Cultural Appropriation or Harmless Costume?

Another year, another time to consider how Halloween costumes aren't just "Halloween costumes" anymore.

I feel like I write this post -- or a version of it -- every year. And I grapple with the same questions -- where is the line? When is a costume just a costume? -- and I haven't figured out an answer.

But this post popped up on my newsfeed a few days ago and...yeah.

via Distractify

Okay, fine. I'm on board with this. Cultural progress where we're "increasingly exposed to diverse narratives" which means "we look up to and admire cultures that are different from our own" -- yes. This is unequivocally a good thing.

But here's where it gets tricky:

What I take issue with here -- or, rather, what I struggle with -- is the part about how "it might not be your kid's place to honor them with a disguise."

While this article is, most likely, click-bait, it still raises an interesting question -- one I'm still grappling with.

First--let me offer this disclaimer: some most of these costumes are truly offensive and inappropriate, given their adult target audience. Yes, it is inappropriate for an adult woman to don a geisha costume. Yes, it is inappropriate for an adult woman to don a "sexy Pocahontas" costume. Yes, it is inappropriate for a company to even market an Anne Frank historical 1940's costume and then invoke The Chronicles of Narnia.

But the very first costume on the list is Moana -- a Disney character costume marketed towards kids.

Here's what the site offered as far as a caption:

What bothers me here is not the fact that a mother is talking with her child about cultures and cultural appropriation. (Lord knows, I'm already That Mom when it comes to watching Disney movies, emphasizing Elsa's point that you can't marry a man you just met, etc.) What bothers me is her claim that it "feels like we are laughing at her culture by making it a costume."

As a parent (<--that still feels weird to say/type!), I don't know...I staunchly disagree with this. (I mean, I guess it depends on how her old daughter is. If she's north of 10, sure.) But if my 2.5 year old (who doesn't really know what Halloween is, but let's pretend she does for the sake of this hypothetical) came to me and said she wanted to "be Moana" for Halloween, I wouldn't hesitate. Because I know that she's not motivated by malice or spite nor she does have a desire to mock or laugh at her culture. It's because Moana is a person she admires and wants to be like her. I don't even know what a conversation about cultural appropriation would look like with a 2.5 year old.

But is it cultural appropriation?

OED recently added the term to their dictionary defining it as:

the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.

The key component seems to be the power dynamic -- specifically the imbalance of power between the marginalized and dominant group.  And, look: my daughter's a white female. She, through no fault of her own, was born into a place of privilege and power, based simply on the color of her skin. But she doesn't know that. Not yet. And I don't know when she will know that. Probably much earlier than I would want or than I learned it.

Once again, I don't have an answer to this question. And it feels very reductive to say that "under the age of X you get a pass," because that's not what I'm advocating for. I just think that the situation is much more complicated for a 3-year-old wanting to be like her favorite fictional character than it is for an adult who, even as a teenager, would have experienced enough of the world to know about power dynamics.

The window of time where a kid can want to dress up like Moana, or Mulan, or Belle, or Hermione Granger, or Darth Vader, or Cookie Monster, is so short as it is -- why would I want to make it any shorter?

Love is the Strongest Magic

A friend shared this post this afternoon, and I've found myself reflecting on it a lot. 

This is one of the best parts of the movie IMO (although the part that never fails to make me cry is when Moana's grandmother's spirit gives her the reminder and the strength to go on), but I'm not sure I completely agree with it...

There are a lot of valid points here:

• I agree that it's important that Moana meets Te Ka with love and acceptance and not violence, and that's what helps restore her.
• Yes, violence begets ruin. A violent approach could not have saved Te Fiti.

But I'm not entirely sure I buy the fact that "only women can help other women heal from male violence" -- and certainly not within the context of this film. While I am the first one to insist that Disney movies are not just simply animated fluff, and that they have complex thematic messages in addition to their morals, this goes a bit too far for me. 

One of the most striking things about Moana, for me, was its lack of emphasis on gender. That is, Disney went out of their way to tell a story where gender differences weren't front and center. After all, in the initial draft, Moana had brothers (6, I think?) and, as the youngest, she was constantly trying to prove that she was just as good as them and deserving of her father's pride and admiration. (SO glad they took that storyline out.) And, after all, this is the first Disney princess movie, where this isn't a romantic subplot. 

