Disney Characters Interact in "Disneyverse"

Where do Disney characters live?  Why in "Disneyverse" of course!

Have you ever noticed that Disney characters tend to make guest appearances in Disney films in which they are not the star?  For example, in Aladdin, the Genie at one point transforms into Pinocchio.  Stacy Conradt points out nine other cameo appearances, including:

Aladdin's magic carpet in the opening scene from The Princess and The Frog (on the left in this photo)

The Beast in a pile of the Sultan's toys in Aladdin (towards the top left of the pile)

Belle, Pumbaa, and Aladdin's Carpet (yet again) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

And the cameos continue in Disney's most recent film Frozen! 








An article from cinemablend.com revealed this picture on the left which pictures a moment during the song "For the First Time in Forever."  If you look at the left, you can clearly make out what looks like Eugene and Rapunzel.  

How can we explain these guest appearances?  Kelly West, the author of the article on the Frozen cameo, suggested the cute idea that Disney characters not only live in the same "Disneyverse," but are "close enough to stop by for a visit."  I find it a comforting thought, and a clever and imaginative idea on Disney's part, that all of our favorite Disney characters seem to know each other and continue to live out their lives off-screen in a community together.  As for the real reason behind these guest appearance -- who knows!  Perhaps the it purely for the entertainment of the Disney animators or Disney's version of "Where's Waldo" for the viewers. In any case, it's fun to imagine that Disney characters interact in "Disneyverse."

G-rated Films Lead to G-rated History

 

Many Disney critics have pointed out that Disney films and other entertainment products that are based on true stories contain many historical inaccuracies.  For example, in his article "The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race," Ajay Gehlawat notes that the film portrays much less racial segregation than was actually present during the 1920s, the time period in which the film is set.  The article "10 Historically Inaccurate Movies" by Jane McGrath mentions many disparities between the true story of Pocahontas and the Disney film.  In the article "Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World," Mike Wallace criticizes the Disney park Epcot, a park supposedly built to educate the public, for failing to teach about many significant events in U.S. history and portraying others with an inaccurate positive spin.  

While I agree that these Disney products are not historically accurate, I don't agree that it makes them flawed.  Due to the age range of Disney's primary audience, many historical details must be omitted from Disney films because they are not appropriate for young children, as mentioned briefly by Gehlawat.  On the other hand, McGrath claims that the audience of young children is the very reason that it is a flaw, because the film "misleads children and interferes with the events they'll later learn about."  However, as McGrath points out, children do learn about these historical events later in their schooling and from other sources.  If Disney was the only mode through which children learned about history, then the inaccuracies would certainly be a problem.  But this is not the case.  Instead, Disney provides a great way for children to learn about some parts of history early on, and learn about it in a fun and enjoyable way.  Disney's portray of history, although not completely accurate, is a positive way to teach children a little about history while providing enjoyable entertainment at the same time.

Disney's Not-So-Creative Character Names

Is there a method to naming Disney characters?

After reading many articles that analyze Disney movies, it has become apparent to me that there is a method behind the naming of Disney's characters.  For example, in his article "The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race," Ajay Gehlawat writes that "Naveen," the name of the prince from Maldonia, means "new" in Hindi (Gehlawat 423).  While to me this seems like just a coincidence, Gehlawat believes that this double meaning "would technically make him Disney's "new prince" (Gehlawat 423).  However, there are many other characters whose names sport double meanings.  The article "Disney Character Names with Meaning" from the official Disney blog gives a list of some Disney characters along with the double meaning of their name.  This list includes Simba, whose name means lion in Swahili; Lumiere, whose name means light in French; Rafiki, whose name means friend in Swahili; Belle, whose name means beautiful in French; LeFou, which means fool in French; Flotsam and Jetsam (the eels from The Little Mermaid), which is an English phrase referring to the "floating wreckage of a ship."

While the double meanings of these names are very logical in that they reflect the character, they are very uncreative.  For a company that is a hub of imagination, I would hope for a little more fun and originality.  Perhaps they don't spend much time brainstorming creative names because many people don't time looking into them, but I don't think this is any excuse for a company that prides itself on creativity and ingenuity.  I would like to see Disney try a little harder and have more fun in naming the characters of their future movies.  

Tiana's Work Ethic: A Positive or Negative Quality?

Does Disney's The Princess and the Frog portray Tiana's work ethic as a negative quality?

In her article "Blackness, Bayous, and Gumbo: Encoding and Decoding Race in a Colorblind World," Sarah Turner points out that rather than focusing on Tiana's physical appearance, The Princess and the Frog references "her work ethic, often as a negative attribute" (Turner 88).  To support this, Turner offers the following evidence: "her friends complain that 'all you ever do is work;' her mother says it is a 'shame you're working so hard;' Tiana herself acknowledges she 'doesn't have time for dancing;' and, Naveen refers to her as a 'stick in the mud'" (Turner 88-89).  

This argument struck a cord with me because, as a Duke student, I relate a lot to Tiana's character, and specifically her work ethic.  I consider myself to have a very high work eithic, and I feel that I am subject some of the same criticism that Tiana gets from her friends.  Also, like Tiana, I don't often have time for leisurely activities like 'dancing.'  When I first consider all of these scenes from the movie together, it is clear that Tiana gets a lot of grief for working hard to achieve her goal, which is unfortunate, yet something that would happen in the real world, according to my experience.  I don't think these comments portray Tiana's work ethic as a negative thing, but they do imply that her life is not as enjoyable as it could be if she didn't work as much.  And who would say otherwise?  Tiana's life is not as enjoyable during those years when she's working multiple jobs, but she ends up achieving her goal of owning a restaurant and being extremely happy with her life, making her sacrifice completely worth it.  

