Frozen Summer Fun

A few weeks ago, when my husband and I were talking about our trip to Seattle, I jokingly mentioned that we should tack on a mini-trip to Disney World in order to see the Frozen Summer Fun events at Hollywood Studios. Well, half-jokingly mentioned it. After all, there isn't a direct flight to Seattle from RDU, so we'd have to have a lay-over somewhere. Why not Orlando?

Long story short, I have an amazing husband who agreed.

And it was awesome. Well, the Frozen stuff was awesome. The weather was about as un-Frozen as you could get. Ugh. I'm reminded of why we much prefer going in October or May -- August in central Florida is miserable.

Every time we go, my husband and I talk about how much potential Hollywood Studios has to be truly great -- and that Disney should make it their next renovation project. I don't know how much of this will stay once the event ends, but it'd be a great start.

Now, rumor has it that the entire Frozen Summer Fun was put up in two weeks -- which may explain why I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn't more. They've been really pushing it, and promoting it heavily, but it just seemed like they could have done more. Or maybe I've just been conditioned to expect excess from Disney. 

Yay for Frozen themed treats -- but while it was cool in the air conditioning, hot chocolate did not sound appealing in the Florida heat.

The welcome parade was really cute too -- in true Disney fashion, in "snowed" when the Arendelle royals arrived. And I always love when Disney makes it "snow." It reminded me a lot of the parades that Disney used to have at MGM back in the 90s -- whenever a movie did well or when they wanted to hype up a movie, they had film-centric parades. I still remember the Aladdin parade, mainly because they had a spitting camel float -- and I got "spit" on by the camel. I think the camels are now in MK, by the Flying Carpets ride in Adventureland. 

The Sing Along was probably my favorite part. It's a "ticketed" event -- kind of like Fast Passes -- and I was a little disappointed by the seating. (Disney is usually so good about "every seat has a great unobstructed view!" and that was not the case in this theater -- maybe because it was older? -- you can see the post in the right-hand picture.) But there's something magical about everyone singing along together -- and the little kids are especially cute singing at the top of their lungs. 

Definitely glad we made the trip down to experience it!

Flipping Your Fins On Broadway

Recently, my husband and I went to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway. (I love, love, love having DPAC (the Durham Performing Arts Center) in our backyard--before it was built, our area didn't get any of the big Broadway shows, but now? Well, Wicked is coming for the third time in seven years in May of 2015.)

First things first, a confession: I LOVE The Little Mermaid.

It's the first Disney movie I can remember being obsessed with, and I still love it to this day. So much so that when we discuss it in class, and I reread Roberta Trites' article, "Disney's Sub/Version of Andersen's The Little Mermaid," I get so spittin' mad. 

So I was really interested to see what the Broadway version would be like. Even though my husband explained it to my mother by saying, "I forgot that it was *Disney's* Little Mermaid and it was basically just the movie on stage," there were definite differences that I noticed. In a way, it was almost as if the stage adapters read Trites' article and made a list of things to fix: we find out what happens to Ariel's mother, we know why Triton hates humans so much, we emphasize how out of place Ariel feels under the sea as well as out of place Eric feels on land and -- perhaps most importantly -- neither Eric nor Triton "defeats" Ursula; it's Ariel who ultimately kills the Sea Witch in a very active and rather empowering move. (She doesn't directly kill her, of course, as Disney never condones murder, not even for the evilest of villains, but it's a significant improvement over Ariel lying helplessly at the bottom of a whirlpool while Eric harpoons an "engorged" (to use Roberta Trites' word) Ursula.) 

But the most interesting change -- to me, at least -- was the addition of Ursula's backstory. Maybe we learn it in one of the LM sequels -- but I make it a habit to never watch Disney sequels. We learn that Ursula and Triton are sister and brother, and that they had 6 other sisters, all of whom Ursula killed. It sounds gruesome, but the song is actually quite fun. So imagine when my surprise when I pulled up the soundtrack on iTunes and couldn't find it. A little bit of digging online -- okay, I found the answer on Wikipedia -- told me that the song, "Daddy's Little Angel," is actually not in the original Broadway version, but was added to European/international versions of the play. I was able to find a bare-bones version of it online:

It actually kind of reminds me of "Mother Knows Best" from Tangled...maybe because of the rhythm/beat? Regardless, I think it changes the character of Ursula. As my friend pointed out, "Ursula was less 'take over the world' and more 'look at me' -- she was Barbie-ish." And I agree -- she was a little campier, a little funnier than certainly the character is in the animated film. But I liked it -- it balanced out Triton's domineering "I'm-the-king-and-you-will-listen-to-me!" and the arguably much sappier romance between Ariel and Eric. 

And I'll admit it: I was not a fan of Eric singing. That was one of the reasons I loved Eric in the animated film -- that, and he had a dog. And they also cut Max from the Broadway play, which I was not a fan of. Sad face.

Jungle Book Casting News

Two of my favorite movies to teach are The Jungle Book (1967) and The Lion King (1994), simply because of how they insert race into children's movies about animals. (Oliver and Company is also notorious for this.)

After all, animals don't have races--at least, not in the same sense which humans ascribe them. They have biological categorizations, and they are capable of grouping themselves together and ostracizing others, but not for the same reasons which humans do.

So why is it that Tito the Chihuahua (from Oliver) has a plethora of stereotypical, racist Latino traits? (While all the dogs steal to survive, he alone is the one who can hotwire the car.) Why are the hyenas -- the very bottom of the food chain -- voiced by an African-American woman (Whoopi Goldberg) and a Latino man (Cheech Marin)? (And the third is...."slow," at best.) Why are the monkeys in Jungle Book jazz singers/dancers?

After all, everything in animation is consciously done--surely these can't be coincidences?

Now, yes, The Jungle Book is from 1967 -- and to say things were "different back then" is an understatement. And I'm always a big advocate of acknowledging the context of a text -- acknowledging when it was made and the views that were held during that time. What seems incredibly racist/uncomfortable now, would simply not have been that wrong to the Disney execs in the 1960s. (And even less so in the 1940s when Dumbo was released.)

But that's why I was so intrigued when Disney announced that they were doing a live-action remake of The Jungle Book. What would that film look like? How would they approach some of the more controversial scenes? And, most importantly, how would they handle the casting choices? (I'm still not entirely sure how live-action it will be, given that most of the characters in the film are animals, but that's another matter.)

And the casting choices are certainly interesting:

• King Louie -- king of the apes and perhaps the most racist portrayal in the animated film -- will be played by Christopher Walken (thus avoiding any associations with black actors and monkeys)
• Bagheera -- Mowgli's mentor and guide -- will be played by Ben Kingsley (a good choice, IMHO, if only because Kingsley has that regal attitude innately -- but it does seem as if all mentors/guides/teachers should be British...)
• Shere Khan -- our villainous tiger -- will be played by Idris Elba (another choice I love, because the world needs more Idris Elba, and he makes a great villain -- but could this lead to discussions of black-actors-as-villains?)
• Kaa -- Khan's hench-snake -- will be played by Scarlett Johansson (the inclusion of a female actor is interesting...particularly in this role, given the whole Eve-Eden-snake-apple thing)
• Baloo -- our lovable hippy bear -- will be voiced by Bill Murray, mainly for the comedic effect, I think. 

Perhaps I'm overthinking the casting choices, but I think -- given Disney's tendency to ascribe race to animals in the past -- it's an interesting conversation to have.