So, yeah. I don't think this is a movie about male violence or how women can help each other through it. Yes, women supporting other women is crucial and important, but I don't think the fact that Te Ka/Te Fiti and Moana are women is the point here. Rather, IMO, it's about Moana's humility and good nature -- regardless of gender. It's her act of saving the baby turtle when she was little that made the ocean "choose" her (as Grandma Tala points out) -- her kindness, her selflessness (she gives up the pretty shell), and her strength of character. 

It's more of an exchange of female wisdom and guidance. After all, Moana's journey throughout the movie is one of self-discovery and acceptance -- of finding her True Self, which is different from how others define her, namely her father (but, to some extent, her mother and community). They want her to be one thing, and she knows that she's meant for something different (to explore the world and sail the ocean). This is the advice she passes on to Te Fiti when she understands the effect of the stolen heart: she tells her that even though "they have stolen the heart from inside you / but this does not define you." I read this not as "healing from male violence" but as "honoring your true self." 

Let's Talk About This Live-Action Mulan

*sigh*

Here we go again.

A few weeks ago, I read about the casting news for the new live-action adaptation of Mulan:

via Variety

At first, I was just excited to discuss the news with my students -- for three reasons:

1. Jet Li is being cast as the Emperor -- given Li's martial arts & action movie background, it seems an interesting choice for the Emperor (who is a very zen character in the animated film). I could be biased though -- Pat Morita is the Emperor for me -- I imagine this is how some Harry Potter fans felt when Richard Harris died and Michael Gambon replaced him as Dumbledore. 
2. Gong Li is "the villain as a powerful witch" -- WHOA. This is what I was most excited to talk about -- there's no witch in the animated film and the implications of this are fascinating. Not only are we seemingly getting rid of the Huns/Shan Yu, but we're adding in a female villain. And not only a female villain -- a witch. More female-female conflict? And what are the ramifications for the empowerment storyline? (i.e., the fact that Mulan was so awesome because she beat all the boys and proved she was just as good -- if not better -- than them.)
3. Fun tidbit: Mulan gets a sister.
   Interesting on several levels because (1) Mulan was one of the only Disney Princess films to show an intact nuclear family -- Dad + Mom + Mulan + Grandma. Up to this point, only Aurora had both her parents alive -- but I don't really count that since her mother is so underdeveloped it's painful and has maybe one line of dialogue in the entire film. So, yes, while Mulan's relationship with her father is still the central relationship of the film (like all of the other 2nd wave princess films) and while her mother is a relatively flat character, it's still important.
   And (2) Mulan doesn't have any other siblings in the animated film -- least of all male siblings who could have ostensibly taken her father's place instead of the daughter. But more importantly, Disney Princesses don't usually get female friends or siblings. Sure, Ariel has her sisters, but she's the "different one" (with her red hair and her mismatched shells and tail) and doesn't seem particularly close with any of them. Sure, Pocahontas has Nakoma -- but that friendship has disastrous results. It's not until we get to Tiana that we have a princess with a "good" friend -- and whatever you say about Lottie, she is a good friend -- and it's not until Elsa and Anna that we see a developed sisterly relationship with depth. So while we don't know anything about their relationship, it's at least another step in the right direction.
   Although, as some of my Chinese students pointed out, Mulan does have siblings in the original ballad. 

But the discussion turned into something more than I could have hoped for. My students had questions -- really good questions. They wanted to know more about who was playing Mulan, about this witch, about Shang, and about the release date. 

Which led me to this Elle article: "Everything We Know About Disney's Live-Action Mulan" -- where we zeroed in on this:

Wait--there's a character replacing Shang? As in, THERE WILL BE NO LI SHANG IN THIS MOVIE?!

via GIPHY

Obviously, this was worth investigating. So, we clicked the link, which led us to this Tweet:

Wait a hot second, why is Captain Li Shang being replaced by this dude in the new #Mulan. First no music, now this. Grrr pic.twitter.com/tE17hM1G7p

— Jo-Anne Rowney (@JoAnne_Rowney) March 19, 2017

Let's break this down. First up, this not-Shang Chen guy:

"Full of himself, with a mean, bullying streak to him" -- we quickly drew parallels to Gaston (possibly because we'd just watched that live-action film for discussion), which does not bode well, given the type of toxic masculinity Gaston represents.

