Make it Blue!

[fictionadventurer]

Do you guys ever think about the Prince in the animated Disney Cinderella is a male character given the traits that are typical of the underdeveloped female love interest? His father's only goal for him is to get married and have children. He has almost no personality besides being good-looking. He could be replaced by a sexy lamp. He's less of a character and more of a reward for the much-more-developed heroine. It's a fascinating gender role reversal.

[bellaaldamas]

Criticizing modern Disney is a losing battle because the people who remotely share your viewpoint are conservative leaning, evangelical anti-feminists who refuse to recognize any semblance of genuine feminist messages in the Renaissance era movies (even though they are there, deal with it, cry about it but they just are). Modern Disney uses it as a "proof" they are doing everything right because if you anger conservative evangelicals your day is well spent and I would feel the same way if I was a content creator (even though I, unlike the alt left, respect everyone's right to personal space). There is literally no winning for the people who want progress and feminism in Disney but NOT the way it presents itself now.

[fictionadventurer]

It’s not like Tangled needs any more reasons to be awesome, but I stumbled across this interview with Glen Keane, and it made me love the people behind this movie a million times more.

Would you call Tangled a feminist movie? Your female characters, regardless of who they are, good or bad, are strong and persevering.

Glen Keane: I don’t think of Tangled as a feminist or non-feminist movie. I think of Rapunzel as an example of the highest qualities of human nature, male or female. I see her as an illustration of every human being who is born with a divine spark, a potential to become something unique. And the walls that surround her, and hold her back, are symbolic of walls in anyone’s life, those things that hold us back from being who we really long to be. Yes, that is feminist and masculinist and humanist.

This bowled me over. I’ve never seen anything like this from the “feminist” moviemakers. Whenever there’s a strong female character, the creators talk about how she’s going to be an inspiration for girls. Or about how she’s a good enough character that boys can like her even though she’s a girl.

This was the first time I’d ever seen anyone in Hollywood talk about a female character as representing humanity, regardless of gender. Talking about her as the center of a universal story. She’s a female, but she doesn’t only represent females. She represents everyone because there are certain experiences that everyone can relate to. It’s stunning and beautiful and good and true, and it explains a lot about why this movie is such a great fairy tale.

[artist-issues]

Let’s be real. Rachel Zegler is responsible for her own actions and attitude and bad taste, and she’s hurt her own image.

But the Snow White movie isn’t failing because of Rachel Zegler alone. It’s failing because it sucks as a whole. It’s failing because these remakes are Disney trying to flash colors and names and sounds we recognize in front of our faces and go “we made the sound you like, now beg for a treat,” instead of making a good story, or at least paying genuine tribute to one. But their audiences (most of them) are not going to shell out for a bad product, and that’s it.

I hate how Rachel Zegler talks about the real Snow White.

But I also think if she were 100% respectful and wanted to pay genuine tribute to the original and really understood the character, it still wouldn’t have saved this remake. Because the story got changed. The effects are bad. The songs are worse.

I also think the company is totally fine subtly pinning the entire disaster on Rachel Zegler as a way to make it look like her fault and distract from the fact that they made another bad movie and this time nobody went to see it.

If they can get everybody talking and commenting about the 23 year-old who won’t stop running her mouth, and how “Even Disney is pulling her from the press tour!” then they’re painted in a slightly better light and then nobody’s talking about the fact that they made another bad movie. They’re talking about how insipid one actress is.

I have lots of posts defending the original Snow White or analyzing it or talking about why load-bearing parts of it shouldn’t be changed…but by far the one that gets the most clicks and reblogs is the one that’s focused on Rachel Zegler’s comments.

So Disney’s strategy is working. Yall would rather make hubbub about a 23 year-old girl’s immature lack of understanding than you would the bigger problem; there’s a whole company of executives and producers and shareholders who think they can buy your time and repurpose your nostalgia while they corrode the original—and then when it goes wrong they let you eat one actress alive instead of taking the blame, themselves.

