Are the Villains in Disney ALL Really Transgendered?

Putnam is herself a sexist. She defined transgendered behavior so vaguely that anything that doesn't fit a "gendered norm" is considered a "transgendered" behavior. Since there is no definition of what is considered a gender-normal behavior for men or women, there are stereotypes but nothing is exclusive, her criticism stems from her own beliefs on what is "female" and what is "male." Let me start tearing in a little:

The Evil Step Sisters

Putnam says that because they have flat chests, boyish faces, and large feet, they are meant to appear masculine. Also, since they fight physically with one another, they must be emulating boyish behavior. Putnam declaratively states that, "The sisters also physically fight with each other, emphasizing their boyishness by participating in still more traditionally male behavior" (153). According to Putnam, only boys can have fist fights and if girls do it means they are behaving as boys. Nothing defines the behavior of fighting as distinctly male, animals of all species and human females frequently fight (check Youtube, there's plenty of evidence). I, personally, have qualms with all of this because it would mean that I, too, am a transgendered Disney character by her standards. I am not by any means considered buxom, I wear a size 8.5 or 9 shoe, and my sister and I used to physically batter one another when we were younger even to the point of bruising. By deciding that the only "feminine" is the feminine of Cinderella, Putnam, not Disney, is perpetuating highly restrictive gender norms that don't allow for tom-boyishness.

Scar

She claims that Scar must be a transgendered character because he is not a hulking male lion and he has no mate. Yes, it's possible Scar could be an image of a gay character but that could be a stretch also. For one, in actual lion prides, only one male mates with any or all of the females. Also, I saw no actual mating in the Lion King (thankfully) so who's to say that when Scar takes over the pride he isn't mating with Mufasa's former mate. She might not be affectionate toward him but that's because Scar is a sarcastic, rude character, not necessarily because he is lacking masculine characteristics. Also, Putnam says that the words Scar chooses and they way he says them make him appear less masculine. I'm sorry, I forgot that men were only allowed to have low voices and speak in "I am Caveman"-type English to be considered an Uber-man. Scar is an articulate, quick-witted character who has cruel intentions. Children and the other characters in the movie don't like Scar because he seems shady and he is: he pushed his brother off a cliff and the entire movie before and after that all Scar wants is power. If anything, a judgement could be made on the racial implications of Scar -- why does the evil lion have to have darker fur than the good lion?

Jafar

Jafar is probably one of the strongest cases Putnam made for transgendered character identification, he does wear make up and does not want to marry Jasmine for lust, but for power. However, his physical stature, his slender frame, I don't think really could identify him as a transgendered character because the protagonist male lead, Aladdin, isn't particularly hulking either. I won't really contest this one too much, I do somewhat agree.

Urusla

Much like the evil step sisters, Putnam attacks her physical frame as a way of identifying her as masculine. If anything, Urusla is the least masculine Disney character: she's buxom, wears make up, and satisfies most of Putnam's previous "female" qualifications except that her voice is low, she's half octopus, and she's "obese" by Putnam's standards. Even the way Putnam introduces Ursula's physical form, she attempts to bias the reader to see Ursula in a negative light: "Ursula exposes fleshy, wiggling, sagging jowels [...] Her exaggerated characteristics begin to read more and more like a flamboyant drag queen than that of a real exile concerned with starvation" (155). Disney does not specify that this body-type should be disgusting, in fact Ursula is one of Disney's most popular villains. They especially never say that Ursula's figure is "mannish." Putnam describes her body as revolting (maybe she used other words but that was the message she was getting across) and unfeminine, then continues to say that because of her over-dramatic behavior, Ursula must represent a transvestite (specifically Divine). So because Ursula doesn't look like a Disney princess, or sound like one, she really can't be a woman to Putnam. She must be a man in drag. Ok that's rude and harmful because if everybody strives for the Disney Princess norm that Putnam says is the epitome of femininity, we get lots of eating disorders and movies like the new Cinderella movie. Woohoo, my favorite.

Rattcliffe

I'll give it to her, he's pretty clearly an unfavorable image of a gay man. This example I can agree with Putnam on a little.