While we were also confused by the phrase "something like love" (what does that even mean?!?!), the more problematic part is the part where "after learning that his rival is a woman, his intense feelings of rivalry turn into something very different." On the one hand, it seems as if this is Disney's answer to any sort of queer subtext that might have existed in the animated film -- Shang may or may not have had some sort of attraction to Ping, which made him sort of a bisexual icon. (People were not happy.) And, on the other hand, all of this smacks of that silly thing parents used to say "if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you." I don't know -- I find it extremely problematic that when Honghui thinks Mulan is a boy, he's a rival who he can/should bully; but as soon as he finds out Mulan is a girl, BAM! He's in love.

But in case you thought that was the worst, it gets better:

So, on the positive side, one of my students pointed out that while the casting call for Chen Honghui mentions his attraction to her, at least there's no mention of Mulan's romantic feelings for the men in her life, so...silver lining?

But here are the interesting things:

• The Huns are out. (Which means, at the very least, that if this isn't a musical, we'll have to change the iconic line, "Let's get down to business / to defeat the Huns.") I have no idea who the Gokturks are, and the Wikipedia entry isn't super helpful.
• My students focused on the "strapping down her breasts" line as an odd thing to mention specifically. I mean, yes, one would assume that dressing as a man who necessitate that, but it's an odd thing to mention in a casting call. Unless they were specifically looking for a busty, female female -- as in, one who was clearly female. 
• But the most interesting -- and potentially problematic -- part is this: "There is a mysterious power inside Mulan." 

• At first, I thought it was just the dramatic language of a casting call (you know, like "something like love"). But the more we talked about it -- and especially in conjunction with the revelation of the addition of a WITCH -- the more it seemed plausible that this "mysterious power" could actually be supernatural in nature. 

Just to be clear:

Apparently, this news -- the casting calls -- aren't really news, as this article from March of 2017 makes clear. Donya Abramo also makes clear the significance of this information, in a very eloquent way:

I don't remember this information going viral a year ago, but with the explicit addition of a supernatural character, the theory is gaining traction. As is the outrage that the fundamental message of the story could potentially be changed. As Abramo points out, "The beauty of Mulan is in the indisputable truth that what she achieves is down to her own skill and stubborn determination — both mental and physical." In other words, Mulan was a revolutionary character not only for her representation -- don't delve too deeply into Disney's past representation of Asian characters; it isn't pretty -- but for her deviation from past Disney princesses. She wasn't passive or focused on romance -- she was every bit as strong, resilient, intelligent as the boys, and, in the end, was the one to save China and the Emperor. Her story -- however much it deviated from the original Chinese ballad -- was empowering and inspiring. 

But if you give her powers? If you make her supernatural? I suppose it doesn't necessarily take away from her individual uniqueness, but it turns the story into another Chosen One narrative. She becomes another Harry Potter, specially chosen to defeat the supernatural evil. 

Yes, at this point, most of this is just speculation, since we're going on rumors and casting calls, not concrete facts. And, yes. Scripts undergo rewrites and films undergo reshoots, so it's all fluid and up-in-the-air right now. 

But still.

The rumors paint a very troubling picture -- not in the least because, up to this point, Disney's live action adaptations have been extremely faithful to their source material. Some critics question why even remake the film if you're just going to essentially remake the movie, but with actors not animation. Which begs the question -- why start deviating now? In the case of a film like Dumbo, the answer is kind of obvious: there's not a terrible amount of substance to the original, so, yeah. You're going to have to create a story there. 

But that's not the case with Mulan. 

Maybe they were trying to be more faithful to the original source material? Or, as Yohana Desta points out in her Vanity Fair piece, "casting a Chinese star helps the studio cater directly to Chinese audiences, the all-important demographic that can bolster or destroy blockbuster's global box-office hopes." But, as my Chinese students angrily and frustratedly pointed out, there's no magic in the original ballad -- and, to them, changing the story so significantly was not likely to curry favor with them. 

So, I guess we'll wait and see. But I do not have high hopes. 

Why My Kids Watch Disney Movies

One of the things I get asked a lot, once people know about the courses I teach, is whether I'll let my own kids watch Disney movies. "Surely," they say, "you can't talk about what's wrong with a movie like Cinderella and still think it's okay for your kids to watch?"

To which I respond, "Of course I can."

Because even though I can put on my Professor Cap and analyze why Cinderella presents outdated gender roles from the 1950s, I can still also see the good in it. I see a female-driven narrative with a protagonist who is unflinchingly and unfailingly cheerful and hopeful.

