Girl w/ Pen has a fantastic and disturbing article about Disney’s Tangled. I highly recommend reading it, because I’m only going to touch on one of the many troubling points it makes.
Tangled is being called a “gender neutral makeover.” Perhaps this will make sense when I tell you it’s the story of Flynn Rider, an outlaw who meets some chick who’s been imprisoned in a tower all her life, and eventually marries her. By the way, that chick’s name is Rapunzel.
You see what they’ve done there? When the story was about Rapunzel, it was ABOUT WOMEN OH NOES, which made it not gender neutral. Neutralizing it meant making it about a white guy. White straight not-disabled middle class guys don’t have gender, or race, or sexual orientation or class. They just… are.
Must be nice. Apparently, being both female and from a below-middle-class background, I’m two issues rather than a person, myself. How about you?
Hollywood tells writers that if you make your lead a woman, a black man, a gay person, a disabled person, a poor person or anything but a white born male who’s heterosexual and not disabled and middle class and stuff, suddenly your movie is about being a woman, being black, being gay, etc. It automatically stops being about dragons or saving the world from terrorists or a romance or whatever may have seemed to be the plot, and becomes an “issue movie” about what it’s like to not be a conformist white dude.
We can’t win for losing, can we? We can’t even have stories – we have to have obnoxious political statement movies, which reinforces the idea that those of us who aren’t conformist white dudes are just irritating bundles of complaints that, honestly, no one wants to spend a lot of money to see in a theater.
Oh, and for pity’s sake, don’t point to the genre ghetto as evidence we have a place in movies. Yes, I realize we’re supposed to be content that “chick flicks” can feature women (so long as they’re dealing with depression, romance or the high cost of cute shoes), and then there’s “urban comedy” or Oscar-aiming dramas like Precious to cover the entire experience of being other-than-white (because not being white is either really, really funny or really, really sad!… to white people!). I guess there’s, oh, fanfiction for gays, and disabled people will always have Helen Keller, right? Yeah, just don’t even go there. See how it makes the case for me?
Let’s face it: loads of people routinely go to the theater and then decide which movie to see. Hollywood waaaaay overestimates the amount of thought people apply to what movie they’re going to see (and this is the very last thing they want to admit, because a whole lot of jobs center on figuring out precisely what the audience wants – “two hours in a darkened room with popcorn and a shared emotional experience” does not justify even one minor salary).
Hollywood argues that they must give us bigoted casting because bigots are in the audience, and not pandering to the bigots hurts their bottom line. But are they looking at the same evidence the rest of us are? Remember when Jeff Rabinov said Warner wouldn’t make anymore movies about women (I know he denied he said it; I don’t believe him) because a Jodie Foster movie hadn’t done so well? The Movie Blog – hardly a feminist critique site – pointed out that a Kevin Bacon film in the same genre had flopped much, much worse around the same time. The truth is, no one would ever think to explain a movie’s failure by saying, “That’s it! No more movies about white straight dudes!” And when a movie featuring a non-white-dude does well? That’s also in spite of the lead’s demographics. When a movie featuring Leo DiCaprio does well, that’s obviously down to him, so give that man a raise.
Not exactly equal, huh?
Sure, loads of movies featuring women or people of color don’t do so well. But far, far more movies featuring white male leads flop. Oh, you say, but that’s just because there are so many more movies about white men to flop. Well, yes. And when a movie about a woman flops, that too is for some other reason than the lead’s demographics. No, I can’t prove this, but I grew up in the region where the KKK was founded, and never did even the most vocal racist or misogynist assholes around me boycott the Aliens movies or a Will Smith movie or any other form of entertainment (sports, anyone?) featuring groups they disliked, because you know what? Entertaining white guys is exactly what we all exist for, according to white male bigots.
It’s time Disney and the rest of them just own the truth: they want to maintain the status quo. They look for excuses to do so.
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And yet somehow I don’t think it matters what the male protagonist’s hair color is. Does it ever? I can’t recall many male characters having this kind of transforming change.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, I think Tiana was/is the most “Miyazakian” Disney princess so far, but the story is still firmly a classic Disney piece, so the plot’s progress felt really weird to me. There was character growth from Tiana and Naveen, but not a whole lot of screentime dedicated to introspection; however, Mama Odie and Dr. Facilier both had very limited appearances as compared to other villains from more… I don’t want to say “balanced,” but less-off-feeling Disney movies? Idk. There were just a lot of plot elements that seemed incomplete to me. I’m not the target audience, though, so I’m more interested in the cultural indoctrination/cultural history aspects of the film than whether or not I was personally entertained. *shrugs*
I did notice Tiana probably has the most costume changes of all the Disney princesses up until this point, even without “Frog” making the list, and even more than the other “transforming” princess, Ariel. All I could think was, “Cha-ching! Marketing megabux.”
