Disney - Never Forget

The fact that we question and criticize Disney, doesn't mean that we must forget all those best and greatest moments that changed our whole life and childhood!

To remembering those moments!

How Far I'll Go

This girl singing How Far I'll Go, stole my heart and some tears. I think it will do the same with you!

Questioning Disney

Looking back at these four months of blogging about Disney and its flaws (mainly), I've noticed that I had entered this phase of questioning everything Disney shows me.
However, no matter how much I question, I still enjoy the movie! I realized this three times in the last month.

The first time was when I was watching Beauty and The Beast Live Action back when it premiered during spring break while I was visiting my family and friends back at my hometown.

While watching the movie I kept turning around and telling and showing my friends how the entire movie was racist! Clearly, it took me some time before noticing that actually Disney did an incredibly good job in trying to delete racism from this movie! Disney was also expanding and attempting to break a whole new environment: homophobia.

Either way, whatever Disney made that indicated any small lack of a necessary quality like not showing people of various color within a movie, or showing some bad qualities like racism was immediately criticized by me, and I believe that this is good because it changes the way I used to view an innocent company like Disney. In short, I am more aware of Disney actions. I more awake to their evil and good actions.

The second time was when I was watching Zootopia in order to gather information for a final essay. While watching I noticed that while I still saw how Zootopia did some aspects wrong like showing the bad stuff of being every animal (for example the hamsters in the tub), I also enjoyed the movie and laughed at those moments. Specifically, that scene.

The third and most important time was when I was watching this video:

The reasons why this video took me (just like it took you) to be more aware of the stories we are portrayed might be very specific, but I want to go into some details.

First and foremost, off course not!! I would never watch this story or let my kids near it, then WHY THE **** do we let our children near it?? That is a question we all must ask ourselves and it is the type of question I've been asking myself on every category relating Disney.

On a second note, it expands my view on every Disney movie. Yes, it is true that I've been reading a lot about gender within Disney movies, but none of those texts changed me like this video. In fact, after I watched this video, I flipped every Disney story by making males females and if it seemed right at first glance within my head, I would not harshly judge that movie.

Finally, I want to encourage the same thing with you. Just like my teacher used to say, "This is intended to break your Disney bubbles." And, in fact, I've busted my bubble, and it is time for you to bust yours and view Disney within more critic and realistic eyes!

Be Our Guest

Disney is investing on the future. Look at this cool technology.

Basically it is a restaurant at the Disney Parks motivated by the song Be Our Guest that you swipe your bracelet at the entrance and the food finds you!

Is this some sort of new technology Disney is coming up to track us down? What do you think?

Moana Honest Trailer

I laughed a lot watching Moana, and this is the true story of Moana, it made me laugh so much! (The song is the best part!)

Frozen

There is a lot of things that we probably don't agree on, but we might be able to agree on this one: FROZEN IS ONE OF THE BEST ANIMATED MOVIES!
I could repeat that sentence over and over again! What is not to like? The incredibly addicting and amazing soundtrack, the wonderful imagery and animation, the interesting story, the biggest plotwist in children movie, the breaking of stereotypes, or the relatable characters?

The Soundtrack
Once in a creative writing class I wrote a paragraph containing the sentence "For the first time in forever, I could hear it loud and clear." I know, I know. You, just like everyone in that room who heard me read that sentence started singing inside your brain the song "For the First time in Forever" from the Frozen movie. You cannot say that the soundtrack is not addictive! Also, the fact that we all know the song by heart and we can sing it clearly means that it is also an amazing soundtrack.

The Story
Girls usually love a story about a princess and boys usually don't. WAIT, WHAT?! Does this mean that I am a girl (I am pretty sure that I am not!) So, what went wrong (I mean, good) here? Because if that first sentence is usually true I would consider myself and all my male childhood friends as girls because we actually all loved Frozen!
What I think went good in Frozen is that the movie is that it more than a movie about a princess. It is a movie about a queen who struggles with her inner self (like all humans do) and doesn't see the collateral damage she causes by just letting go. (By the way, I did it again... You must be singing Let It Go now.)