And, perhaps what's more important, is that my children will have a wide variety of characters to watch in their Disney [Princess] movies. For the earliest part of my childhood, the only princesses I had were Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora -- homogenous by even the loosest definition of the word. But I grew up with the Disney Princesses -- I was the target demographic for The Little Mermaid, and while I can't attest to how watching that film repeatedly unknowingly influenced me, I can speak to what I knowingly took away from that film. And my children -- my daughter -- will have even more variety than I did, both in terms of racial identity and physical appearance as well as in character and achievement.

Which is part of the reason why we're watching the Disney princess movies in reverse. While Toy Story 3 was my daughter's first Disney movie (mainly because it was on TV over a weekend when I was struggling with some first trimester ickiness), Moana is the first Disney movie she watched when she was old enough to be aware of it.

What really got me thinking of all of this (again) was the other day, when we were finishing up Frozen. My daughter's seen parts of it before -- it's been on TV often enough -- but this was the first time that we actually sat down and watched it. She's also learned who the characters are from several Frozen books we have -- Anna Loves Elsa is her current favorite, I think, but my husband reads her the Pop-Up Adventure book and she loves it -- and connects Elsa with snow (which makes my heart happy).

But then we got to this scene:

You know? One of the BEST parts of the whole movie where Anna has a choice -- she can save herself by running to Kristoff or she can sacrifice herself by running to Elsa and she chooses Elsa? 

To be honest, my daughter was a little concerned at this point -- she didn't quite understand why Anna was so cold or why her fingers were turning blue and she had snowflakes on her cheeks. And when Anna froze, and Elsa flung herself on her sister out of grief -- my daughter turned to look at me, as if searching for reassurance that everything would be okay. Yes, she'll learn one day that a Disney movie means that everything turns out okay for The Good Guys, but in this instance, I just chose to tell her that Elsa was worried about her sister, and so she gave her a hug, because that's what you do when you love someone and you want them to know that. 

And I watched my daughter watch Elsa hug Anna -- I watched her face as Anna's act of true love melted her frozen heart, and the happy ending arrived. Maybe, to my daughter, it was the hug that melted Anna -- not Anna's selfless act; after all, she's not even 2 -- but either way, she got the gist of it. And, right before Anna punched Hans, my daughter came up and gave me a hug. 

Now. Of course my daughter has hugged me before. But it's usually reflexive, or something she seeks out when she falls, or something she does when she's asked, as if to prove that she can do it, like say her name or identify a color. But connecting the act of hugging with a voluntary display of affection...that's been a bit elusive. 

Not anymore. Disney helped my daughter make that connection. Why wouldn't I want her to learn that? 

I think of all the other lessons Disney can teach my daughter, and they're lessons that I want her to learn. 

She loves Moana -- maybe even more than Frozen. (And I'm a proud Mama Bear that she can articulately say Moana, Maui, and hawk -- she wanted to know the words for the pictures she saw.) But I think of all the positive messages that movie can teach her. Like this one. This is her favorite scene in the movie (well, I think it is. She can't really articulate "favorites" yet, but she does ask for the "turtle scene"):

When I watch her watch this part of the movie, this is what I see: I see her anxious for the baby turtle -- even though she doesn't quite understand why, she knows Baby Moana is concerned for it, and she's concerned -- I see her watch Baby Moana protect it and care for it, show compassion for another living creature, and I see her watch Baby Moana save the turtle, reuniting it with it's parents (Squirt from Finding Nemo maybe?!). 

And, again: how could I not want my daughter to learn that message? 

Yes, I know Disney isn't perfect. Believe me, I know. I spend a good deal of my non-teaching-work-time reading about how awful Disney is for kids and why we shouldn't be exposing our kids to their messages. 

But then I think about my daughter's spontaneous hug and watching her learn the value of caring for an animal and...the bad messages don't seem so bad. After all, it's not like she won't have me harping in her ear about why the "bad" things aren't that great ("Remember what Queen Elsa said! You can't marry a man you just met! Remember how Kristoff asked Anna's permission before he kissed her? Consent is an important thing!"). I'm totally going to be "that mom." But I guess, to me, the good far outweighs the potentially bad. 

Musings on Whether or Not Cinderella Will Eat My Daughter

Bad title for this post? Not sure. But it's in reference to Peggy Orenstein's landmark book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front-Line of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. The basic premise is that there's a new girly-girl, pretty-in-pink, princess-based culture that's taken over American girlhood -- and not for the better.

