#tinkerbelle

[mkorvac]

[bird-prince-art]

Tink! Tink! Tink!

[thelaughingserpent]

For movie night with my friend's twins last week, we watched the original Peter Pan.

We all know about the film's infamous portrayal of Native Americans. Racist and outright dehumanizing. That remains an atrocity. (Also there's a place called Cannibal Cove, which I'm very glad the movie avoids showing)

But I will always be amazed at how people forget what a stone-cold bitch Tinkerbelle is, all the way until the last 15 minutes of the movie.

She's not just jealous and pouty. She's petulant, vain, full-on spiteful and cruel. Her first act upon reaching Neverland is to try and get Wendy killed.

She spends the whole film in an envious rage and will stop at nothing to get rid of these new kids, who she fuckin HATES.

I love it.

Sure she has a change of heart at the end and takes a literal bomb to the face to save Peter, but we don't really address the fact that she still spent this entire adventure trying to get these kids killed. There isn't really a scene of her making peace with THEM.

Now there's LOTS of movies and shows starring Tink that have come out over the years, yet they portray an entirely different person. I don't know, but I don't buy that Tinkerbelle changed from spiteful ball of rage to everyone's cutesy friend overnight. This isn't a NEW observation of course, many have noticed.

While it wouldn't be the moneymaking extravaganza that Disney wants, I would LOVE to have seen Tinkerbelle continue to be kind of a piece of shit. Lessons from the movie learned or not, I believe she would never outgrow her EXTREMELY short fuse.

This is not just because I find short-fuse Tinkerbelle endearing. Don't be silly.

[themadcap]

literally can't stop thinking about this

[twixnmix]

Genevieve Waite with Tinkerbelle, Paul Morrissey, at Jed Johnson at the Factory in New York, 1969.

Photos by Andy Warhol

[not-wholly-unheroic]

I was thinking about how in the final Jake and the Neverland Pirates episode (which isn’t my favorite but has its moments), a kiss from Wendy is what saves both Peter and Hook. There’s this object that turns people/things into stone but every time a person uses it, it starts turning them to stone bit by bit…using dark magic slowly corrupts them. A bit like the ring in Tolkien. But love is what saves them. That further sparked the thought of love as a theme in the original Barrie story and…something occurred to me… I don’t know if there’s much to it but I’d love to hear others weigh in.

In the story The Velveteen Rabbit, there is a theme of love making someone/something “real”… I’m wondering if there is something to that in Peter Pan as well. Loving and being able to accept love from others changes you…but Peter can’t change and so can never be “real.” Wendy loves him but he can’t accept that. He can never be touched, never quite be “real,” always stuck in the in-between. The boys who manage to come back to the real world do so because they can accept the idea of a mother’s love. Arguably, Hook doesn’t really know how to give or accept love at all and so he vanishes entirely from the storyline, with even Peter (who isn’t quite “real” himself) eventually forgetting him. His memory will die with die with Wendy. Tink is a bit tricky because her love for Peter is what kills her. His love for her sort of brings her back, but he can’t do it alone—not without support from real people in the audience…and eventually, in the end, she fades away after her death as well with Peter forgetting her. She never quite reaches “real” status either.

This is honestly me just thinking aloud and not a fully fleshed out concept, but it’s been jostling around in my brain today and I just wanted to put it out there and see if anyone thinks I’m onto something.

[generalluxun]

Why were the Tinkerbelle movies so good?

Watching these with my rugrat and why are they so good/fun? I remember seeing them when they came out and eyerolling. No they weren't targeted at me, but the marketing just had that 'Disney sequel' energy. These are just FUN though. There's lore, but its loose. There are stereotypes but also personalities. It's tink focused but not just a one character vehicle.

Considering what S6 ML has been. I needed this whimsey.

Thanks Disney /gen.