Miyazaki for Kids: Using Animation to Promote Strong, Healthy Girlhood



Just for fun, try taking your daughter to the movies this weekend. See if you can find something cheap to watch. Wreck It Ralph might be playing still, or maybe even Rise of the Guardians. Whatever movie you choose, I want you to count up all of the female characters. It won’t take long. Now count the male characters and give me the ratio of them next to the female characters.

Think it will be 50-50? Try again. Female sare disproportionately represented in films, which presents a number of problems. Firstly, it’s completely inaccurate and stupid, given that half of the population is missing from a movie. So unless it’s about, say, pod people from another planet who only have one sex, it’s irrelevant to half of the people watching it.


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#Discussion: Femslash Month @Disneyforprincesses & armouredtiaras



With Feburary apparently being Femfslash Month (or Week, I forget which), Disneyforprincesses' submission forum is open to femslash disney artwork. Moreover Feminist Disney has recently advertised a recently created LGBT/Queer tumblrblog for the Disney fandom, dubbed  "queer crowns and kisses" (or armouredtiaras). If you're interested, give both a looksee into.

#Discussion: Kuzco - Masculine vs. Feminine assumptions



The "Kuzco is a Disney Princess!" meme has always bugged me, primarily because it seems to stem from the idea that a man remotely concerned about his appearance or has a flamboyant personality is somehow coded as "feminine". Regardless of whether or not they identity as such or created that way, the aforementioned male is seen as less "masculine" or "manly" as say Kronk or Pacha. Kuzco's an emperor, dude ranks above a "Disney Princess" technically, financially, politically and metaphorically. Most importantly, he can still be fabulous in all his particularly vain ways without being labeled a "princess". [SOURCE: 1, 2, 3]

#Discussion: Disney, Sexism and Racism



BY DREKI

Nathyn/Nome recently posted a commentary on zan blog about how Disney is going to go off princesses, but we really don’t need any more of their princesses anyways. One of the commentors disagrees with zan complaint of Mulan, but added “I’m more worried about the ethnocentrism. In America, we love to read Woman Warrior at college and make fun of how sexist they are in China and how enlightened we are in the Occident. We also love to appropriate oriental stories, both mythological and contemporary, to give them the Hollywood treatment.”

This is something that is definitely important to notice. China is not the only country to have problems with subjugating women. The US did it, and there are still problems in the present (trigger warning: rape, rape apologism). China also doesn’t have a homogenous history of constantly oppressing women, they also had Empress Wu who improved the status of women, had scholars write history of women, invented entirely new characters to show her greatness, and declared herself Maitreya Buddha, 900 years before Queen Elizabeth. The point- everywhere has good and bad parts of its history, and it’s problematic to think otherwise.


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#Disucssion: Esmeralda, the missing Disney Princess

WARNING: Slut Shaming



Whenever I see lists of Disney Princesses, it always irks me that Esmeralda is not included.

Yes, she is a romanticized stereotype; yes she is an inaccurate representation of a whole ethnicity…but why is she not among the princesses?

Pocahontas, a woman who as a Native American was not a “princess” is listed there. She had no queen, no king, but she is still included as an “official princess”.

Esmeralda is never listed any where as a princess, she isn’t even considered worthy of this, despite her lead role in the movie. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because she’s a “Gypsy”. In the Hugo story, she is the daughter of a prostitute, whisked off by Gypsies in replacement for Quasimodo, the deformed and “real” Gypsy. Esmeralda is non-Gypsy - yet she is raised as one and vilified as one.

She is portrayed as a slut - even in the Disney cartoon. As a thief of men’s hearts, as using sex as power. She is ultimately executed for her ethnicity (even though really, she isn’t even a true Romani). Gypsies are portrayed as thieves and no good street entertainers. They’re portrayed as being outcasts and violent…

and I believe that is why, although supposedly a woman to admire in the Disney version of the book, she will NEVER be shown as anything other than a misplaced, offensive, and romanticized stereotype.

Where are the re-drawings of “corrected” Esmeralda? Where are the reworkings of her character like we see of Pocahontas and Mulan?

It will never happen - because we don’t even get that much respect.


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#Discussion: Points and Counterpoints against Disney

tumblr user lightspeedsound lists in a fourteen minute video 5 problematic counter arguments in relation to the nature of the Disney Fandom's problematic "blind-eye" counter-arguments against the Feminist critiques and disappointments with Disney's franchise and treatment of women in a post-adolescent age.

#Discussion: Fiction Friday - Mulan (1998) Review



This was initially where my last post about Disney, Sexism and Racism was going until I realized that Disney’s racism really does deserve it’s own topic. If not a series of them. The problematic issues brought up in that post are still true in this one. I also suggest everyone read ColorQ’s review which goes down how incredibly inaccurate Mulan is to the source material as well as Chinese culture at the time and a few other points as well, and this post in no way refutes them- they’re all true.

Aside from the numerous problems (which are inevitable, this being Disney and Hollywood in general), I do like Mulan, I like the way it approaches sexism because it isn’t in an over-the-top approach of smashing anyone over the head with an aesop or trying to invalidate feminists, it wouldn’t be an awful way of showing it in our culture. Unfortunately, Mulan would probably be completely unacceptable if she were white and in white culture.


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Todrick Hall's "Cinderfella (2012)" Video




I wanted to tell this famous fairy tale in a new and innovative way, combining familiar top 40's songs with classic Disney melodies. This story speaks volumes and I think that love is as classic as this fairy tale. It's time for us to legalize love in all shapes and colors. Please support this movement by posting this on your social media sites.

Special Thanks to:
Camarillo Ranch
Valentino's Costume Shop
Enchanted Carriages
James Alsop
DanceOn

@colinhduffy, www.colinhduffy.com
colinhduffy.tumblr.com
www.dastolidigital.com
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