I read it for the first time in the Fall of 2015, when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I had been mulling over the idea of a Disney-Princess focused course and, after reading the book, I revamped my entire course in a few weeks. It was all well and good to read Orenstein's thoughts and experiences, but I wanted to discuss it, to talk through the details of her argument, to see what other educated, intelligent individuals thought. And I am so lucky to teach at a university where my students (for the most part) really do engage and grapple with ideas like these.

Since my daughter was born, I've found myself returning to her ideas over and over again, wondering if and when Orenstein's ideas will start to apply to her. Some of her points already resonate with me more than they did the first time I read the book -- and I imagine that as my daughter gets older, and as I continue to reread the book, different points and ideas will strike me as relevant.

For example -- in Chapter 3, "Pinked," Orenstein ponders the question, "Why has girlhood become so monochromatic?" She muses, "It's not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow, and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls' identity to appearance" (34). She points out that "children weren't color-coded at all until the early twentieth-century" and that, even then, pink was associated more with boys (it was a "muted" version of the powerful red) and blue was more of a girl's color (which is why Disney's Wendy and Alice wear blue dresses). All of this leads up to a discussion of Sesame Street's introduction of Abby Cadabby in 2006:

From L to R: Abby, Zoe, & Rosita

Now, in 2015, I hadn't watched Sesame Street in 25 years so, clearly, I had no context for this. Now, the 25-50 minutes of screen time that my daughter watches is the 1-2 episodes of Sesame Street that we watch in the evenings. (And it's surprisingly entertaining y'all.) The fact that there weren't really female muppets in the cast of Sesame Street wasn't something I had thought about -- and definitely not something I remember from when I was a kid. From what I do remember, Little Me didn't really think of muppets as having a gender identity -- they were just muppets. Bert and Ernie were clearly male, but Big Bird? Grover? It didn't really matter if they were male or female. 

But Abby? Clearly female. And here are Orenstein's thoughts:

"Workshop executives have denied they created Abby with a licensing bonanza in mind; the fact that she is so infinitely marketable, that she dovetailed precisely with the pink-fairy-princess megatrend among girls, was apparently a merely happy coincidence.[...] At every geographic outpost from Disneyland to Sesame Street, executives described the same "taboo-breaking" vision, with an identical self-righteous justification about 'honoring the range of play patterns girls can have.' All this pink-and-pretty, they claimed, was about giving girls more choices, not fewer." (41)

Orenstein's point is what she identifies as the "pink factor" -- this idea in corporate marketing that if you make a regular item, and then you make it in pink, girls will want the pink version. Like the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe:

The "traditional" one is the red and yellow one--but of course there's a pink version (for girls). There's also a pink princess version that has glitter because...why not?

Me being me, I've pretty much refused to have the pink version of things in my house if there's a "boy" color available (which is usually not overly blue, but more primary colors). My daughter has the red car and loves it. Because primary colors are not inherently masculine and pink is not inherently feminine. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't care what color her toy is -- she just loves that she can ride around in her car like Mommy and Daddy.

So when we first turned on Sesame Street -- in a moment of desperation because my newborn son was crying and I needed something to distract my daughter -- I'll admit that I was curious as to which characters she would be drawn to: would Abby be her favorite just because she was "the girl" or the pretty pink fairy?

The answer? Nope. Not even a little bit.

Her favorites, in order, are:
(1) Elmo
(2) Cookie Monster (although he's a very close second -- and depending on the day, he might be first)
(3) Grover
(4) The Count
(5) Big Bird (or, "Duck" as she calls him)
(6) Abby
And I really think Abby is only on the list because she's so heavily featured. Elmo is definitely her favorite: while he's featured the most, I also think there's something about his character that speaks to toddlers. She loves Cookie Monster because -- well? Who doesn't? He OmNomNomz cookies! And The Count is so high up because of the counting segment where they encourage kids to stomp along.

Maybe when she's older, her favorites will change -- and maybe it will be because of gender differences. But right now? I'd like to think that, like me, she doesn't think monsters and muppets have genders. Elmo is just the red monster who laughs and dances a happy dance when he learns something new. Cookie Monster is just the blue monster who loves to eat cookies (again, who doesn't?). And Abby is just the pink monster with wings who waves a magic wand around.

Right now, Elmo is the stuffed animal she places on her chair each night before bed (along with Beast, but that's a different post) so she knows exactly where it is the next morning. 