Rachel Zegler is an actress. More than anybody, she is responsible for her own mannerisms and choices when it comes to how she presents what she thinks and what she supports. She’s responsible for her own actions. She’s not responsible for all of the company’s actions, though.

And again real quick—the reason any of it is important is because stories convincingly harness your emotions to argue for certain values. Values strung together make up a worldview. A worldview fuels your choices. And choices have eternal consequences, they make or break the world we live in and the world our kids live in. Therefore stories are a hammer in a storyteller’s hand: they can build or break the audience.

Disney’s been using the fact that they are a unique storyteller—they have the upper hand, they raised us on their older stories so our emotions from being kids are tangled up in their older stories—to take advantage of us. They’re using their “hammer” as a weapon to make them money, not a building tool to make the world better.

But watch Disney keep subtly pretending to “be on our side about the whole Rachel Zegler thing, boy isn’t she the worst?” until the next Live Action gets cast, when they cast someone vaguely conservative-leaning or someone who’s still amazingly liberal leaning, but has been coached to say all the right things about the original in press tours. So that bloggers and content-creators and influencers can start their reels with phrases like, “looks like Disney has finally learned its lesson in casting after the Rachel Zegler mistake!”

And that’s so not the point, also it’s super underhanded. Don’t fall for it.

[waltdisneyconfessions]

It hurts me that Frozen kind of punishes Anna for trying to do something about her emotional neglect and unfulfillment in life. It felt like they were blaming the victim. Disney themselves have the gall to criticize their own princesses for being “passive” victims, but they punish Anna for doing the exact opposite, via criticism from every major Frozen character and freezing her heart.

[mandyla]

[classicdisneyprincesses]

[disneyadaptations]

Belle & Beast + Romeo & Juliet

[fantasia1940-blog]

tbh that moment in which the Belle read to the Beast/taught him how to read in the 1991 version was just SO SWEET and so romantic and in the live action they just turned the Beast into this know-it-all, obnoxious thing? HONESTLY WTF

[fandomlife-confessions]

[auroraismoving]

[fandomlife-confessions]

[alwaysdisneybound]

[dispiritedfae]

Sleep isn’t enough anymore I need to be in a coma

[marciabrady]

why in disney it's always women who hurt other women? not very realistic since men make up the vast majority of abusers

If you're referring to the classic movies, I love the diversity of character depictions we see via those ladies and, in general, I'm for casts being majority female. It's way more compelling to me than movies like Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin or Hunchback, where it's like 90% men. Who makes up the majority of abusers isn't a statistic I think could realistically be measured. With classic Disney though, I think it just has to do with the casts being mostly women.

Look at Cinderella- sure the villains are three women, but she also has a Fairy Godmother and those five women comprise an overwhelming majority of the movie. Look at Sleeping Beauty- between Maleficent and the Three Good Fairies and Aurora, the women in that film have beyond 70% of the screentime/dialogue over the male characters. Old Disney always had more of a focus on women- the first employee of the Walt Disney company was a woman, movies like Peter Pan had creative teams compromising of at least 50% women, I mean the first film they ever made was about a woman (Snow White), Walt even adopted a girl when he had a choice between picking genders- I think they just steered toward being female heavy in general, so that's probably why you noticed that trend with old Disney. We've totally gotten away from that now though- everything is either entirely male lead (look at Pixar's catalog of movies) orrr they have female characters as the primary female character that's "one of the guys" and totally devoid of femininity/talks poorly on other women or femininity whenever she can.

[animentality]

[lumadreamland]

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

[marciabrady]

What do you think of the Love at First Sight trope, especially when it comes to the early Disney Princess movies? Some people may find love at first sight to be hackneyed or outdated these days, but I am very interested in what you have to say about it. I don't think you ever talked about it at length.