The Cashier

He's not even a Disney character, but at the end of her essay Putnam says that her child asked her if the cashier was a man or woman because he wore a ponytail. Then Putnam puts words into her child's mouth saying how she must explain that the cashier isn't evil just because he wears a ponytail and that Disney's gendered norms has set her child up to believe that any effeminate man is a villain. If I were her child and I had asked that question and my mother had turned on me to tell me, "Just because he wears a ponytail doesn't mean the cashier is evil! No more Disney movies for you!" I would probably have cried a lot and been very much terrified. Would that kind of aggressive behavior toward a child be considered masculine behavior? Maybe I would only be scared of my mother because she was exemplifying the transgendered characteristics Disney told me to fear, not because she was shouting in my face at a supermarket about assumptions I had never made. Obviously we should blame only external sources for our putting our own biases on other people rather than accepting the fact that we ourselves have preconceived stereotypes, etc. that we need to learn to get over. Rather than blaming Disney for all the aggression toward gay and trans people, maybe Putnam should re-examine herself because I think she sees these types of people as evil and just wants something else to blame for her misguided view.

Even in the Duke Store

Not technically Disney, but the font looks very much like Disney.

Revisiting the "Princess" Body Image

It's one thing for an animated character to have entirely unrealistic proportions (example: Rapunzel in Tangled with orb-like eyes, a head like a Bratz doll, and a practically non-existent waist) but when Disney brought the same imagery to their new, live-action Cinderella, they crossed a line. Cartoons are obviously not real people, they complete actions no normal human could including activities such as flying or not having severe brain trauma from being smacked in the head with a cast-iron frying pan. Even if seeing the cartoons' like the original Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, etc. could be detrimental to a young girl's body image, seeing a real person who bears the same proportions is endlessly more detrimental. When ads and trailers for the new Cinderella movie came out, there was almost immediate outrage at how unbelievably small Cinderella's waist was. Magazines, and I'm sure movies, have been doing photo-editing on models' and actresses' bodies for years to alter them into unachievable, thin bodies. People will buy the products these companies sell because, subconsciously they think that if they do, the products will make them look like those mythical-magazine-nymphs. In the last few years, people have started fighting back against these negative-body-image-inducing advertisements and edits, calling out companies that photo-edit their models and deny it, even sometimes making blogs dedicated to these photoshop fails:

(https://www.tumblr.com/search/photoshop-FAIL)

Adults can recognize that these images are faulty and, even if some people wish they could look like the models pictured, more and more people are realizing it's really a waste of time to hope for such slender, smooth figures because they aren't natural. Children don't have this kind of understanding. They don't even have fully developed brains that can really think rationally. How could a company, a "family-oreiented, wholesome" company like Disney which has also had plenty of scandals regarding its actresses with body-image issues, eating disorders, or depression, think that this kind of imagery is in any way ok. Not only to they attempt to perpetuate the desire for unrealistic ideals, and make it seem like they are all that much more achievable by editing a live-action movie to fit that unrealistically thin body-type, they then denied ever editing the image. They should at least own it if they did (which I more than strongly believe they did). Buzzfeed wrote an article on the matter, I've linked it on the side, where they interviewed people who sell and make corsets and CGI experts, both of whom said that Lily James' waist in the new Cinderella movie couldn't have been achieve without about a year of "body training" (ew.). I really doubt this girl wore a corset for a year before filming this movie. So do those experts. I can't even fathom who thought this was ok and not only ok but a good idea. What's worse is that Disney created this image in one of their most popular franchises, Cinderella possibly the most iconic Disney princess. While I would love it if this movie crashed and burned with nearly-no ticket sales, I know it'll be a block-buster and that's probably the worst part.

Reconsidering Ariel, Again

After reading Roberta Trite's "Disney's (Sub)Version of Andersen's Little Mermaid" I am again reconsidering how I view Ariel. I'd still never want to be her in either the H.C.A version of The Little Mermaid or in the Disney version, however I can see Trite's point about how at least the H.C.A. version isn't focused exclusively on romantic love as the soul pursuit of the protagonist. I may have just been off put by the H.C.A version because personally I don't think religious concepts of heaven should necessarily to stressed to children in order to respect their and their families' religious autonomy, however I do agree with Trite that the principles of charity and forgiveness are valuable to learn. I also agree with Trite that Disney's fairytale presents more extensive opinions on what makes a "good" physical shape that the H.C.A. version. Although in H.C.A. the witch says that the Little Mermaid's beauty will help her attract her prince, H.C.A. never specifies what about her is beautiful. In the Disney fairytale, Ariel is slender, fair, and has a doe-eyed innocence, where the evil villain Ursula is fat and has skin that is a grey-ish tone. One could say that this is Disney's commentary on the superiority of pale skin, but more definitely it represents the weight conscious ethos of America beginning around the time that The Little Mermaid was produced where hyper-thinness began to be considered the ideal (also known as the heroin-chic look). While some facets of Trite's argument seemed like a stretch to me (she seemed very keen on the presence of phallic objects within the story but most seemed a little far-fetched to me, same with the whole H.C.A's having the mermaid feel as if she were stepping on glass as a metaphor for menstration), I could get on board with much of it, including the Paradise Lost allusion relating Ursula to a Satan-figure. If my issue was the presence of religious allusions, then I guess this would make that a mute point and judging the stories otherwise especially after reading Trite's paper, I'm surprised to say that the original story is actually more relative and valuable as a children's story meant to teach ideals than the more modern Disney version. The songs and everything are clever, but I'd rather have little girls learning that goodness will grant them a happy ending than learning marriage is the key to their happily ever after.