However, Disney could have definitely portrayed Tiana's work ethic as a more respectable quality.  The comments mentioned above could have been altered to respect Tiana rather than criticize her, and that would be a positive change.  But overall, I think Tiana's work ethic serves as a positive role model, and shows that with hard work you can achieve your dreams.  

Positive Stereotypes in Disney...a bad thing?

While reading Martin Norden's "'You're a Surprise from Every Angle': Disability, Identity, and Otherness in The Hunchback of Notre Dame," I was very surprised by his opinion of a stereotype in Disney.  Norden seems to think that even the use of what can be considered a positive stereotype is something Disney should avoid.  He writes, "By reducing the Hugo narrative to a Beauty and the Beast level, the filmmakers thus fell back on one of the most enduring beliefs about "good" [people with disabilities]: that they possess an inner beauty that compensates for their less-than-perfect exteriors.  Though presumably well-intentioned, such a simplistic belief represents stereotyped thinking at its most insidious..." (Norden 166).  Norden's negative language here implies that he is against Disney's use of this stereotype, even though it seems to imply something positive about people with disabilities.  I suppose its fair to say that any stereotypical thinking is something that society should avoid, but in this case I don't think Disney should be criticized.  I can't think of any circumstances in which children believing that deformed people are kind would be a bad thing, except for maybe if they are somehow hurt from approaching someone who is deformed in reality who is not very nice.  Disney tends to use stereotypes in their films to make things simpler for their young audience, and this stereotype does not seem like a bad one at all.  

Yet, if you still think that even this stereotype should not be used by Disney, it should relieve you to know that apparently children do not pick it up from the movie.  The 2010 Pacific Standard article "In Disney Films, Disney is Far from Beastly" by Tom Jacobs describes a small experiment done on children to study the influence that beauty stereotypes portrayed by Disney had on them (Jacobs).  Children from ages 6 to 12 were split into two groups; one half watched Cinderella and the other half watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Jacobs).  After the showings, the children were shown pictures and asked questions such as "How nice do you think this person is?" (Jacobs).  It was discovered that children "'reported an overall greater desire to befriend an attractive peer... [and rated] the child [in the photograph]...as nicer relative to an unattractive peer...no matter which film they had just watched'" (Jacobs).  While it is sad that this is the case, it appears that these children's desire to befriend more beautiful people was no affected by Disney films.  Of course, this study was a small one and is not sufficient to constitute a pattern, but it does suggest that Disney might not have the negative impact on children that many critics claim it does.  

Works Cited

Jacobs, Tom. "In Disney Films, Beauty Is Far From Beastly." Pacific Standard. Pacific Standard, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/in-disney-films-beauty-is-far-from-beastly-25119/>.

Disney characters spotted at my local pumpkin patch!

What do Disney's characters have to do with Halloween?  As far as I can tell, nothing.  So why are over 10 disney cutouts on display at my local pumpkin patch?  

My guess is that the people running the pumpkin patch thought having a Disney theme would draw in business from families with young children.  And it seems to be working, given that the only people there were parents with young children, except of course my friend any myself, but there's nothing wrong with revisiting your childhood memories!  

I wonder if the pumpkin patch was within the law by having these cutouts on display, given how tightly Disney keeps control over its products.  Of course I can't imagine that anyone would report them or that Disney would even care.  In any case, it was a fun to see the characters make an unexpected appearance the pumpkin patch!

Disney's cultural controversy: petition to trademark Día de los Muertos

 

Can you imagine if Disney had trademarked the word "Christmas?"  Or "Easter?"  Or "Halloween?"  This seems like a silly and completely unrealistic question to even consider, but in May of this year Disney filed a petition to trademark "Día de los Muertos," a hispanic holiday celebrated on the first and second days of November which honors the lives of family members and friends who have passed away (Rodriguez).  Disney's petition was inspired by a film they're making about Día de los Muertos (Rodriguez).  This hispanic community, understandably, was in an uproar about Disney's petition, and one hispanic cartoonish drew the rather terrifying image of Mickey Mouse above (Alcaraz).  The second week after filing the petition, Disney withdrew its application, but claimed that it was due to a title change in the film, not the backlash of the latino community (Rodriguez).

While the people of the hispanic community think that Disney is trying to trademark a part of their culture, I have a hard time believing that Disney would be so silly as to try and do that.  I think Disney's action was likely an effort to protect themselves from being sued after the release of their new movie.  Every company has to file to trademark the name of a product before releasing it so that they don't get in trouble later for using something that they didn't have the rights too.  This is probably what Disney was doing here, but, unfortunately, due to the nature of the petition, it did not reflect well on the company.  Luckily for Disney, I think they did a pretty good job of keeping the publicity of the petition scaled down, as I found it in the news by chance when I was searching for Día de los Muertos.  Hopefully this event will not damage the success of the movie, which should be interesting, as they are trying to make a children's movie about the "Day of the Dead," two things that don't usually mix well.

Works Cited

Alcaraz, Lalo. "Walt Disney, Inc. wants to trademark ‘Dia de los Muertos’ (toon)." Pocho. Pochismo, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://pocho.com/walt-disney-inc-wants-to-trademark-dia-de-los-muertos-toon/>.

Rodriguez, Cindy Y. "Day of the Dead trademark request draws backlash for Disney." CNN. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/us/disney-trademark-day-dead/index.html>.