Once Upon A Time -- Hyperion Heights

Confession: I've been a fan of ABC's Once Upon A Time before it even aired. A show about Disney-versions-of fairy-tale-characters who were living in a modern setting? SOLD.  I loved everything about it -- especially Lana Parilla's Evil Queen/Regina. Seriously. IMHO, she was the best part of the show. (Folks at The Nerdist agree too.)

I even stuck with the show when it got a bit ridiculous. I mean, I know shows "jump the shark" after a certain point, and when you're dealing with fairy-tales and fantasy, that's almost inevitable but...still. I could have done without the whole foray into the Land Of Untold Stories, and I'm pretty sure the addition of Jasmine, Aladdin and Jafar in season 6 was kinda pointless.

So when I read that the show was basically rebooting for this season -- with most of the major cast members leaving -- I was skeptical. Wouldn't that normally be the kiss of death for a show?

But I just watched the season premiere tonight and I gotta say: this might actually be a good thing for the show:

1. Both Lana Parrilla (Regina) and Robert Carlyle (Rumple) are still around, which phew. (So is Hook, but IDK why he's there so the show's got some explaining to do on that front.)
2. Henry Mills is all grown up -- and literally a different actor. Nothing against Jared Gilmore -- he was a great child actor -- but I felt like the show didn't really know what to do with him after a point. (See: The Author storyline.) Now that he's the focus, and portrayed by someone else, the character can grow.
3. I'm intrigued by the shift in the central story from "Snow White" to "Cinderella" -- if not a little skeptical. Yes, Snow White was Disney's first film but Cinderella is by far the more popular story. I'm curious to see their take on it.
4. I really like the new supporting characters -- including Reign's Adelaide Kane as Drizella. Although--where is Anastasia? Why is there only one wicked stepsister (who may or may not be actually wicked)? And her American accent game is on point. 

But the thing that I appreciated the most -- as a children's literature scholar and all-around fairy tale nerd -- came fairly early in the episode. Original Henry is talking to Regina about why he's not going to college and instead taking a gap year to go explore other fairy tale realms. I don't remember the exact line, but he basically acknowledges that there are so many other versions of the stories that he didn't know about -- like a French Snow White, an Italian Snow White, etc. Yeah, he makes it about him -- he's not in any of the other stories and wants to know why -- but I think this acknowledgement of other versions of the fairy tales is a big deal: critics love to lambast Disney for overshadowing those other versions and, in their minds, erasing them. 

There's also another moment, when New-Henry meets New-Cinderella, and he tells her he has to help get her story back on track. She asks if her story has a happy ending -- do these people know they're characters from stories? I'm not really clear where the show landed on that -- and he tells her that yes, it does: in most versions, the prince has to find her first, so she leaves him a sign, in this case the glass slipper. It's subtle, yes, but again, it's an acknowledgement that there are other versions of these stories than the one that comes to mind when you say "Cinderella" or "Snow White." 

Kudos, Disney. Or, well, Kudos, writers. 

Food For Thought...

I came across this video this morning...not exactly sure how, but there it is:

This lyric struck me, as it's one of the issues I grapple with when thinking about villains/evil in Disney films. I'm particularly intrigued by the "no one's evil for evil's sake" part...

"We are all misjudged, we are all begrudged, and of course we've made mistakes
But you can rest assured our hearts are pure, no one's evil for evil's sake
We have all had dreams, things are never as they seem, maybe we're the heroes too
But a happy-ever-after is a dream that won't come true."

I've been fascinated by Disney villains and why they're seen as evil for a while now...there's been a trend lately in pop culture to blur the lines between good and evil, hero and villain, and even Disney hasn't escaped this: there's been an uptick in villain origin stories (perhaps started by Wicked?). I think this is the reason I was so drawn to Once Upon A Time, especially when they delved into the background of Regina/The Evil Queen and Rumple. It was all well and good to see how Snow White and Charming met, but the most dynamic episodes early on were the ones that gave some depth and insight into the Evil Queen's character -- showing that she didn't start off evil; that life (and her abysmal mother) caused her to turn that way.

Can people be evil for evil's sake? What about fictional characters? Do all characters, regardless of whether or not we know it, have an origin story? Is there a time, in that origin story, where they're not evil? If so, what makes them evil? Does it justify their behavior? Or at least allow us, as the audience, to excuse it more easily?

Disney Princesses As...Living in 2017

I haven't done a "Disney Princesses As" post in a while, so it was nice to stumble across these images: according to BoredPanda, the artist is Chilean digital artist Fernanda Suarez, and his current project is to imagine what Disney Princesses would look like if they were living in 2017. Check out his Instagram here.