Any Other Princess I'd Rather Be

Sorry for the Yoda-esque title, but it gets the point across. After reading the Hans Christian Anderson version of the Little Mermaid and after rewatching the Disney film, I've decided that I'd rather be almost any other princess than Ariel. This is an interesting realization for me because of all the princesses, I used to identify with Ariel the most. We both love to sing, we both have thick hair (at one point mine was also red), we both have sisters, and we both fought with our parents. However, after rewatching the movie I realized how little I'd want to identify with her: in the sea, she has a very restrictive father who uses her as an example of his success. He definitely loves her, he sacrifices himself to keep her from becoming a polyp after she makes the mistake of defaulting on her contract with Ursula, but he also objectifies her as a music box he can show off. When Ariel goes to visit Urusla, she's told it's better if she doesn't speak and that boys will like her more for this. She's told that all she needs to do to woo a man is to be pretty and demure. Wow. At least Snow White could cook and clean and in the Grimm's tale had a backbone. Ariel just sort of goes along with this, then abandons her family and all her friends to pursue a guy who she never has a conversation with until she is breaking up his wedding minutes before she turns back into a mermaid. How does she know she loves him? She looks at him. Apparently mermaid culture and the culture of whatever country Eric is supposed to be prince of literally could not care less about conversation. All anybody seems to care about if beauty and techniques of up keeping beauty (see dinglehopper).
The Hans Christian Anderson might be a little less vain, but Ariel (who isn't named Ariel in the original) does seem a little more gold-digger-y. She does fall in love with Eric, but she seems to more fall in love with the "eternal soul" she could gain from having him love and marry her. The H.C.A. version is more a plug for the Christian faith (the Little Mermaid wants to go to heaven) than it is for genuine, true love. However, to achieve her eternal soul the Little Mermaid has to more permanently sacrifice her boy: her tongue must be cut out, she has to go through the pain of having her tail separated into legs (which, if Ariel experiences this too she hides it really well), and she must feel as if she is walking on glass each time she takes a step on her new legs. She goes through this suffering, but still doesn't get the prince. In fact, he calls her his "dumb" little companion. I'm sure dumb had a different meaning when this story was written, but I still didn't appreciate the Littler Mermaid being so repeatedly talked down to. Even if it was meant to be endearing, Eric is fairly condescending in the original story. The Little Mermaid at least has the redeeming quality that she isn't a murderer. When she is presented with the opportunity to regain her mermaid-ship by killing the prince (because her sisters did a Locks of Love-esque trade for their sister to return to them) and bathing herself in his blood, she throws the knife into the water and then herself, turing into sea foam. She then evaporates into water particles in the air and Hans lays his Christian-missionary type statement out: if air-born mermaid particles float into the room of a good child, they get to go to heaven a year sooner, but if they float into the room of a wicked child, they cry and have their stay as water particles extended a day for each tear shed. So the soul-digging Little Mermaid still has a chance to reach heaven, but it'll take a while.
I don't know why I would ever choose to identify with this particular princess, neither story presents an ideal situation. I wouldn't want to be married to a man I never spoke to who I knew only loved me because he thought I was beautiful and had a pretty singing voice. I'd like to marry a man who thinks I'm beautiful and that I have a lovely singing voice, but also that values my opinions and moral values and can hold a conversation with me. Similarly, I don't want to marry a man for the purpose of gaining anything, I'd rather marry for true love and not through dubious purposes. Especially not if those dubious purposes required me to feel pain for extended periods of time. I'd be more troubled if Little Quinn had identified with the H.C.A. Little Mermaid because she's literally told that beauty is pain and she needs to suck it up, then they end the story with a very obvious moral meaning that this story is meant to TEACH CHILDREN AN IDEAL SET OF VALUES AND BELIEFS. As a Catholic, my understanding is that as long as I am a good person and that I repent for my sins committed on Earth, I will go to heaven. I would really rather not believe that rather than my own "goodness" being enough to get me into heaven, I need to trick a man into loving me enough to get me there. Also I don't really love that he's pushing religion in a children's story any way. In this case I'm glad I identified with Ariel over the Little Mermaid, but I'll be on the look out for a new, more complete princess with whom I can identify with instead.

