One of the things that struck me when I watched Inside Out was the similarities to the characters in Winnie The Pooh. I've actually had some students write papers on how the characters represent different mental health issues. It's an interesting theory...I don't know if was a conscious decision on A. A. Milne's part, or if it just works that way because children go through so many different complex emotions.
Either way, when I saw Inside Out, Sadness immediately reminded me of Eeyore. Again, I don't know if that was a conscious decision on the Pixar writers' part or if it was, again, coincidence. I'd almost be inclined to say that Inside Out and Winnie The Pooh have similar understandings and depictions of childhood emotions, so the similarities make sense.
So when my TeeFury email this morning announced a new collection called "All The Feels" which mashes up Inside Out and Winnie The Pooh, I was in love. My favorite is, of course, the Sadness/Eeyore one and I may or may not have clicked "Add To Cart." :) See the designs by artist Kat Haynes below and get yours before August 4th!
When we tell people we have a "Disney Art Wall," we tend to get our fair share of skeptical looks and raised eyebrows. I can only imagine what they're picturing -- I would bet it involves lots of cutesy cartoons.
But we'd like to think that it's a bit classier than that...we hope. Lots of artists have licenses that allow them to create Disney-inspired works without violating Disney's strict copyright policy and they're sold at places like the Art of Disney and the Wonderground Gallery. They're some of our favorite places to visit when we go to the parks and we try and buy one, nice piece each trip we take. The last time we went to Disneyland, we got a series of prints by J. Scott Campbell who does this really cool work where he mashes up a Disney Princess and her villain -- they only had 3, so I'm looking for a fourth one so I can make a set and frame them.
A few days ago, when she came back from ComicCon, she listed some original artwork in her Etsy shop, and I was lucky enough to purchase a print of Elsa. And today it arrived in the mail! It's so pretty and I love it and I can't wait to display it!!
One of my favorite things is watching summer thunderstorms. (Well, technically, they can occur during any season, but they're just so much more prominent during the summer.) I love sitting on the front porch, listening to the wind gust and set the wind chimes tinkling, watching the dark clouds roll in...and watching the lightning dance across the sky. A good summer thunderstorm is both an awe-inspiring and humbling experience -- you realize just how powerful and magnificent Mother Nature is.
Now combine a summer thunderstorm + Disney World firework in front of Cinderella Castle + Starbucks, and you'd have three of my most favorite things in the whole world.
Sadly, I rarely go to Orlando in the summer (the heat! the humidity!) so I've never actually seen a Disney storm, but if you were in the Magic Kingdom for the Fourth of July, then you could have seen what was apparently amazing sight:
(c) Alexandra Gaffney
(c) Cassie Moore
(c) Stephanie Schultz
And of course Disneyphiles have a great sense of humor about it:
Last night, the DH and I went to go see Inside Out. I'll post a full review soon -- I don't think I expected it to resonate with me as deeply as it did, and I'm still processing it.
But. From the beginning of the movie, the one thing that struck me was how similar the concept was to Figment ride at EPCOT, Journey Into Imagination With Figment. The video below is from the "reboot" of the ride--when they added Eric Idle and played up the whole Imagination Institute aspect, but I remember the original version of the ride with Dreamfinder (which is actually now a Marvel comic).
This was one of my favorite rides when I was little: (1) it was (and kinda still is) one of the only rides at EPCOT and (2) there's this interactive "play land" at the end of the ride where kids can just go crazy.
According to Wikipedia, the original version of the ride featured Dreamfinder who
"uses his vehicle (called the Dream Mobile or Dream Catcher by some fans) to collect dreams and ideas to create all sorts of new things. Soon he creates a figment of his imagination...Both Dreamfinder and the dragon Figment imagine things to fill the "idea bag". When the idea bag is full, Dreamfinder declares that the ideas need to be emptied in the "Dreamport" which, as he says, is "never far away when you use your imagination." [...] At the end, Dreamfinder tells Figment and the audience that Imagination is the key to unlocking the hidden wonders of the world."