The Characters
As I've said before, I love complex characters and this movie is filled with them. Hans is the prince of your dream, Elsa is the queen with a dangerous secret that is killing her, and Anna is relatable friendly character that wants to help. But, it doesn't stop there. The characters cannot be defined in just one sentence, because they are way more complicated than that. Hans results to be the villain of the story who wants to rule Arandale, but yet he is the one who is kind enough to give free blankets to everyone in Arandale without thinking of economical repercussions. Elsa is the queen whose inner dark magic is a villain of the story, but she is the character we all love and support. Anna is just Anna. There is not much to say here because she is just amazing!

The Meaning of True Love
Another small fact that makes this movie stand out (I have to note that this fact is also present in Maleficent) is that love is also present in a family! Frozen recognizes that an act of true love can be done by the people that are closest to us and that love us the most: our family. And this is a big change in the meaning of true love in Disney movies. We passed from a true loves kiss to an act of true love, and this only makes the movie more complex and interesting! (And amazing!!!)


The Stereotypes
This movie breaks with a lot of stereotypes like villains are ugly. This is more than clear when Hans, the handsome prince of Anna's dream, has evil plans for the royal family of Arandale.

So, what is not to like?

Wreck-it Ralph

I couldn't remember watching this movie before, but when I met Turbo, I recognized the movie and I knew that it was not my first time watching it. This lead me to think that Wreck-it Ralph was probably a movie that I don't remember quite well and therefore it was a movie that had no deep effect on me which leads me to conclude that it was not important or good for me. At least not in the past.

When I re-watched this movie a couple of days ago I viewed it under other eyes, and I liked what I saw. I liked seeing Browser from Mario and the villain of PacMan at the villains convention, I thought it was a really nice touch from the developers (although not an obligation to have in a movie). Still, it was a nice touch, one that if I had the movie, I would have definitely paid for.
As I've previously said in other posts, I enjoy complex characters that make tough decisions that mold the way they are, and this movie is one great example of one character that was coded to be evil, but he doesn't want to be the bad guy. In fact, he wants to be good and he goes on an adventure in search for that goodness.
For me, it would have been more interesting if him leaving actually ended his game from the arcade, meaning that his actions would result in the villain or the cause of the main "evil" plot, but that is not what happened. Although, it was close to happen.
I love the duality between good and bad, but I think it could have been much better and that is the only reason why I like the other two movies (Maleficent and Frozen) more. These two movies show a more broad duality. A more complex duality, and that is what I like in a movie!
As a Computer Scientist major, I am driven to talk about the part where turbo, as the king of this world, destroys the code of the Glitch and locks her away. I love how the characters have so much free will to the fact that they can actually change code! This is the best part of the movie, because it means that they have to follow the script (or code) in order to be part of the arcade, but they have enough liberty to not do so and this is the perfect description of society.
As part of a free society we have to follow some kind of script, yet we are not force to do so, and this is depicted perfectly in this movie. Additionally, the movie shows how characters deal with the script and how they act when they are not being viewed by society and this is a perfect mirroring of the world we live in and the people that surround us.

Some people play their part and act their role, but when we stop watching them their true inner self comes out.

Maleficent Live Action

After I finished watching the 2014 live action of Sleeping Beauty for the second time, I could one of my lifetime friends to discuss about it. I knew that, just like me and you, he was a big Disney fan and his favorite Disney movie is Maleficent. He also admit that his favorite villain is Maleficent and the reason why he loved her because she was the worst of the bunch, the villain of villains, the representation of pure evil.
I have to admit it, I was shocked (and confused)! He just admitted that his all-time favorite villain is Maleficent just for the fact that she is evil for being evil. Originally, in the Disney animated version, she cursed a child for not being invited to a party!
This lead me to start wondering why I didn't like Sleeping Beauty all that much (although my friend must never know or I will have a really long conversation of him trying to convince that Sleeping Beauty is the best movie ever) and I loved Maleficent. The reason was right in front of me: I loved maleficent because the villain had a background, a reason. There was reason in Maleficent's actions and I felt like I could have done the same!