Setting aside the fact that he is ridiculously talented in a way that I could never even dream of aspiring to, his vision is interesting...most of them look edgier to me, maybe even a little sinister?

For one thing, Jasmine and Pocahontas don't actually look that different, IMHO:

Is there a commentary on exorcized beauty here? Several critics have pointed out that the non-white princesses are more sexualized than their white counterparts, so maybe it's not surprising? (Although, I don't know what it says about 2017 that being "modern" is "sultry"...although maybe it's just the discrepancy from the softer, more innocent animated versions?)

Snow White and Cinderella kinda have this whole zombie/supernatural/paranormal vibe going on...I think it's the eyes. They both have this sultry, come hither vibe, but the coloring gives them that supernatural edge. Plus, nothing says temptation like an apple.

I think Mulan is my favorite though. Maybe it's because she looks so different from the traditional animated version, and maybe because Suarez didn't seem to make her hyper-feminine and fit her into a "delicate" princess mold.

Good, Evil, Beautiful, Ugly -- Plotting Game of Thrones Characters

I'm absolutely fascinated by this article from The New York Times that popped up in my Facebook feed the other day: "Good, Evil, Ugly, Beautiful: Help Us Make a ‘Game of Thrones’ Chart."

Basically, it's an interactive chart that allows you to assess each character based on their "goodness" and their "attractiveness" -- e.g., Cersei is, arguably, beautiful but batshit crazy and super-evil.

Yes, this is purely for Game of Thrones, but I'm fascinated by the overall project. After all, both attractiveness and goodness, especially with regards to fictional characters in a complex fantasy world, are highly subjective.

For example: my Best Friend and I take completely different stances on Danerys Targaryen. I would place her in the "Beautiful and Mostly Good" category, since I'm #TeamTargaryen and am rooting for her. But the Best Friend would probably place her in the "Beautiful but Kinda Evil" category, since she's #TeamStark.
But what do you do with characters like the White Walkers? I mean, sure. From our perspective, they should be Evil, because they're killing the characters we've grown attached to. But what if they feel like they're justified?
And what do we do with someone like, say, Jamie Lannister? Or Arya Stark? Both characters started out firmly in one camp -- Jamie was bad (he pushed a kid out of a tower!) and Arya was good (she was an innocent little girl). But the morality lines have definitely blurred...Jamie's redeemed himself in a lot of ways (mainly through his friendship with Brienne) and Arya is literally an assassin. Not so clear-cut.

I mean, characters like Ramsay and Joffrey -- that's pretty obvious. But not for everyone. (Which is part of what makes good fantasy so...well, good. And important for younger readers.)

The article does point out that this isn't a static exercise: that it was inspired by a Instagram post of a scatter plot that has already changed over the seasons as characters act and react to plot events. But the key point was this:

"In a way, how the characters are distributed in the plot speaks to how we (or the show’s creators) view the nature of goodness. If the characters lie along a diagonal line from the bottom left to the top right, it means that — whether in how they are depicted or just our perception — we may be conflating moral and physical goodness. If, on the other hand, there's no real trend, it suggests that readers can easily disentangle their perceptions of morality and physical attractiveness." [my emphasis]

To me, there's the connection to Disney -- and the Villain-centric course I've been teaching these past few semesters. After all, according to the idea I kinda ascribed to above -- i.e., that good fantasy gets at complex portrayals of characters, blurring the lines between morality and between morality and appearance -- Disney movies (most of them) are not "good fantasy." (See also: something like Harry Potter, where Snape is perhaps the ultimate example of an unattractive-but-ultimately-good-but-still-does-super-questionable-things character.) Definitely something Disney doesn't do -- at least in it's earlier films, where evil is pretty much always "unattractive" (according to the standard of the day -- there's a big difference in the unattractiveness of Cruella de Vil vs. Ursula) and good is always beautiful/handsome. Newer Disney movies are starting to challenge this -- e.g. Hans in Frozen didn't look like a "typical Disney villain" -- so I'd be fascinated to see what a Disney version of this would look like.

[But fairy tales are also not traditional fantasy -- the functions of the stories are completely different. What gets really interesting, to me, is when we look at the Disney adaptations of traditional literary fairy tales -- do we view a film like Beauty and the Beast as a fairy tale or as a children's fantasy movie?]