Nala’s on the Disney Princess Tumblr, so I think popular consensus is that she counts! Though Lilo, Mulan, Alice are all on there, too. Hmm. I always just used the “are they or are they not actually royalty by blood or marriage” test, personally. Seeing as TLK is heavily Hamlet-influenced, even though lions don’t work that way, Nala gets a pass imo.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
I know for some of the initial art, Tiana was still working-class, but worked, like, waitressing and cleaning another woman’s restaurant? And her name was Maddie. Which I didn’t mind, I mean, that’s better off than where Cinderella was, right? Buuut, lots of people pointed out that a black woman working for/being held back by a rich, evil white woman would be problematic, and that Maddie sounded close enough to Mammie that it made folks uncomfortable. Whatchagonnado.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
The Beast went from brown (Beast) to blond (dude). That weirded me out as a kid.
And Hank McCoy went from dude to grey and furry to blue and furry to blue and furry and a cat, but I think that might be different. xD
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
It’s okay for males to be “tall, DARK and handsome.” “Dark”, of course, meaning white with dark hair and/or eyes.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Hm, I was too caught up in the Beast going from Beast (bad) to human (good!) to note the hair color change and/or I thought the Beast-hair wasn’t too far off the human-hair mark.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Can I really really give the filmakers of Princess and the Frog props, however, in that Tiana did not have to give up anything (her family, body, dreams and aspirations, and friends) in the process of falling in love with a man? That is, besides my adoration of her character to begin with, the real highlight of that film to me.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I have to admit that my favorite thing about “Toy Story” was that the little girl actually played with her toys the way *I* did when I was a kid, as opposed to the stereotypical tea party they tend to show in films.
Mana G(Quote) (Reply)
Well according to TV Tropes, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlondGuysAreEvil . Speaking as a blonde guy, though, I really don’t feel very oppressed by it.
Given that, globally, human females’ skin is lighter than human males’ skin, darker coloration in men would be (and often is) a sexual selection trait, but colorism usually seems to trump this.
Shaun(Quote) (Reply)
Wtf. And what’s dA?
IIRC the Catholic Church at least ignored it because they learned from the Da Vinci Code that that boycotting something just gives it more attention (in reality everyone should avoid TDC because it’s terrible).
Shaun(Quote) (Reply)
Me too! That’s why it’s my favorite Disney film in the last few years.
Also, Tiana never expresses a desire to serve–she wants to work for herself, and is very much her own boss. A self-made princess! Who’d have thought? And a prince who wants to help her? Even better.
Naveen and Tiana are my favorite Disney couple, because they work together. They are also the only couple I can imagine as parents.
Oh, and she was a princess at the end…Naveen’s parents were still very much alive at the end of the film.
Chai Latte(Quote) (Reply)
I know! If they were going to make a Rapunzel movie, why couldn’t they make one like that?
Em(Quote) (Reply)
Oh, yeah, Tiana was definitely a princess! Royalty by marriage. I was just saying how technically Nala IS a princess, but, like, not a very marketable one.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Hi Shaun: I’ve never heard that datapoint about gender and skin color. Do you have a source?
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
dA = deviantart.com
And there WERE protests, but because most people’s protests were made without any awareness of the book’s material, and the books weren’t popular enough that the general public was aware of their material, the anti-HDM press just came off really scatterbrained. Plus, since concessions had been made with the original material (church = Authority, different ending), and possibly in part because of Nicole Kidman’s assn. with the film, there wasn’t as much to protest beyond, “Well, it gets worse later! The author’s an atheist!!”
The other thing is, the movie was released around Christmas, and was aimed at little kids. There wasn’t as much press coverage because news sources found stories that were more interesting to their audience. The weird and confusing steampunk movie with the bear was really not at the top of most people’s radar.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Regarding Nick Jr:
I could never get into Franklin or Thomas the Tank Engine because Franklin was such a massive WHINER (the same reason I detested Caillou) and Thomas, IIRC, was just a bunch of inanimate toys on a model track talking whilst remaining expressionless, and that bored the shit out of me.
As far as Disney Channel shows for little kids go, does anyone remember Katie and Orbie? Or PB&J? And of course that live-action Beauty and the Beast show with Belle in that library/bookshop/whatever-the-fuck?
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, I remember the big brou-haha of Tiana being named Maddie (why couldn’t they just call her Madeline?) and how she was originally going to be a scullery maid like Snow White before her…all this stuff just makes me think like you did, WHY did they decide on making a black princess who lives in such a problematic area in such problematic times? But yaaay it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it was gonna be (albeit being very lackluster).
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, wow, living parents??? IN A DISNEY FILM? What rare specimens!
That is one odd thing about the Disney princesses. A good deal of them SEEM like they should be queen, as there are no other rulers in sight, though I may just not really understand how royalty works.