DIs-spirational Quotes

These are just some of my favorite Disney quotes. Every once and a while the Disney writers hit a profound chord and the message they convey is really wonderful.

Some *Cute* Little Easter Eggs

You never really realize what a sick sense of humor some of the Disney animators have until you rematch the movies. Even then, you don't always catch their little Easter eggs. I was perusing Buzzfeed when I stumbled upon "25 WTF Disney Moments That Will Ruin Your Childhood," and figured, why not ruin my childhood? And they did, a little. I will definitely not be able to watch Jaq stack necklace beads on Gus Gus's tail with the same innocent, "Oh they're just working on a necklace!" understanding again. What I was more surprised by in the article is how probably 75% of the "childhood ruining" moments were sexual. They seemed to miss a lot of the more violent ones, for example I linked another Buzzfeed article that shows the striking resemblance between Scar's addressing the hyenas and Hitler addressing the Nazi SS soldiers. It's true that realizing the sexual relationships between the Disney characters are a little shocking, but I don't think they're any more scaring that the violent scenes and relationships which seem to be more easily accepted. If anything, the sexual relationships are just something that the adults watching these films with their kids are used to seeing or have experienced themselves so they should be less "childhood ruining," than watching he hyena's eat a zebra leg in the lion king (which is what they do, and I didn't realize that until I watched the movie last night in my common room) or watching Scar throw his brother off a cliff while his young nephew is watching. That was strikingly violent and changed my memory of the movie. I don't know which really is worse for children to see. I'm leaving it up to my readers to ultimately decide for themselves. Check out the article in my list of links on the side bar.

Happy Valentine's Day from a Disney Fan with a Sense of Humor

Dopey's Legacy Maybe, but Gus Gus's?

In "Dopey's Legacy: Stereotypical Portrayals of Intellectual Disability in the Classic Animated Films" I can maybe get on board with Karen Schwartz, Zana Marie Lutfiyya, and Nancy Hansen in their argument that Dopey presents an unfavorable view of those with mental illness. However, I feel that when they drag Gus Gus into the argument their argument becomes a little thin. Dopey, in my opinion, does seem to represent the animators' opinions of the mentally disable, especially considering the animators said that Dopey's features were characterized as, "Down's syndrome-like," and he was meant to be "mentally retarded," or and an, "idiot." When you watch Snow White, you see that the other dwarves mistreat Dopey: they leave him behind or push him into danger, he's given only the simplest tasks, and he's often out of step or acting differently from the other dwarves. Dopey is also unable to speak, which is often a characteristic of those suffering from mental illnesses like autism. Children could identify these characteristics in Dopey, his challenges in social situations and his inability to speak, and learn that marginalizing people who exhibit these characteristics is not only ok, but also funny. On the other hand (I'm just considering this now), Dopey is one of the most lovable dwarves and Snow White isn't afraid of him and doesn't mistreat him. Maybe because of that it would teach children that people with those same characteristics as Dopey are equally lovable, thereby making it easier for them to interact with the mentally disabled. It is more likely they would observe the other dwarves behaviors and see those as the acceptable response to Dopey's actions and be cruel, but even still I would be surprised if children recognized Dopey as a mentally-disabled-inspired character. Even though in my opinion Dopey is the most-likely character to represent a mentally disabled person, he's never explicitly said to be mentally disabled. The animators are a little insensitive, though, for what they said about characterizing (or really more caricaturing) Down's syndrome-like features and the features of the mentally retarded. That was not cool, Disney animators, not cool.

