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Because even though I can put on my Professor Cap and analyze why Cinderella presents outdated gender roles from the 1950s, I can still also see the good in it.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. 

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?]