Dumbo First Reactions -- Burton Is Back

Y'all know I've had my reservations about Tim Burton's Dumbo. (Check out my past thoughts here.)  But apparently, this film is surprising people:

via EW

There are some negative first reactions, of course, but on the whole, people seem to have enjoyed it and are calling it Burton's best film in years. When Burton is good, he's very, very good. The thing is, he kinda hasn't been for awhile. But maybe that's about to change?

DUMBO stole my heart. I'm totally cool with it. Congrats to everyone behind this beautiful, surprising & visually mindblowing film. pic.twitter.com/cekRIzTOcc

— Julia Hart (@juliahartowitz) March 12, 2019

Our reporter @minkus saw #Dumbo. “It’s absolutely wonderful - a beautiful story, quite different than the original, that won’t leave a dry eye in the theater. The cast is kismet together on screen. It’s one of Tim Burton’s best in a long time.” Full review on the 26th. pic.twitter.com/1VvhDU9dbl

— Attractions Magazine (@Attractions) March 12, 2019

I really enjoyed #Dumbo⁠ ⁠. It’s a beautiful and whimsical movie, starring a CGI elephant with so much heart. It’s also a rather simple tale, so don’t expect tons of character septh. But I still had a blast with the ride it took me on and it’s the best Burton’s been in years. pic.twitter.com/tKu6eHfKlM

— Chris E. Hayner (@ChrisHayner) March 12, 2019

I know I don’t sound too enthused about this movie but it was enjoyable, and it is certainly worlds better than Beauty and the Beast and Mary Poppins Returns. For reference, the only Disney live action remakes I liked were Jungle Book and Cinderella.

— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) March 12, 2019

Okay, I don't really understand this one because I thought Mary Poppins Returns was fantastic and so creatively and subtly tied to the books.

New Year's Promise FAIL

One of my New Year's Promises (I'm not sold on the word "promises," but it's better than "resolutions" so...) was to blog more. Whoops.

But it's Spring Break, and this seems to be a good time to hit "reset."

So, starting nice and easy: Disney recently released a new poster for Maleficent 2. Take a look below:

Like many of Disney's projects this year, not much is known about the plot. Both Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning are returning (as Maleficent and Aurora, respectively) -- as are Juno Temple and Imelda Staunton as two of the three fairies (don't get me started on their characters from the original film). The big casting for the sequel is Michelle Pfeiffer as "Queen Ingrith," but no one really knows what her role will entail.

But the "reveal" from the trailer comes in the subtitle of the sequel: "Mistress of Evil."

I mean...that's our girl Maleficent. At least, in the 1959 film:

The only problem is that that's not Maleficent's MO anymore. That's the whole point of the 2014 film. The first line of the film is literally, "Let us tell an old story anew and we will see how well you know it."The whole point is that Maleficent isn't really evil, she's just a scorned woman who made a bad decision but ultimately was saved by true (maternal) love. 

Which raises the question: Who is the Mistress of Evil? I, of course, want it to be Maleficent, but I doubt it will be. Which leaves, potentially, Michelle Pfeiffer's character. 

I would like to say, "I'm sure Disney will come through with a stellar storyline" but...after the first movie, I can't be too sure. On the one hand, yes. I thought it was fantastic that Disney took one of their most passive female characters and created a film that didn't hinge on romantic love. But, on the other hand, Maleficent is the most bad-ass Disney villain (and if Buzzfeed agrees, it must be true 😂).  She's evil just because she wants to be. There's no tragic backstory, no jilted lover, no scorned woman. And Disney took that away in their attempt to...I'm not really sure. I think "create an empowered fairy-tale retelling that didn't pit women against each other." So, yeah. I'm not super optimistic at the moment. 

Disney's Live-Action Remake: Ursula Should Not HAVE To be Thicc

Yesterday, when I was scrolling through Facebook, I came across this article:

TBH, I felt really old because I didn't know who Lizzo is and I totally had to Google her.

Okay, Disclaimer before I go any further: I am not opposed to Lizzo playing Ursula; this article just reminded me of another one I read a few weeks ago:

Now, this...this I have thoughts on. Lots of thoughts.

First: y'all know my love for The Little Mermaid runs deep, no matter how many critics -- and celebrities (I'm looking at you, Kiera Knightley) -- point out how problematic it is. (I'm more in-line with the authors of this article from Time.)
Second: y'all know I'm super excited about the live-action remake -- especially because it means Lin-Manuel Miranda is teaming up with Alan Menken and if that isn't a match made in a Disney fan's Heaven, I don't know what is. (Plus, I'm hoping LMM will be nominated for an Oscar for ANYTHING he writes here and The Little Mermaid will be the film that makes him an EGOT winner.)
Third: I firmly believe Ursula is one of the -- if not THE -- best Disney villains and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is my go-to car-karaoke-jam.