I think it's beautiful. A lot of people bash on it for not being realistic, but there's something to be said for things that are either aspirational or simply escapist. And, honestly, I don't think it's that bad of a thing to glorify or like? It's a fantasy- Cinderella has a pumpkin coach, not an uber lol it's totally feasible that she'd meet the love of her life while going to a ball that her Fairy Godmother sent to and it is to distinguish that, in these universes, these are the loves of their life (otherwise Snow White and Aurora still would've been under sleeping curses). And I think, in the age where most people can't even get someone to commit or a text back after a first date, being able to see the example of someone as steadfast as Snow White's Prince, who continues to look for her for seasons even when she seems lost to him, is something that is refreshing and healthy.

They each go about showcasing this notion in different ways. Snow White is an orphan with no one in the world that loves her, and her wish in the well is very clear. "I'm dreaming of the nice things he'll say." Before it can echo back to her, she finds him- the literal answer to her hopes and dreams. That's so empowering to me? That she believed she was enough and wanted better for herself, and knew what she wanted, and that his existence was contingent upon her wish in the well. It's a young, sweet romance- that's so pure. When he sings of his love being "constant and true," we see it in the film, as he continues to search for her until the very end and which lends credence to Snow White singing "Someday My Prince Will Come." She doesn't stress over whether they will ever see one another, because despite the time or distance that might separate them, they're never lost to one another. That's why she tells the hag, "Well, there is someone" when she's asked if that's someone she loves.

Cinderella and Charming's love is also different- neither of them were looking for it or expected it. Cinderella never mentions wanting love, nor does Charming; to the contrary, Charming is placed in front of an endless bevy of beautiful women, decked out in the finest clothing they have, and he's unimpressed (I dare anyone to tell me that his interest in Cinderella was based on looks). Appearances mean little to nothing to him. While we listen to the Grand Duke's metatextual speech though, we see Charming spot Cinderella out from the crowd and approach her. "There she stands, the girl of his dreams. Who she is or whence she came, he knows not. Nor does he care. But his heart tells him that here, here is the maid predestined to be his bride." It's a pure vibes thing, and when you are in contact with that person you were meant for, many consider this to be a twin flame, it changes everything. That's why Charming knew he could never go back to life the way it was before the ball after Cinderella left; he couldn't live a life without her. I also think it's so fitting for them and cute that they vibed out for hours at the ball, considering Cinderella fighting so hard to go to a party so that she could enjoy herself.

Aurora and Phillip also have their unique connection. They're both extremely romantic and fantasy oriented- Phillip literally slays a dragon for Aurora's honor and promises to renounce the throne after meeting her for a single afternoon. Aurora, while she returns to the castle to fulfill her royal obligation, feels that life without him is empty and can't contemplate a life without love- it'd be like a bird without a song. While they have different temperaments and characters, I think they compliment one another beautifully and have such great chemistry that it truly does feel as though they'd met once upon a dream.

In any of these cases, if the connections were shallow or something where one forgot about the other the next day, that'd be another matter entirely. But they were all willing to fight for their love, show commitment under extreme circumstances, a unyielding devotion, and both a chemistry and a connection that was special unto each pairing and underlined a natural affinity toward one another so I don't see what's wrong with it and I lean more toward these types of relationships over the Disney ones where they just yell at one another repeatedly or resort to physical violence for comedy.

[mianakenobi]

Dear News Media

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE WAS A FEMINIST STORY LONG BEFORE ELIZABETH BENNET EVER HAD TO KILL ZOMBIES. 

The idea of a single woman with no fortune, who is boss enough to reject not one, but TWO marriage proposals - even though they would both greatly increase the ease of her life by either marrying the heir to her family estate or marrying one of the richest men in England - just because SHE DOESN’T WANT TO, who is brave enough to be snarky and cheeky and takes no shit from people who are so far above her social standing just because they are rude to her and her family, who is adamant that the only person she will marry will be for love, THIS is a feminist story.  

STOP ACTING LIKE GIVING HER A SWORD SUDDENLY MAKES HER A FEMINIST ICON.  She’d held that title in her dainty glove for over 200 years.