Their analysis of Gus Gus I feel is a little bit of a stretch when they identify him as another possibly mentally disabled character. When I watched Cinderella, I always just assumed Gus Gus was the youngest mouse. He always seemed the most naive and most innocent, but I never saw him as "slow." I think that weakened their argument that Disney misrepresents the mentally disabled because it seemed like they were reaching for any character that could pass as possibly being mentally disabled and they were definitively saying these characters represented Disney's attack on the mentally handicapped. While I definitely believe there is severe misrepresentation of mental illness in films and in television, I don't believe that Disney has the same vendetta against the mentally handicapped that the authors of "Dopey's Legacy" seem to be accusing them of. I think the authors are willing to call almost anything an attack on the mentally handicapped in order to prove their point. For example, they say that Dumb and Dumber is an offense and again I will cite Gus Gus, neither of whom I would identify as mentally handicapped. Dumb and Dumber I would classify as two stupid guys, not necessarily two guys with mental disabilities (I am not terribly familiar with most of the movies the authors cite so I may be wrong as well and too callous) and like I said previously, Gus Gus is childish. I am too unfamiliar with the other texts they address to comment, I've never seen of Forrest Gump for example, but I question the authors' credibility because of these other examples. I'm neither too familiar with mental disability nor am I too familiar with most of these movies, but from what I gather these authors took a solid idea a little too far. I can see maybe Dopey's legacy, but I believe the authors should have stopped there and their message about protecting the interests of the mentally handicapped would have resonated more with me.

It's scaring me a little how much the computer knows about me. Now it's not only telling me to apply to jobs with Disney, but the add has been tailored to teaching Chinese using Disney. This popped up as a Facebook ad for me. If I were a little older, I might actually apply for this.

Target turned Disney World

Spotted at my most recent visit to Target: Disney Princess soup, Disney-themed luggage, and plenty of Disney sleep-items. If cuddling with a disney princess or character wasn't enough for your child, why not have them follow the Grimm's Evil Queen's example and cannibalize their favorite Disney characters? And personally, I'd rather travel with whatever luggage I have to see the Disney princesses than to just have them on my luggage, but I guess that'd just my personal preference. In fact, I think my five year old niece has that luggage set.

Disney Could Learn a Thing or Two, but So Could We

Disney is known as a giant in the entertainment and commercial goods businesses, but the company also has a giant, invisible hand in the education industry (but in the actual American educational system and also in the metaphorical sphere of "education" that Disney imparts on its viewers). Personally, I see nothing wrong with Disney's scholarship opportunities, teacher of the year awards, and grants that it gives to various schools around the nation. Education is important. Disney supports that, therefore I support Disney in supporting education. In Giroux's article "Animating Youth: The Disneyfication of Children's Culture," he mentions Disney having these scholarship opportunities as an example of the "over Disney-fication of America." While I agree that Disney is almost terrifying pervasive in the American childhood-culture, I looked into these scholarship opportunities and I was unable to see anything distinctly wrong about them. According to the Disney Corp. website, the teacher of the year award rewards, "a member of the teaching profession whose talent, commitment, and creativity have a profound and lasting impact on our children and society." These teachers also are nominated by parents, colleagues, and their students; it's not as if Disney is hand-picking these teachers according to how often they read their class Disney stories or play Disney movies for them, it's a genuine acknowledgement of their talents as an instructor. Not only is it an acknowledgment, the company then give monetary grants to both the teacher and the institution they work for, and education could always use supplementary funding. As long as Disney isn't impressing that these teachers must imbed Disney into their curriculum, I see no fault or "over-Disneyfication" present in these grants -- they simply benefit our children. (And so what if they make Disney look good along the way?)

What I do agree with is that Disney should be taught critically in schools. If Disney were taught in class through a similar historical, critical lens as actual historical events are taught in school, they could be a valuable learning mechanism especially for younger children. Rather than just watching the Jungle Book and learning seeing it as a fun, happy-go-lucky movie about a boy and his bear, if teachers critically analyzed it with their students looking at the racial undertones and other triggers in the movie that frequently go unobserved, it would be a powerful teaching mechanism. Moreover, it could be a lens in which to view American history at the time when the movie was produced. Why was "Why is the Red Man Red?" a fine song to put into Peter Pan when now the Washington Redskins are being frequently sued for naming their team after a racial slur against Native Americans? It makes American history relatable even to young children, although it might be a little much to go into full graphic detail of the history between the English settlers and the Native Americans when children are too young. I agree with Giroux that Disney is a huge influence on American culture, I also agree that it's a money-making machine, however if examined critically, even it's misgivings are really just lenses into the past. Whatever is offensive in Disney can be acknowledged as such and that can be alright. Times have changed and as long as we acknowledge that and don't let children just passively watch Disney movies with their outdated themes and undertones, they aren't harmful. The only catch is that Disney would probably hate this idea-- a lot. Like Giroux expresses, they've worked very hard to market themselves as the ideal, wholesome, innocent children's stories and if they are read as misguided retellings of history, or highly-dated cultural representations, then Disney might not be thought of as such a  harmless entertainment source. On their website, Disney Corp tries to be fairly transparent about their various human rights policies, nutrition policies, etc. regarding the production of their goods and the management of their parks, but I still don't believe they are ready for the same critical examination of the intellectual goods they produce.

