Midnight Mulan Sing-a-long

For it's monthly movie sing-a-long night, Duke decided to show Mulan last month. Although I strongly suspect that this screening was only so well-attended because there were free t-shirts, I have never had more fun watching a Disney movie. As well as singing along with the characters in the film, people in the audience would shout out insults to every character who made some sort of sexist comment towards Mulan. This was certainly an experience I will never forget, and to give you a taste of it here is a clip of us singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You." 

Unnecessary Analysis

      One thing that I have learned from the articles that we have read this semester is that Disney critics tend to overanalyze these movies. Some of the minor details that these critics choose to bring up suggest that they are watching these children's movies looking for something to condemn. This tendency was most apparent in Ajay Gehlawat's article "The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race." In his article, Gehlawat points out trivial details, such as the name of the restaurant where Tiana works (Duke's Café), and leaps to strong conclusions about Disney's apparent racism, such as the fact that the one of the former Grand Wizards of the KKK was named David Duke (421). As another member of my class aptly pointed out, Disney could just as easily have been referring to Duke University, whose diverse student body supports Disney's liberal perspective. The connection between Duke's Café and the KKK was, more likely than not, purely coincidental.     
      Another point in Gehlawat's essay that I found difficult to agree with was when he stated that Disney's placement of President Woodrow Wilson on the front page of a newspaper was reinforcing racist ideas due to "Wilson's noted personal racism and the policies of racial segregation he enacted during his tenure in office" (420). I feel as though this was not Disney making a statement but rather the animators were attempting to place the movie within a specific timeframe so that the audience realized that the setting of the film was New Orleans during the Jazz Age. 
     These exaggerations and sweeping conclusions make it difficult for me to agree with Gehlawat's overall argument. Like words such as "obviously" and "clearly," excessive analysis can alienate an author's audience rather than lead them to the same conclusion. I believe that Gehlawat's essay could have been much stronger had he replaced some of this conjecture with deeper analysis or explanation of some of his more factual points. For instance, he brings up an intriguing idea about Tiana and Naveen's relationship that had never occurred to me before: if the film does take place in 1920s New Orleans (where segregation was rampant), how will society take this interracial marriage? In his essay, Gehlawat merely introduces this idea before moving on to describe the couple's screen time as frogs as "greenface," likening this fairy tale adaptation to the outdated and discriminatory tradition of "blackface" (425). In many ways this argument is more offensive than many of the supposedly racist moments in Disney's film. 
     In their quest to prove that Disney films are not the innocent, child-friendly movies that they superficially seem to be, many of Disney's critics end up isolating themselves from their audiences by making accusations about minuscule details that were most likely unintentionally offensive. Essays such Gehlawat's would be much stronger if authors stuck to more factual analyses of the films rather than overanalyzing coincidences. 

Dr. Facilier vs. Rasputin

While watching The Princess and the Frog recently, I noticed how similar Dr. Facilier's song where he describes his "Friends on the Other Side" is to Rasputin's song "In the Dark of the Night" from Anastasia. Looking at them again they don't seem as similar as I initially thought so perhaps it was simply the fact that both involve dark magic. Overall, I think Dr. Facilier's song is a much better version either way. Let me know if you feel the same!

Nick Pitera

If you've never heard of him, Nick Pitera is someone with an incredible voice but, more importantly, an insane vocal range. I love his YouTube videos because he covers many songs from musicals or Disney films and he sings both parts. He can reach notes that even I, as a soprano female, sometimes have issues with. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this! It is his "One Man Disney Medley Music Video." Also, you should look at his cover of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin because it's also amazing. 

Pumpkin Carving

This is slightly delayed, but for Halloween this year one of my friends arranged for us to carve pumpkins after he heard the shocking news that I have never carved a pumpkin before. I sat around thinking about what I should carve into my pumpkin for about thirty minutes when I suddenly knew exactly what I should carve! Hope you guys like it, and if not remember that this was my first pumpkin so it's not perfect!

The top two images are of my roommate's pumpkin and the bottom two are of my pumpkin! She carved Tinkerbell and I carved Ariel, in case you couldn't tell. 

Marvel and Netflix

Disney recently announced that it is teaming up with Netflix to produce four thirteen-episode series featuring iconic Marvel Comics heroes such as Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. The first of these four series will not air until 2015, but after that the series will stream on-line for years to come, culminating in an epic finale called The Defenders that will include all four heroes in a fashion similar to The Avengers. What with Thor: The Dark World opening last Friday, the new television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. taking off, and with Captain America: The Winter Soldier set to release in April 2013, Disney is taking full advantage of its relationship with Marvel Studios.

Works Cited:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/business/media/disney-and-netflix-in-deal-for-series-based-on-marvel-characters.html?_r=0

"Progress of A Kind"

In his article "The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race," Ajay Gehlawat argues that Disney's choice of a New Orleans setting further complicates the lack of race in the film. Since I am no expert on issues of race relations in Louisiana, I decided to delve further into this topic. After the end of the Civil War, Louisiana played a key role in sustaining segregation and racial prejudices as a whole. On April 13, 1873, between sixty-two and one hundred fifty-three freedmen were killed by a group of white Democrats that hoped to overpower the freedmen and state militia that were holding the Grant Parish courthouse. Approximately half of these men were killed after they had surrendered. On August 25, 1874, a Republican African-American man named Thomas Floyd was killed by white men. These six men then went on to arrest multiple white Republicans and twenty African-American men, convinced that they were planning some sort of rebellion. Armed white men came from surrounding areas to the city of Coushatta within days to help squash this supposed 'rebellion.' All six white officeholders and at least four of the African American men were killed. Then on September 14, 1874, a paramilitary group known as the White League attacked and took over the Louisiana statehouse in New Orleans after the Reconstruction government blocked a delivery of their weapons. President Grant sent in federal troops to disband the insurgents, and sixteen white men and eleven African-Americans were killed in the process. For decades to come, African Americans were disenfranchised and discriminated against despite their representing the majority of the population in places such as New Orleans. It was in this environment that Disney chose to place their first black princess. Although jazz and voodoo make New Orleans the perfect location for an animated movie that needs to involve dark magic of some sort, it is unclear why Disney chose the time period of the 1920s if it was not going to address the racial issues that were prevalent in New Orleans during this time. 

Works Cited:

• https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/08/25/on-this-day-the-coushatta-massacre/
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-colfax/
• http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/battle-liberty-place-occurs
• http://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/145#.UoAYmpTk-Do
• "The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race" by Ajay Gehlawat