Wild Moon Swings

Friday, March 10, 2006

Plump Fathers

That is an unusual title, but I think it's appropriate. This blog is about Disney heriones and why they usually piss me off. I just don't like their portrayal for the most part and here I am to complain about it, but as I've said before, I don't flame things pointlessly, so I'm going to do a pro/con list for the films that I'll analyze. Got it? The colour of the highlights will be the colour of her dress.

Belle from Beauty and the Beast

Pros
  1. The guy who does the voice for the beast. I don't know who that guy is but he totally rocks! I was totally in love with him when I was like nine. I mean that I ACTUALLY REALIZED that his voice was smooth as butter and I wasn't yet into the double digits. That's how freaking good that guys is. Too bad I'm too lazy to look up his name.
  2. The whole scene where Belle is promising to exchange her father for herself. I love how the beast says "Done!" and walks past her and then chucks her father into the carriage and says "Take him to the villiage." Was it just me or was that not totally hot? Didn't that whole bit just scream "ROMANCE AT ITS BEST!"? Huh? Huh?
  3. The scene where the beast fights off an entire pack of wolves to save Belle? It was like Lestat from The Vampire Lestat.
  4. When Belle is leaving the castle to go home to her father and the beast howls ... perfect!
  5. The scene where Gastone (spelling anyone?) and the beast are fighting in the rain on the roof top of a mideval castle. That was pretty good - and I don't usually dig the action sequences.
Cons
  1. The music. Disney usually pulls of the whole 'musical' thing better than anyone, but the music for this whole film as just crap. The song that sucks the least is the song the bad guys sing in the tavern. And the song that sucks the most is the romantic one - the one that should have been the BEST!
  2. That they are trying to give this message about how looks don't matter and it's what's on the inside that counts and yet ... they don't give the beast a name. He is THE BEAST. How disappointing! And way to mix your messages. I've sat around when bored and tried to think up what they should have named him and the two names that stand out strongest in my mind are Lothair and Dominic. Especially Dominic because it seems a little more delicate - the perfect name for a guy who was totally conceited about how beautiful he and everything around him was.
  3. Okay, so here's my complaint about Belle. She claimes that she wants adventure, that she really wants to live her life. So, one would think that once she finds herself in the castle of the beast that when he invites her to dinner she'd plop down beside him while slicing her roast beef and be like, "So, tell me about YOU." One would think, but instead she proclaims to the wardrobe, "I don't want to get to know him. I don't want to have anything to do with him!" Talk about mood swings - and inconsitancy of character. However, I have something cute to add about this. The first time my sister saw this she thought the wardrobe said to Belle, "The mattress isn't really so bad once you get to know him. Why don't you give him a chance?" Then the whole, "I don't want to get to know him. I don't want to have anything to do with him!" becomes a zillion times better.
  4. Okay, I also have a problem with most Disney fathers - and Belle's is by far the worst. I'm not even going to go into more detail about it. Holy smokes!
  5. They didn't keep the beast's voice when he transformed back into a human. So, then he sounded like a pansy. Great.
  6. Belle's argument when she's treating the beast's wounds after he fights the wolves. Hello? Does her end of the debate even make sense? She was TOTALLY in the wrong. She should be apologizing instead of fighting.
  7. They changed the goblins into naked angels when the castle gets changed back to normal. Was he really that kind of guy to begin with? But that's just a complaint about style, so it's hardly even valid.
Jasmine from Aladdin

Pros
  1. There are pros?
  2. Just kidding! Aladdin himself was probably the most developed male character introduced by Disney at the time.
  3. The rug was cute. Probably because he didn't speak.
Cons
  1. Why did Jasmine sneak out of the palace to begin with? She totally had her father wrapped around her little finger. It wouldn't have been difficult for her to manipulate him further (he was such a weeny) into letting her have her way yet again ... and again, and so forth. I'm sorry, I just couldn't see the motivation behind her leaving.
  2. She was stupid, yet she seems headstrong - a nasty, unlikable, combination. If she was really interested in leaving the palace, wouldn't she have bothered to become educated? Even if it was behind her father's back? She's totally unequiped to live out on her own - so shows the incident with the apple.
  3. Since she really is (let's be honest) a snotty little princess with the manners of a donkey, one would think that she'd be totally self serving - thus not object to marriage, but insist that she have a say (wait, she did insist that she have a say). And then score herself the richest, most easily bullied, man there was to be had. On second thoughts ... maybe that's what she found in Aladin. Don't ya think? Anyway, I think that would be overestimating the character - she was too unintelligent and wily for that.
  4. Why didn't she have Jaffar (or however you spell that? Sorry I'm not looking anything up today - I'm on a rampage!) in her back pocket? He would have been a good person to cuddle up to, since he was obviously more powerful than her father.
  5. And last but not least, why did Jaffar want to be the person in the lime light anway? The very best politicans aren't the front runners. They toddle in the back and let someone else be assassinated if things fall to crap. They're smart enough to watch their backs, but Jaffar obviously isn't.
Cinderella from Cinderella