A Different Kind of Princess

Well the Grimm Brothers' version of Snow-White is... different. Between the cannibalism, murder, necrophilia (sort of),  child abuse, and misogyny, it surprised me that this story was the inspiration for a Disney fairytale. Moreover, if the Disney film is seen as outdated, I don't know what you'd call the Grimm Brothers' version. The Grimms' fairytale, for the most part, is offensive to women. In this fairytale world, all women are vain, beauty conscious creatures with no other characteristics than their appearance. However, it ends with Snow-White being the only princess I ever known to exact her revenge on her tormentor at the end of the story, making her the only princess I've read about with that kind of backbone. Maybe it's not just an attack on women, more an observation of how their appearance effected their existence in the era when the Grimms' fairytales were written (assuming that it was set in modern day when it was written). 

All that matters in the world of the Grimms' fairytale is beauty: Snow-White's mother wants a beautiful child, her stepmother cares exclusively about being the most beautiful in the land (so much so she would kill to be the fairest of them all), the huntsman spares Snow-White for her beauty, the dwarfs trust Snow-White to live in their home because of her beauty, and finally the prince falls in love with and marries Snow-White based only on her beauty (he literally doesn't care if she is dead or alive). But even the good Snow-White is easily deceived and taken advantage of because of her lust for beautiful goods. She serves a good, dim-witted, surrogate housewife for the seven dwarfs, so she does have that "redeeming" quality, but beyond that Snow-White is characterized by her beauty. Beauty is so important to those in the Grimms' fairytale world that when Snow-White is only about seven years old, her stepmother decides she is too beautiful to live in the same world and so has Snow-White taken to the woods by a huntsman. Snow-White's stepmother instructs the huntsman to return Snow-Whites lungs and liver to her as proof that the huntsman had killed her step-child. If this is not morbid enough, she then proceeds to eat what she believes to be Snow-White's lungs and liver in celebration of her victory. Maybe consuming the organs of another to gain power from them is some Germanic ritual, maybe it's just the Queen's particular taste preference, but I'm glad whatever it was it didn't make it into the Disney adaptation. No matter how Disney framed it, this scene would be difficult for children and parents to swallow. If I had read this as a child, I would probably have some qualms about eating whatever meat my parents put on my dinner plate from then on. 

The story returns two inverse messages to the reader: the first being that beauty is valued above all else, above gold, love, and kindness, but also that being too beautiful is dangerous. If one becomes too beautiful, they risk becoming as vain and envious as the evil Queen, or falling victim to those envious people like the poor, helplessly simple Snow-White. (I may be harshly critiquing Snow-White, but in the Grimms' fairytale she trusted the evil Queen's disguise three times even after the dwarfs implored her to not trust anybody. I'm sorry, but she's a dumb girl.) However, according to this story, if you are so undeniably beautiful as Snow-White, you also won't ever be in danger of a wild animal attack as exemplified by her traipsing through the forest without any animal-molestation. Other benefits of beauty include everybody taking pity on you and welcoming you into their home, not decaying when you die, and having princes see your dead body and claim you as their owns because they "cannot live without being able to see Snow-White. I will honor her and respect her as my most cherished one." However, you will also be objectified, and possibly placed in a glass case where you are labeled "Princess" like a good for sale when you die. The way I see it, there is a lesson in this story if someone reads the story as a "What-Not-To-Do" guide to passing judgement on the character of other people and creating a system of values, but it has value in how it redefines "goodness."