But.

I take issue with The Mary Sue's post caption, and the article doesn't do much to assuage me. Chelsea Steiner's writing in response to the rumors -- emphasis on rumors -- that Lady Gaga might play Ursula in the live-action adaptation. Here's her argument:

"Sea witch, please: Ursula is a fat girl icon. In an animated world populated with slender princesses, Ursula has stood out not only as a legendary Disney villain, but as an unlikely role model for body positivity. Ursula is confident, clever, and able to run a successful business helping poor unfortunate merfolk solve their problems. 

Ursula makes being bad look like a total blast, which is a shocking rarity for plus-size women in popular culture, who are too frequently portrayed as the butt of the joke. Ursula is not a dowdy shrew, nor is she a desperate wannabe seeking approval from King Triton and the rest of Atlantica. She marches to beat of her own drum fish, no matter how unpopular it may be. 

Over the years, Ursula has become an unlikely icon for the LGBTQ+ community as well. It’s well known that the character was based on John Waters’ muse, the outlandish drag queen Divine, and was brought to life by the music of gay lyricist Howard Ashman."

To Steiner's credit, I kinda see her point. I do agree that she's become an "icon for the LGBTQ+ community" -- the character's connection to Divine and Ashman have been solidified over the years, and it's a piece of Disney Trivia that always blows my students' minds.
I also agree that Ursula "makes being bad look like a total blast," because I'm a sucker for a villain who enjoys being bad and doesn't have some broken-heart-backstory that "explains" her villainy.

But that's just the thing: Ursula IS a villain. Seeing her as running "a successful business" when she's actually manipulating merfolk, no matter how naive they may be, by preying on their weaknesses and insecurities because of some vendetta with Triton? That's a loose interpretation at best.

And, yes. Steiner's not wrong when she says that, "in an animated world populated with slender princesses, Ursula has stood out" -- but I don't think it's in a good way. There are so few plus-size characters in Disney at all -- only a handful come to mind. Russell from Up is one, as are Lilo and Nani from Lilo & Stitch and while Elasti-Girl is surprisingly hippy for an animated character -- as she should be! She's had three kids! -- she still has that impossibly tiny Disney waist. But narrow the parameters to princess movies? The only non-hourglass shaped females are older, benevolent females -- the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella; the Three Fairies from Sleeping Beauty; and Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast.

And then there's Ursula. Her age is a little hard to pin-down, and even figuring out that she's a contemporary of Triton's isn't much of a help, since he's white-haired but surprisingly muscular. Plus, the guy's got a 16 year old daughter. But, like most-villains, she's probably middle-aged -- older than the teenage princesses but younger than the benevolent helper fairies.

So, here's my grief: when your most famous plus-size character is a villain -- when your only plus-size character is a villain -- that's not body positivity or empowering. That's problematic. There's a critic who, I think, says it more succinctly than I can. While I find Robert Trites' argument, as a whole, problematic in parts, I think she's accurate on the matter of Ursula's weight:

"The Disney-constructed conflict in The Little Mermaid is between an overweight, ugly woman and a doe-eyed heroine with a figure less realistic than a Barbie doll's. Once Ursula transforms herself into a rival love-interest for the prince, the conflict is between a dark-haired anorexic and a fairer one. The stereotyping of evil as dark and good as fair is traditional, but only recently has Disney associated corpulence with evil. Disney's villainesses before the 1970s look predatory because they are so thin...In the 1970s, Disney begins to reflect the cultural emphasis on weight consciousness.[...] The movie's portrayal of good as fairer and thinner than evil presents a bigoted distortion of the human body."

Because when Trites brings up Vanessa -- the "dark-haired anorexic"; this is the late 1980s, the era of heroin chic -- she makes a point about the dark vs. light aspect of her appearance, but neglects to consider a broader implication. This may be because Trites thinks Eric is "easily deceived by Ursula's disguising herself as the raven-headed ingenue who possesses the little mermaid's voice. Eric loves the imposter as he has loved the image in his mind: for her physical attributes and for nothing more" (148). To Trites, Eric dismisses Ariel once he hears Vanessa's sing--but Trites doesn't acknowledge the role magic plays here. Eric, with the magic smoke seeping into his eyes, is clearly enchanted by Ursula-as-Vanessa, as evidenced by his robotic behavior in front of Grimsby when he announces the marriage.

To me, here's the crux: if Ursula was really a body-positive character, why would she voluntarily choose to look like a "raven-headed ingenue"? After all, Eric is enchanted and she has Ariel's voice: it shouldn't matter what she looks like since she can simply enchant them to focus on her voice. Taking human form is a necessity, obviously, but the shape of that human form is important:

She chooses to slim waaay down -- when given the choice, she chooses not only a slimmer figure, but a thin figure. She is just as thin as Ariel, retaining nothing of her previously curvy, fuller-figured size. If she was truly a body-positive character, comfortable in her own skin and size, then that would translate to her human form, her victory ensured as it is through magic.

