Why there aren't Disney moms?

Little Mermaid has no mom. Bella has no mom. Cinderella has an evil step mom. Pocahontas has no mom. So many Disney films lack motherly figures. There seems to be no apparent reason for this. It does simplify the plot immensely. However, why does it seem like Disney hates moms? Taking a look at the subject on a deeper level, we soon learn that 20th century Disney actually did not care about the concept of family at all. There seemed to be an apparent structure of the family. However, the protagonist rarely interacts in a meaningful way with his or her family. Take Little Mermaid for example, she has a "loving" father. However, he rarely parents her. Or Little Mermaid does not share much with her father also. So not only does Disney have dead mothers they also have distant fathers. One of the reasonable explication to this phenomenon is that the family relationship never mattered in those Disney films. The romantic love between prince and princess is the focus. And because Disney likes producing simple films so the audience could easily absorb it, they don't tend to complicate the plot too much by having additional characters that have little function to the plot.

However, Pixar changes this narrative. Finding Nemo is the first Disney films that is solely focused on family themes. In “Men at the heart of mothering: finding mother in Finding Nemo" by Susan Byrdona, she states that even though in Finding Nemo there is no mother as well, Marlin, Nemo's dad, plays both the role of the mother and the father. This is such a key distinction. Because this remind me of the alpha male argument Gillam was making. Marlin is nothing like an alpha male. He is weak and he is incapable of finishing many tasks in the film. Therefore, it could be argued that he takes upon more motherly and feline traits. Following the success of Finding Nemo, Disney continued its family themes rolling. With movies like The Incredibles, and Frozen, Disney illustrates different types of familial bonds. The Incredibles finally presents a full family picture. Each character plays a role in the family and together they are "incredible." Frozen is like Disney's older movies who lacked parents. However, the whole focus of Frozen is unconditional love for your family, which is highlighted through Anna and Elsa's sibling relationship. 

Not the best idea but tempting...

The Psychology Behind Overprotective Parenting

“A parent may tell her child to stay indoors all day in order to avoid being exposed to a sickness...When we think about this psychologically, however, a parent is implicitly saying to the child “I do not trust you to go outside because I don’t think that you are careful enough to not get this sickness.” Being an overprotective and controlling parent is really just telling your child what you want him or her to do and how you would act in a certain situation. This behavior may produce children with very low self-confidence and leads them to assume that they should depend on others” -Little Fish in a Suffocatingly Small Pond: The Causes and Effects of Parental Overprotection on Children by Piancentini.

This quote really struck me when I was doing research on Finding Nemo. Yes, I am fully aware that parents sometimes show love through their overprotectiveness but there is a point where it is negative for the child. What is interesting about this study is that children actually become more dependent on their parents because they are the ones who make the decisions. I thought that children of overprotective parents tend to rebel, like Nemo in the movie. However, there are slight nuances that I did not fully understand. In Nemo's case, Nemo showed that he was dependent when he was separated from his dad. The same thing is analogous to kids with overprotective parents. They might seem to rebel in front of their parents but once they are separated they are unable to fully be independent. This type of parenting could pose a negative impact on the child. The child would probably mature and grow up fine but he or she my be less willing to take risks. Only when we take risks we can grow.

We are not racist, we are just....

Disney once again tries to justify their use of stereotype, which will always receive negative criticism. One of the negative criticism of Disney is from Macleod's "The Politics of Vision: Disney, Aladdin, and the Gulf War." At the beginning of the chapter, it is clear to us the Disney tries to deny any sort of speculation or cynicism toward Disney's portrayal of race. Pro Disney scholars argue that Disney is not racist at all. One of the biggest excuses Disney makes is "Despite this mounting evidence, Disney continues to insist that its animations are fantasies that have nothing to do with life today"(184). This is probably the worst lie Disney could ever make because Disney makes money off of portraying social norms in its films. Take the topic of racialize animals, Disney portrays racialize animals and still manages to profit so much from the film shows that the public accepts this form of racism. Not only are Disney films racist, they are perpetuating a larger problem: society is racist. The fact that people "accept" these stereotypes portrayed in Disney films just shows that people also accept these standards in real life. It doesn't take a scholar to understand that Disney will always use dark colors for villains and light colors for the heroes. Since children have no concept of race and color, Disney's animation film is even more dangerous. If the child's first exposure to race is from a Disney film, they would probably favor being "white" implicitly. Think about the negative impact it has on a black girl watching Disney films growing up. Her race is not represented up until Princess and the Frog. They can immediately tell that they are not the same skin color as Cinderella, Little Mermaid, etc.

