compelling although I think that they could have done a better job in supporting their claim. Perhaps the biggest flaw in the argument, is that we can't be sure that any of the characters discussed actually have an intellectual disability. The argument could have been made a lot stronger if it was able to quote a Disney producer or other creator addressing the idea of disability and how the characters were intended to be received. It is very possible that Dopey is merely a fool with no connection to intellectual disability who was created simply for comic relief.

The second issue I had with the article, was that it identified a problem, but it gave no solution. Perhaps a solution was not the goal of the essay, but its less effective to criticize something when you don't have a better alternative. Schwartz, Lutfiyya and Hansen are in agreement that Disney sends bad messages about characters with intellectual disabilities, but I wonder how they would want Disney to better tackle this problem. The article refers to some examples of intellectual disabilities outside of Disney, but it never says if any of them did a good job of portraying it. Assuming that Dopey does have a mental handicap, I think it would be a very difficult task to portray a character who has a mental impairment, while at the same time making him a strong character. It would be a very confusing character for children to understand, whereas I think that most children currently see Dopey as just being silly and goofy.
 
http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/0bd97e00-6a13-40c8-9793-066ffa2ab3b5/42114a90-b96b-4298-845c-a57e4a86f40d.jpg

Disney Fan Theories

Like all fan clubs, Disney's fans range from the casual movie watchers to the religious bloggers and forum commenters. This group of devoted fans is very prevalent on the internet, and many of these fans really know their stuff. It amazes me how much time these fans invest in Disney and the fascinating and complex theories they come up with. Many of Disney's writers like to throw little hidden easter eggs in their movies which often reference other Disney movies or something about Disney itself. The fans are able to pick up on these subtleties, and go a step further in developing convoluted theories. For example, some argue that all Disney movies exist in the same universe and other say Tarzan is Elsa's brother.


The link below is one of many theories describing the interconnecting worlds of the Disney movies
http://disneytheory.com/2013/08/25/thedisneytheory/

Dwarfs vs Dwarves

In watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs I was surprised by the spelling of "Dwarfs". I always thought the plural of dwarf was dwarves. As it turns out both versions can be used. The term dwarves was popularize by J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Since then many other games and movies have used the plural dwarves. When referring to the medical condition, it is more appropriate to use dwarfs.

As wikipedia states:
"Regarding the plural, Tolkien wrote in 1937 that 'I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go with it.' "



http://whatsthediff.net/featured/whats-the-difference-between-dwarf-and-midget/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_(mythology)#cite_note-GILLIVER-MARSHALL-WEINER-104-108-3

Snow White

This was the first time I watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in at least 8 years. Here are some of my observations from the film:

• Walt Disney credits his staff
• Many articles we have read in class, indicate that Disney portrayed his company as a one man show. The movie begins with a shout out to his wonderful staff for making the production possible.
• Perhaps this was just the style back in the day, but the opening credits Displayed people's names for far longer than you would see today. The audience was given time to read every name. Today, hundreds of names fly by every second.
• Simplistically/Slapstick 
• The story line was very basic and there was not a whole lot going on in terms of plot or character development. It would be very easy to give a summary of the film to someone who had never seen it before.
• There was a lot of slapstick comedy especially with the dwarfs. The movie spend a lot of time focusing on the dwarfs and animals doing funny/playful tasks that didn't add much to the story.
• Dialogue was pretty limited, and it mostly was used in furthering the plot. Music seemed to be more prevalent than it is in movies today.
• Grimm's Fairy tales
• The basic plot of Snow White was strikingly similar to that of the Grimm's tale. Snow White was aimed at a younger audience and being a film, it was able to add a lot of humorous animation that didn't add much to the story.
• Certainly the Grimm's tale was darker than the Disney version, although I was surprised by how Dark the Disney version was. Nowadays, I don't think Disney would address the topic of death so freely, nor portray an antagonist trying the put someone's heart in a lockbox.
• Snow White
• Snow White was not a very independent or strong character, and it seemed that she was handed gifts due to her beauty. The assassin pitied her, the dwarfs were infatuated with her, the prince searched for her, and even the animals assisted her.
• Snow White is a pretty passive character who is innocent and weak. She is often helpless and relies on others to help her out. She is seen as waiting for her love rather than seeking it.
• Her relationship with the prince is very underdeveloped. She hardly says a word to this man that she believes to be her true love

Breaking the Disney Spell - Zipes

I found Jack Zipes’ “Breaking the Disney Spell” to be very well structured, although I strongly disagreed with the way in which Zipes supported his argument that Disney has “violated” the fairy tale industry. I think Zipes was effective in setting up his argument by giving a history of fairy tales and how Disney entered the scene. I do agree that Disney has transformed the film industry as well as fairy tales, although I don’t think the influence was as negative as Zipes made it out to be. I felt that Zipes was too biased and he should have addressed some positive impacts that Disney had on fairy tales, such as incorporating a younger audience. Zipes also often exaggerates and doesn’t support his claims like when he says that Disney characters are “one dimensional” and that there is “no character development.” Disney and Pixar have a lot of brilliant writers who job it is to create character development. These claims go largely unsupported.