So, no. I can't get behind this #KeepUrsulaThicc movement. I'm sure Lizzo would do a great job -- as Rebel Wilson before her as done. Hell, I'd even support Titus Burgess in the role, although I don't think Disney would go that way for a variety of reasons. But you know what? I think Lady Gaga would kill it, too.

Because I don't think Ursula has to be "thicc" to be great -- not when a real-life person would be portraying her. I would much rather see a #MakeArielThicc movement start, as I think the body-positive movement would be impacted so much more significantly by a plus-size princess than a plus-size villain.
  

Review: Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks The Internet

It's #ThrowbackThursday today, so let's rewind to last week when my in-laws watched our kids for the day so we could go Black Friday Shopping and continue our annual tradition of eating grilled cheese sandwiches at Pop's Soda Shop and watching a movie at The Grandin.

We deviated a little from tradition last year -- we chose Murder on the Orient Express over Coco -- but we're back on track:

And y'all? 

It was SO GOOD. 

Clarification: if push came to shove, I'd have to say the first one was better -- but in a different way, if that makes any sense. Wreck-It Ralph was so filled with nostalgia for me -- a child of the late 80s/early 90s -- and I loved the newness of it. This, IMHO, was the start of Disney Renaissance II's original stories, those not based on any previous source material (see also: Zootopia). It was also so smart, and clever, and the villain reveal was refreshing, something so different from Disney's long line of obvious, usually offensively stereotyped villains -- as was the way Disney toyed with the idea of villainy and what it means to be bad. 

But Ralph Breaks The Internet was just as good, just in a different way. The nostalgia factor wasn't there, nor was the commentary on villainy. But there were other things, equally new and refreshing for a Disney movie -- especially a Disney princess movie. Because I think it's important to remember that Vanellope is, technically,  a Disney princess. 

📷: Disney

More, spoilery thoughts beneath the cut! 

This Is Not A Drill: The Lion King Teaser Trailer

After an unscheduled 2-month hiatus (😳#momlife #professorlife #whatworklifebalance 😳) of course it would take The Lion King teaser trailer to get me back into blogging.

Fun fact: my husband is a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan. So, of course, Thursday night after Thanksgiving dinner, he was glued to the TV watching the Cowboys-Redskins game. I was mostly checked out, watching the kids, chatting with relatives, glancing up at the screen every now and then out of habit. It was hard to hear much since I was sitting pretty far away from the TV and multiple conversations in a small space make a fair amount of noise.

So when I looked up at the TV and saw "And the Director of The Jungle Book" -- I had a moment. It went something like, "Disney's The Jungle Book? Or do they mean Andy Serkis' version that's going to straight to Netflix release? Jon Favreau directed the Disney version...that's how he got The Lion King gig. I wonder when we'll see a trailer for that. My students have been clamoring for a trailer for that.  It has to be soon right? WAIT. Cowboys/Redskins is a big event with a lot of viewers...would Disney drop a trailer for one of their biggest hits during a high-traffic TV event on a family-centric holiday? OMFG YES THEY WOULD EVERYBODY HUSH AND BE QUIET." [<--This last bit was actually said outloud to the bewilderment of my husband's family.]

Oh well. I watched it and then Googled it and watched it again. Maybe 5 times.

And, yes. It looks (and, TBH, sounds) like a shot-for-shot remake of the original and I DON'T EVEN CARE. Don't come at me with your negativity, bro.

There's a part of me -- a tiny part -- that wonders, "Why remake a movie if it's just going to be the exact same?" so I do hope they do something different with the film.

But then there's another part of me that just doesn't care because there are cute baby CGI lions and James Earl Jones intoning those iconic lines in Mufasa's voice. Don't get me wrong -- there is literally no one else who could have filled those shoes but...that had to be a super easy day at the office for him, amirite?

Watch (and rewatch) the trailer below:

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?

New Wreck It Ralph Trailer

It's a big week for Disney-related things -- new trailers for Mary Poppins Returns, Captain Marvel and now Ralph Breaks the Internet:

Fewer princesses, more details about the plot. I was wondering what the motivation was for Ralph and Vanellope to leave the arcade and go explore the Internet, and now we know: Vanellope's game is broken and they need to find a piece on Ebay. (Where else?) 

We also get a glimpse of Gal Godot's character, who seems to be a racer, albeit in a much different game, like Vanellope and there seems to be some female bonding going on. (Will she be a bad guy though? I'm skeptical of all secondary characters in Disney movies though...no matter how wondrous they are in real life.) 

I'll end with these screenshots from the trailer that just make my heart happy.