Pros
  1. Sorry, I can't think of any just now. Maybe there are some and it'll come to be later.
Cons
  1. The thing that I dislike the most about Cinderella is that she didn't DO anything to improve her situation by herself. Her fairy god mother just shows up and everything is fixed for her. But Disney's is worse than even this, because she needed to have a parcel of animals to help her too (at the end). Cinderella accomplishes nothing of value on her own in this story, which is a real pity because I always think of the Cinderella theme as an extremely powerful one regarding personal growth. But this is just crap.
  2. They develop the characters of the Duke? or King's advisor? Whatever, and the mice more than they develope Cinderella or the prince.
  3. The prince doesn't even go looking for her, he sends handle-bar-moustache instead. What a man! Granted that's how the original fairy tale goes - he send his men to go find her. But ... now Cinderella is marrying a Ken doll who has no lines. They only had 90 minutes so one would think that they'd crunch a few lines for 'Mr. Right', but no. How sad.
Pocahontas from Pocahontas

Pros
  1. There is one song from this film that is spectacular. 'The Colour of the Wind'? Anyway, it was good.
Cons
  1. This is a stupid complaint, but ... how the heck was that one-strapped dress holding up that rack? Pocahontas is stacked to the nines. It's a miracle she doesn't hurt herself when she runs, and she does seem to be pretty light on her feet.
  2. Pocahontas seems to exhibit an unusual amount of sexuality for a virgin. I found the part where John Smith finds her by the waterfall completely offensive. I realize they were aiming for something a little more grown up, but I half expected them to pull away from that close up of her lips to show her leaning out of a whore house.
  3. Two words - historical inaccuracies. Need I say more?
  4. The bad guys seem too cartoonish for the threat they present to seem real.
  5. The whole end half of this film was vertually unwatchable, so I can't analyze it any further.
Okay, I'm done with the worst of them. Maybe I'll talk about some of their other films later. These were just the four worst. But in all fairness I have to say that I can find precious little to complain about in Mulan, Hercules, and The Little Mermaid. Those three were pretty solid. I like that Mulan so completely that it's astonishing that I could feel that way about a Disney film, and I like the way Meg in Hercules is/was jaded and not necessarily a good girl. And I like that Ariel actually has a purpose to rebelling as opposed to Jasmine and Belle.

Okay, that's it for now.


2 Comments:

  • LOL you're absolutely right! But hey, there is one «heroine» that I liked (although I don't know if it's Disney's). It's Anastasia! lol

    And about Disney's «heroines»... have you seen Pocahontas in the sequel?! If you think the sucked in the first movie... well Pocahontas2 blows you away! LOL

    Well... there are many other Disney heroines you can talk about... like Little Mermaid, Snow White, and I dunno!

    I like your blog! ;) came across it when you mentioned it on your fanfiction.net profile. (since I was seeing if you had updated Mistic Wings loool) Sorry for my bad english in this comment (I am Portuguese). =)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:00 p.m.  

  • Hiya! Thanks for coming to read - how fun. You should go to my forum. That's fun too.

    I actually have seen that Pocahontas 2. I know, it's shameful to admit, but I heard they cleared up some of the historical inaccuracies and so I wanted to get a look at it. I sat around for ever so long trying to figure out if royalty would have watched a bear baiting during that particular time period, and then I decided that I didn't care.

    No, your English is good. Besides, I never pay attention to spelling when I'm doing this sort of thing. My good behaviour is for when I write important stuff - like my stories, and I need help with that.

    Ja ne =^.^=

    By Blogger Sapphirefly, at 8:21 p.m.  

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