The biggest issue I have with Zipes’ argument is how he unfairly blames Disney for revolutionizing fairy tales in ways that would have happened whether Disney ever existed or not. Disney may have been more innovative then its competitors, but that doesn’t mean it should take on all the blamed for how the film industry changed. Zipes reminisces on the classical fairy tales, and shuns modern fairy tales for being less social, less about the author, and more targeted at consumers. Zipes transfers this downfall on Disney, but I think history would have played out the same way whether Disney existed or not. The world changed a lot in the 1900’s and although Disney influenced the world, the world had a greater influence on Disney. Disney was simply mirroring the changing world and fairy tales followed Disney’s lead.

WALL-E and being a movie critic

I watched the first half of WALL-E today, and I loved it as much as I had remembered. Because I will be writing about WALL-E for an essay, I made sure to concentrate on the film's messages and I was surprised to find how many things I had not noticed the first time watching the film. When I watched Tarzan for the first time on Tuesday, my brain was half asleep and my concentration was just enough to follow the plot and enjoy the images and music. Having already known the plot of WALL-E in addition to actively analyzing the film, I was able to observe tons of themes, symbols, and other intricacies that I glossed over the first time watching. With the mindset that the writers created everything deliberately, I was able to find meaning where I had not seen it before. One of the first articles we read in writing 101, told us to be active (rather then passive) readers and engage the text. By engaging the film I was able to get a lot more out of it, and it may have even been more enjoyable.

Tarzan Common Room

Last Sunday while everyone was avoiding homework, the Bassett common room decided to watch Tarzan! It was my first time watching the movie, and I really liked the film and its soundtrack. One of the dangers of taking a class on Disney is that you can justify your procrastinating when Disney is involved. I will have to draw a line between Disney the class, and Disney the extracurricular activity.


http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/filepicker%2F9QwDQbrwQx2JilVDQ5U1_tarzandisney.jpg

Disney on YouTube

YouTube is full of hilarious short parodies on many Disney films. The videos poke fun at Disney as a corporation, or mock certain parts of the film itself. These channels cover all kinds of movies, but they often like to target Disney films because they are so popular. A channel called "How it Should Have Ended"(HISHE) finds plot flaws and inconsistencies within movies and explores hilarious ways the movies could have gone differently. A second Youtube channel called "Screen Junkies", has a series called "Honest Trailers" in which it makes fake movie trailers revealing the 'truth' about movies which producers don't want you to see.

Today I watched an 'Honest Trailer' for the short film Frozen Fever, based on the popular movie Frozen.  The 3 minute video is very entertaining and exposes Disney as the corporation it really is. Check it out with the link below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61MkuYttDI

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/Frozen_Fever_poster.jpg

Disney is Everywhere!

Now that I am taking a course on Disney, my ears prick up whenever I see or hear about anything Disney, which I have found to be very frequently. I was aware that Disney was present in my life, but until now I never realized how ubiquitous it really is. Whether I'm on Facebook, YouTube or eating dinner in the marketplace, Disney is always there. In just two weeks "Decoding Disney" has made me more observant to how invasive and unavoidable the Disney empire is.  I am not actively seeking out articles and videos on Disney, but whether I like it or not they come to me.

Challenging Disney Myths

I was intrigued by the premise of challenging Disney Myths, but I was a little disappointed by the way in which Wasko tackled them; specifically I felt that she was biased and did not properly address her "naysayers". In Giroux's article about "The Disneyfication of of Children's Culture" he says , "it is important to address Disney's animated films without either condemning Disney as an ideological reactionary corporation deceptively promoting a conservative worldview...". I believe that this is exactly what Wasko does. Although she was attempting to debunk several myth's about Disney's magical image, I don't feel that she gave credit to Disney when it was deserved. For one, Wasko harshly criticized Walt Disney the individual as a conservative extremist who did not possess the virtues he associated with his company. Disney is all about the imagination and fantasy so it should come as no surprise that its creator is a regular person like the rest of us. Maybe Walt did not have the perfect family or virtues but that shouldn't tarnish the magical world he was able to create. Wasko further accuses Walt of not doing "everything" for the company. Disney came from humble beginnings and started out as an animator. Disney's true talent however lay in his ability to organize and create the far reaching empire that it is today. It is impractical for Wasko to expect Walt to do the animation and physical creation himself and she shouldn't criticize him for being ambitious.

The article did however prompt me to consider certain truths about the Disney empire which I had not previously thought about. I was aware that there was a lot more to the Disney company than Mickey Mouse and the theme parks, but I was unaware of how far its reach has extended. Wasko pointed out that Disney is a profit driven corporation and she convinced me that this was true. However, although Disney may be motivated by profits, they are still creating the magic that is Disney. Maybe Disney is not charitable, but for the company to succeed, they have to entertain the public. Regardless of their motives they are not just like every other company.

http://www.latimes.com/includes/projects/hollywood/portraits/walt_disney.jpg