Then you've got the plot of Inside Out:
"A girl named Riley is born in Minnesota, and in her mind, five manifestations of her emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear,Disgust, and Anger—come to life. The emotions live in Headquarters, Riley's conscious mind, where they influence Riley's actions and memories via a control console. Her new memories are housed in colored spheres, which are sent into storage at the end of every waking period. The most important memories, known as "core memories", are housed in a hub in Headquarters and power five "islands" that each reflect a different aspect of Riley's personality."
(c) Disney/Pixar
The similarities are, to me, quite striking. First--there's the anthropomorphism of abstract concepts -- Figment of Imagination in the ride, and the emotions Joy, Sadness, etc. in the film.
Then there's also the idea of -- literally -- traveling into Imagination. It's the premise of the ride, of course, but in the film, Joy and Sadness literally go into Riley's Imagination:
(c) Disney/Pixar
Then there's this Easter Egg:
(c) http://heckyeahfiggy.tumblr.com
A picture of Figment is in the trash heap of Imagination land. :(
I'm a bit worried for one of my childhood favorites. Perhaps an Easter Egg is just an Easter Egg -- a cute tongue-in-cheek reference to Imagination and its decline as you grow older. Just as Bing Bong isn't as important to Riley, so Figment isn't as important to EPCOT and its visitors.
But, given Disney's recent remodeling Enterprises in other parks -- New Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom, Avatar-land in Animal Kingdom, the expansion of Pixar Place in Hollywood Studios, and the Frozen ride in the Norway pavilion at EPCOT -- I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that Journey Into Imagination might be getting a makeover soon.
What I would love to see is a merging of the two ideas -- an expansion of the ride-concept -- rather than just a complete take-over, even though I would imagine that that's the plan. I don't know how it would work logistically, in terms of the building space (they could get rid of Captain EO and take that over, I wouldn't mind), but it'd be a great way to honor the original ride and still tie in the movie. Amy Poehler would probably replace Eric Idle's Dr. Nigel Channing (one comedy genius to another) and I could imagine Joy taking guests on a tour of the mind rather than of the Imagination Institute. But, when it came time to visit the Imagination, Bing Bong and Figment could take over together.
*sigh* A girl can dream, right?
After all, even the control console that the Emotions use to "guide" Riley seem tailor-made to replace the consoles in the play-land after the ride:
(c) Disney/Pixar
If Figment is replaced with the Inside Out characters so soon after Frozen has infiltrated the World Showcase...well, EPCOT may soon look quite different. And I don't know if that's a good thing or not...
A photo posted by Styles 2 Blaze (@styles2blaze) on
I try to avoid being political here and focus only on the academic side of things, but I can't let this moment go unacknowledged. And I'm so glad to see that Disney recognized and supported this decision -- because if anyone should support the expansion of the legal definition of "love"it's the company that defined "love" and "happy ever after" for America in the twentieth century.
I cannot begin to explain how much I love the fact that these photos are going viral. They're a girls softball team in Oklahoma and the name of the team is Freeze. (According to Buzzfeed, they wanted to be the Sparkling Elsas, but then thought "Freeze" sounded tougher. It's not clear who decided that it sounded tougher...perhaps they had some help...but still.)
One of the things that bugs me most about Disney Princess discussions is the idea that girls who watch Disney Princess movies and buy Disney Princess products will somehow be inundated with outdated values and will grow up thinking that the role of a domesticated 1950s housewife is the only route open to them.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be a housewife and mother -- I take issue with the logic that watching Disney Princess movies will teach girls that that is the only option available to them. That "princesses" and "being active/assertive/independent" are somehow incompatible -- that a princess only means being dainty and fragile and passive. Even the First Wave Princesses (Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora) aren't entirely fragile and passive. (Although the case for Aurora is admittedly tough to make.)
So I love that these photos demonstrate that a girl can wear a sparkly princess dress and still be tough. Because the two are not, believe it or not, mutually exclusive.
This one flew under my radar -- while I knew about The Good Dinosaur, I hadn't heard about this one. Teaser trailer doesn't give much away story-wise, but it looks cute! And Disney has a long tradition of cute, anthropomorized-animal movies -- particularly with foxes. (Plus, Ginnifer Goodwin is the voice of the female lead, though you wouldn't know it from the trailer!)