And, going against what Disney tells little girls they should want, I have absolutely no desire to find out how royalty works. XD
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I suspect Nala isn’t part of the Disney Princesses line because she can’t be dressed up in ridiculous outfits.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Interesting about Nala was how she was MADE to be helpless by her own father (the hero in the previous movie). She tried getting around his overprotectiveness, but honestly–like the Bee movie and other movies with female societies, so is lion society. It’s the females that hunt the most. By making her a horrible hunter, her father crippled her future.
Ya gotta love a hero that does that to his own daughter. As did Triton. It’s something fathers identify with, but daughters dislike, if they’re into having their own minds.
Gategrrl(Quote) (Reply)
@Gategrrrl
I thought Simba’s daughter was named Kiara. Nala’s Simba’s cousin/wife…so technically she’s a “Disney Queen”.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
*Nala IS Simba’s cousin/wife, just so that’s easier to comprehend reading-wise.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
And ain’t THAT just something Disney totes glossed over? Why is it that Simba is the only prince? And were there OTHER cousins of Simba’s as possibilities?
There aren’t usually only two cubs in a pride THAT large in a time when they would have cubs around…and there’s NO way Scar would have been allowed to stick around, either.
Eh, biology/ecology fail.
Though I DO remembering loving the sequel, for some reason…there’s no accounting for a 10 year-old’s taste!
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Interesting about Nala was how she was MADE to be helpless by her own father (the hero in the previous movie).
You’re actually thinking about Kiara, not Nala.
The interesting thing about Simba as an overprotective father is that it’s got nothing to do with Kiara being a princess, and everything to do with Kiara being like Simba. He basically treated her like a second chance at his own childhood, did everything he could to make sure she didn’t make the same mistakes as he did, and messed her life up because of it.
That he wasn’t acting like a father should behave and he still needed to get over his own guilt and insecurity seemed to be the point. (Plus, Kiara’s the one who most people who watch the movie are going to identify with, so he’s an antagonist until the end)
Ikkin(Quote) (Reply)
I think the only part of that movie I liked was the “IN UBENDI~!!” tunnel of love song…
Oh, and LOL @ Scar’s widow (??) being an evil matriarch.[/puke]
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, which made no sense for Scar to HAVE a widow, and yet another example of color coded darkness for evil….BUT, I liked all of those characters WAY more than the “good” characters, with the exception of Kiara, who was adorable.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I thought Nala was a sister/wife? Uuuunless she’s a sister/cousin/wife because Simba’s and Nala’s mothers are also sisters. I didn’t think there were any other male lions around in the pride besides Scar.
But then, darkness is actually a marker of health in lions, so Scar would have been the dominant of the two brothers (between him and Mufasa), until he developed a limp (if I’m remembering correctly that he had one). (I do find it odd that Scar was made to be handicapped/scarred for TLK but Shere Khan wasn’t for TJB, seeing as he was Lungri in the book and all. But that’s neither here nor there.)
Anyway, I didn’t watch the sequels, so… *ducks out*
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Just saw a trailer for the game “Dead Space 2″, which is about an armored marine in space and monsters. I’m not sure the character’s name was mentioned in the first game, but you never saw anything of the body, only the sleek combat armor. And here the producer says, “In Dead Space 2, you will get to see his face and hear him speak from time to time.”
So where I was perfectly capable of imagining whomever under that suit before, now I get reminded every so often that yes, this is a white dude with a scraggy beard.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
Not a white dude with a scraggy beard, but a white dude with a brown crew-cut and a scraggy five o’ clock shadow! THE MOST GENERIC VIDYA GAEM CHARACTER EVAR. I only tolerated that character design with Chris Redfield.
Wasn’t there a Dead Space Wii spin-off where one of the main characters was a sexy (albeit reasonably clothed) space-nurse with 60′s style hair?
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
The “issue” movie is actually something that annoys me a lot. A few years ago I suddenly felt like watching movies with gay roles, just because I was tired of the male/female movie dynamic. I went to the video shop, grabbed a bunch of movies with gay themes, and checked out. All these movies had brightly coloured covers, and the blurbs all read like the back of any common comedy. I put one on, and suddenly it was all brooding camera angles, flashbacks, unsettling sex scenes and yelling. The next one? Same thing. All of them.
I realised that the makers weren’t making what I’d wanted: normal crappy comedy films with gay characters, they were making art films about gay issues and marketing them as normal crappy comedy. I acknowlege that the gay community still has a lot of issues to deal with, but making these films isn’t helping- clearly noone watches them, if people did they wouldn’t be marketed misleadingly. And now I think twice about any film about gay characters because I except judgmental, sundance-approved art films.
Looks like I’ll be sticking to my fanfiction. At least it’s honest about it’s genre…. and I can choose from a variety.
Elle(Quote) (Reply)
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