 The end of the Grimms' fairytale could be confusing to a seasoned Disney viewer: the so-called "good" Snow-White has her evil stepmother dance to her death in burning hot shoes, yet still has her happily-ever-after. Had Snow-White been forgiving (not that her stepmother deserved a pardon for her actions, but a classically "good" character like the Disney princess would have her happily-ever-after without ordering the death of her enemy), she would have exemplified the Kantian morality often exhibited in Disney films. In this way, the Grimms' fairytale Snow-White does have more backbone than the traditional Disney princess and because of this would not be as widely accepted as a role model for children. It is an interesting culture shock for me as a now-adult raised on Disney, to read a story where a princess can fight back against her former aggressor and still have a happy ending. To me, it's a little sick how she seeks justice, but also a little liberating that even this helpless, characterless, befitting-of-a-Disney-movie princess can act in a not-traditional Disney manner and have her happy ending. I'm not entirely sure that I would read this story to my five year old niece, but I still think it's a valuable, alternative to the traditional Disney princess story.

Disney from a Different Perspective

Disney may be given a lock of flock for being a bad influence on children, prompting poor self-esteem in young girls, mishandling mature content, underrepresentation of minorities, etc. etc. However, I just read this article from the New York Times, linked on the side of my blog, called "Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney," and it sort of blew my mind. I previously blogged about how Disney will, I'm almost certain, never make a video with a mentally handicapped princess or character as the heroine or protagonist because it doesn't fit the mold of perfection they usually go for. My issue with this was that I assumed children who were in a handicapped state and watched these movies would intuit that what they suffer from deems them unworthy of ever being the protagonist and living happily ever after. Without a protagonist that represented them, I assumed children would be unable to identify with the characters and feel left out and diminished by viewing these movies. Owen, the child with autism in discussed in the New York Times article, showed me there could be another perspective.

Owen was a normal kid until the age of three when he stopped being able to comprehend human speech and social cues like a child without autism would. He became unresponsive and quiet until his parents discovered they could communicate with him using the characters from Disney. While Owen was unable to comprehend day-to-day social interactions appropriately, the social interactions, speech patterns, and language of Disney (along with the frequently musical adaptation of speech) Owen was able to learn English and understand complex social relationships that were too nuanced in the real world for him to learn. His parents began employing puppets, adapting the voices of the characters, and various other Disney-fied way of communicating with their son and learned that he was understanding the world and not only that, but he could also recognize that he did not engage with the world like the other kids did. Owen saw himself as a "sidekick" in a Disney movie, equivalent to Mrs. Pott, Lumiere, Sebastian, Rafiki, and the like. Owen saw the characteristic in each of the sidekicks that made them a little bit different -- their gentleness, their loyalty, their lightheartedness -- and recognized the same characteristics in the children he attended school with. According to Owen's father commented "It’s often the supporting players in Disney fables who are more varied and vivid," and it's true, the sidekicks are more often the flawed characters, those with harsh tempers or who are overprotective, those who maybe behave in ways that society doesn't necessarily promote. But they are still deserving of love, appreciation, and sometimes even laudation. Without the sidekicks, the protagonists would never achieve their happily ever after. The most beautiful part of Owen's story to me was the no-sidekick-left-behind policy he instituted in his sketchbook. Owen had a lot of difficulty making friends in school when he was young, according to his father's article. After attending a certain school for special needs children through the elementary school levels, Owen was removed from the school. Any friends or acquaintances he'd made in his years there were torn away and he felt dejected, unworthy, and unwanted. While Owen couldn't communicate this orally, he showed his dismay at being removed by drawing the emotion in the faces of the Disney sidekicks he recreated in his sketchbook. To compensate with the loneliness he felt, Owen drew the sidekicks in his sketchbook in pairs so they were never without a friend and he could feel vicariously secure. 

Even in a story not meant for children like Owen to identify with, Owen was able to find his place in the story, perhaps because he looked at the storyline with a more sophisticated and considerate eye. Owen valued the "sidekicks" that most of us just see as background noise to the hero/heroine of the story. I just wish that Disney created something that could help ameliorate Owen's loneliness by making him a Disney hero with whom he could relate. While it's touching that Owen was caring enough to become defender of sidekicks and paired them together to protect them from being as lonely as he was, no child should ever be made to feel so marginalized. Obviously Disney isn't all bad, in fact it was a critical factor in Owen learning how to socially relate to the world and it later enabled him to engage in relationships with his peers later in life. Owen made himself and the sidekicks the heroes of his life-story, but in my ideal world, Disney would already have them, or similar characters, occupy that space and all Owen, or children like him, would need to do is watch.