Revisiting Disney: Kim Possible, Oh How I Miss You

Friday, March 20, 2015

Kim Possible, Oh How I Miss You

http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/reasons-kim-possible-was-the-best-disney-channel-show?sub=3378583_3271090#.hooRyYzbB

I just ran across this article and oh god do I miss Kim Possible. By far it was the best Disney Channel show, not just when it was on but I would argue ever. Kim was a feminine, yet strong, smart young woman who could just be friends with a boy, came from a good home, and fought crime. Literally what wasn't possible for Kim Possible. I don't know what happened to Disney's television shows, maybe just becoming so politically correct, so afraid of violence, etc. means that shows like this can't be on the air. Also the writing though, the writers for Kim Possible were some of the sassiest writers I think Disney has ever seen. While modern Disney TV shows try to emulate this same sass, it just comes off as trying too hard. The jokes were, and after reading this Buzzfeed article I realized still are, genuinely funny. I will never laugh at a joke told my Austin and Ally in Austin and Ally. I miss it, and I will probably spend the rest of my Friday binge watching Kim Possible on Netflix.

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Disney's as a Boys' Toy Too

I rarely remember that little boys, as well as little girls, watch Disney movies and look up to some of the characters. In many of the earlier films, the men/princes aren't really a significant piece of the story, but more recently males are playing a greater and greater role in Disney and Pixar movies. Males like Chang, Sebastian, and Wasabi serve as role models for young boys just as the princesses do for little girls. Because of this, it's just as important that little boys of all appearances and personality types appear in animated films. The Feminist community has been more outspoken about female representation than the male community, perhaps because women tended to be placed in a subservient position to the men of the stories in earlier Disney movies. However, if you try to closely examine the character of the men or male characters in the early Disney movies, they tend to just be place holders that allow the princess to achieve their happily ever after. In later films they are hyper masculine and tough, even sometimes emotionless, if they want to be attractive to the females in the story. The non-human characters like Sebastion, Timone, and the like can be more sensitive because they aren't the male protagonist trying to win the girl and save the world. If we're going to work to build up strong, independent girls, we should work equally hard to help develop sensitive, thoughtful boys. This begins with providing more complex characters for them to look up to and more representation in the male characters in Disney films.

Identity and Disney

Disney Characters' Race Breakdown

Although Disney is often criticized for its lack of diversity in the characters in its animated and live action films, the statistics are fairly close to those of the US census. Although in Disney, about 75% of the characters are White, and so minorities are somewhat underrepresented, the statistics are fairly close to the true proportions. In America, about 62% of the population identifies as White, while 17% of the population is Hispanic, 13.2% is Black, 5% is Asian, and 3.8% of the population identify as multiracial, Native American, or Native Hawaiian. While more diversity would be nice, especially regarding Latinos considering they are 17% of the US population and only one single Disney character is identified as Latino, the statistic is less drastic that I would have anticipated.