However, I do want to also critique Macleod's chapter. Her argument that Jafar looks like Hitler is too stretched. They look nothing a like. Also, her argument about orientalism, Aladdin, and the Gulf War don't quite match up. There is little evidence to show that the US government was cooperating with Disney to create propaganda to support the Gulf War. Nevertheless, Macleod brings a great point about race in Disney films.

Middle Eastermerican

After watching Aladdin again, I was very offended by the Middle Eastern the film portrayed. More specifically, I hated the fact that it managed to merge every single Middle Eastern culture and even some Asian culture into one film. In Addison's "Saving Other Women From Other Men in Aladdin," Addison illustrates the concept of "orientalism." Orientalism is the categorization of others into one homogenous group. In other words, if you were not white Euro-American, you are considered as the "other." Disney effectively uses this when its films are based on other cultures. Sometimes, I feel irritated that with the financial capability Disney has how hard is it to get a group of animators to actually go to the Middle East and observe the area?

Furthermore, Disney imposes Western ideas on a Middle Eastern setting. Disney hyper sexualizes Jasmine with her belly dance looking dress. Middle Eastern women especially women of Islam would never wear such scandalous apparel out in public. Aladdin perpetuates American ideals of going from rags to riches. Furthermore, Aladdin has a much whiter skin tone compared to the average citizen portrayed in the movie. The issue of race is brought up. Is Disney favor people with lighter skin? In past, Disney films were predominantly white. Also, Disney used the color of their cloth to define their character. Usually characters who are villains are typically portrayed in black or great. Take Malificent and Jafar for example, they both wear a black in the movie. From a young age, Disney implicitly teaches children to associate "dark colors" to evil. I think this effects a child very negatively as they are developing. Furthermore, in Aladdin, the concept of a lighter skin tone corresponds to success worsen these stigma Disney creates.

The film also plays on American ideals such as wealth and power. Addison states that Aladdin primary agenda is to gain the Sultan's wealth and Jafar's primary agenda is to gain power. Disney portrays gaining wealth as a positive thing and gaining power as a negative thing. These to ideals correspond closely to the American dream and American democracy. The American Dream basically allows greed to run free as long as you are willing to work hard. There is nothing that can hold your financial success back. Americans are encouraged to pursue financial success. However, when it comes to power, non one is allowed to have too much power. It defeats the purpose of the democracy. So instantly, Aladdin is the good guy because he is pursuing the American Dream(even through the means of cheating, lying, seducing, and relying on a invisible Ginie). Jafar is the bad guy because he wants more power.

The New Guy

I absolutely enjoyed Gillam's "The New Man in Pixar." I thought his analysis was absolutely spot on. Disney is undergoing a gender revolution through Pixar. The characters both male and female consist of more dimensions. No more ideal princess who only yearns for true love, and no more princes who are have the physical appearance of ideal masculinity but does little to earn the love of the girl. The unequal gender rolls have been a constant critique of Disney's films during their early era. However, Pixar tries to revolutionize this idea.

In this article, Gillam focuses on the concept of the "Alpha Male" being altered by pixar films. An Alpa Male, based on my opinion, is a man who shows masculine traits. They tend to be emotionless and not easily effected. In the context of Disney films, all the princes are alpha males because they don't show any sign of vulnerability during the films. Furthermore, these males are typically goal oriented. Pixar spins this idea of the Alpha Male. They use it as a foundation for character traits. Gillam analyzes Lighting McQueen and Mr. Incredible. Both of them are portrayed as alpha's male's at the start of the film. However, they undergo character transformations and both of them lose their original alpha male character traits. The fact that McQueen stops and helps "The King" after his car crash shows that he alters from his original goal of winning and shows compassion toward his competitor. Mr. Incredible changes from a self reliant male to someone who can put faith in his family. For example, at the end of the film, Mr. Incredibles relies on his family to defeat the villain at the end.

Taking Gillam's analysis even further, I think in general Pixar portrays a much more full view of women compared to older Disney films. If we look at Pixar films, which have female heroines like Merida in Brave and Rapunzel in Tangled, both characters don't simply rely on male figures. Furthermore, they don't rely solely on the male character for their own personal happiness. Elsa and Anna in Frozen takes this idea even further. Disney seems to prioritize family love over romantic love. This is a clear from the traditional Disney films from the romantic era like Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

It is interesting to ask the question: Did Disney make these changes by themselves? Or are they just conforming to a social shift which portrays a multidimensional gender?

I can't believe I took this...

It was during a boring lecture alright? People get desperate during those things. Don't judge.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/which-disney-couple-is-your-ideal-relationship