I liked Maleficent because everything made sense in my mind, and I couldn't care less that they didn't follow the same storyline than the one in Sleeping Beauty. Yes, it would have been nice that they have followed the same storyline, but the fact that they changed it makes it intriguing and interesting. Unlike my friend, I started liking Maleficent because her actions seemed to have some logic, and not because she was a villain just for being evil.
Maybe this is more of a personal subjective preference, but I like to understand the details. I like to understand the logic of actions. (Maybe its because I sometimes dream that I could be a great detective, but who knows?) Maleficent gave me that, the movie passed from having heroes that where only meant to be born heroes and do good stuff and villains that were meant to do bad stuff, to actually showing reason and meaning being every action without caring if it is good or bad.
Finally, who cares if the storyline doesn't make sense? I watched this movie around midnight and I did not fall asleep (and it was my second time around)! I cried through most of the movie and I couldn't even pause it to go to the restroom. These are the characteristic of a good and intriguing movie that kept me completely hooked and it is the reason why I loved it!
Maybe it is because it has the characteristics I love in a movie (complex characters, drama, logical actions and decisions) or maybe because it has some traits of a good movie (great image quality, nice story, and amazing acting). Either way, I enjoyed it and thought it was extremely good and that is all that matters.

Gigantic

Although there are no Walt Disney animated movies coming this year, we will get two in 2018. The first is Ralph 2 (Yeah Disney is starting to make a continuation for Disney movies. I hate this because they might end up like Pixar planning to create movies like Cars 10. Hopefully, they won't).

On the other hand, Gigantic based on Jack and the Beanstalk is coming next year!

Coco

There are no Disney movies coming in this year, but we get two Pixar movies.
Have you seen the trailer for Coco?? You must, it might have no villain at all!

Disney Live Actions

Are the live actions Disney is creating for some of their animated films just a successful attempt to fix the wrongs and mistakes they made when they created the animated versions? In short, is Disney attempting to make all their wrongs, good?

No one knows the answers to these questions, but I think that Disney is, in fact, trying to amend those mistakes they made throughout their animated versions.

In general, Disney was not only racist but also homophobic and elitist. Disney animated movies, in general, were filled with green-eyed thin blond American princesses, and Muslim, black, or Latin fat, ugly, and sexually disorienting villains. Their movies were also, in general, discriminating and racist.

For example, in Aladdin, the intro song said, "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face. It's barbaric, but hey, it's home."

Another example, in Pocahontas, there is a clear segregation between British people and Indians.

OH! I almost forgot! Look how the color of Aladdin's skin evolves through the movie! At the beginning, he was poor and black, and by the end, he was rich and white:

On the other hand, we could view the princesses in the first Disney animated films and notice that they all had one thing in common: they have white skin. Snow white, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, and Belle are all white! Not until the last two decades we began to see non-white Disney princesses! Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, and Tiana were the first princesses that their color or ethnic race was different.

Finally, Disney villains. Look at them, they are thin with sharp pointy body parts or fat. Either way they are not physically appealing (except maybe for Gaston and the most recent ones like Hans from Frozen). Also, look hard and try to find as many white villains as you can, because they are scarce!

I think Disney movie would have been way more interesting if the villains looked like this.

In order to answer the question from the beginning, we must now analyze recent Disney live actions, but here I will only analyze the most recent one: The Beauty and the Beast.

First, it is important to note that the animation version is the only Walt Disney animated movie that has been nominated in the Oscar category of Best Picture, so this movie is a big deal. But the most interesting parts of the live action are that it is not racist and it is daring.

At the end, we see interracial couples. Actually a lot of interracial couples. This is an aspect that was rare or maybe inexistent in old Disney animated films.

Additionally, we get a gay couple! I don't know about you, but I've never seen a Disney animated film (or even better a children's animated film) that has a gay or lesbian couple in it!! This is a game changer, and Disney played the cards.

In conclusion, if you ask me, Disney is, in fact, trying to amend the errors of the past with these new live actions of the old Walt Disney animated films. Hopefully, we will get Aladdin next (with a big apology).