The Disney Movie I Want to be in

I took this buzzed quiz to see which movie I would want to be in.  By picking the singer that would sing the theme song, the country I want to visit, picking a Pixar movie, where would my villain reside, picking a Disney ride, the characteristic my side-kick would have, and who would voice my love interest, I got Frozen, which is interesting because I do not think at all that it fits me. The quiz link is posted below, so you should check it out.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/samstryker/which-disney-movie-should-you-star-in#.inDpq54B85

Response to Richard Breaux

I think Beaux makes some very good points on how Disney has been progressing from its stereotypes and how it is shown in The Princess and the Frog.  One of the most interesting points that Beaux makes in his argument is comparing Charlotte La Bouff and Tiana. Charlotte represents Disney's original princess who is sexualized, has a single parent, and wants to marry a prince.  Comparing Charlotte to Tiana, Tiana is the exact opposite. In the scene where Eudora reads the story of The Princess and the Frog, Charlotte would kiss a hundred frogs in order to get her prince while Tiana would never do anything of such a sort.  Another scene to compare Tiana and Charlotte is during the masquerade ball.  Charlotte is a desperate adult to get her prince so she sexualizes herself with make-up, beauty mark and emphasizing her cleavage.  Disney reminds us of the past princesses who are sexualized individuals with their tiny waists and cleavages, yet she is not the main character of this story.  However, Tiana's story is very different.  We see Tiana with an intact family at the beginning before her father goes off to war and is killed.  However, both of them supported her dreams and goals of owning a restaurant and cooking for everyone in town.  Tiana is ambitious, hard-working, and oriented towards a goal, which we really have not seen any other princess do before.  Tina also has very little interest in waiting for her prince to come.  Tina works two jobs to earn enough money to pay for the mill than going out and having fun.  Also, when Prince Naveen asks her as a frog to kiss him, he lies to Tiana and tells her that he is wealthy.  Tina only kissed him so that Prince Naveen will give her a payment in money for getting him out of this state.  Tiana is only focused on her long-term goal, owning a restaurant, and she will use any means possible, even if it does mean kissing a frog prince, to reach her goal.

Disney tries to make up for the fact that it has not created an African American princess until now and makes very explicit references to their culture, and the things that they believe in.  For example, the Bottle trees is part of African American communities from 1600-1800s to protect these individuals from evil spirits.  Mama Odie is a Voodoo priestess, and Vodou came to Louisiana from enslaved Africans when Louisiana was a French colony. Voodoo was repopularize in the nineteenth century as a means to attract tourists to their state.  However, in this film, Disney was trying to overemphasize that these individuals were African American and could not make a normal princess film like they have in the past, but just with an African American princess.  Disney tried to do so many things to capture the lifestyle of an African American princess, but it ended up being too much and too emphasized that this movie involved black individuals.  This point of Breaux I also agree with because there were just too many variable that overemphasized the African American princess when it really should not have.   Overall, I agree with Richard Breaux, and the points he made with The Princess and the Frog.

23 Things You Don't Need to Do In Your Early Twenties

This article uses Disney pictures and gifs to explain what everyone in their twenties feels like that they have to do.  Some of my personal favorite ones of the gifs that they used is number 2 where Peter Pan asks "What's a kiss?"and the the gif that is when Simba is presented to the animal kingdom even though I don't know how it represents traveling the world.  It's a good article for college students to read to realize that these stereotypes of what people in theirs 20s don't have to be accomplished
http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/peter-panic

Disney Questions that we all have

Disney leaves so many holes in its movies and has left the audiences questions that we really want to know.  For example, why didn't Ariel write down in a letter on how she felt for Eric, or why didn't Cinderella's glass slipper also change back to normal when it reached midnight.  Buzzed compiled a list of questions that Disney should answer because they are important to the movie


http://www.buzzfeed.com/samstryker/why-disney-why#.aggvkLJG1L

Response to The Princess and the Frog

I had never seen The Princess and the Frog before this, and for the life of me I do not know why. I really enjoyed the movie, and especially the music in this movie. The music was unlike any Disney movies because it was very jazzy and upbeat which really fit the setting of the movie, New Orleans. I also really enjoyed the plot of the movie. Tiana's hard-work and dedication to achieve her dream of owning a restaurant ended up achieving more than she bargained for.  She ended up finding love in the most unexpected of places, with a prince.

The way that the Princess and the Frog story played out, I never expected this plot story.  I thought that the movie would end with Tiana kissing the prince who was a Frog at the end, but that was wrong.  When Tiana kissed Prince Naveen when he was a frog, she ended up turning into a frog as well and had to go on a journey with him to try and figure out how to turn back to normal. It ended up being after they had missed their chance of turning back to normal because "Princess Charlotte LaBouf" didn't kiss them on time, it ended up being a kiss of true love that ended up turning them back to normal. Also this movie was atypical because it did not end in the prince and the princess returning to the castle. Instead, Tiana got to achieve the dream that she finally wanted with Prince Naveen by her side and helping her out. Disney actually is showing a progressive side in their company by illustrating that women's dreams are as important as men's dream, and they should achieve those dreams.  Despite the fact that Tiana's dream was opening a restaurant so that she could cook for everyone, a traditional dream that is stereotypical for women.

However, Disney heavily stereotypes African Americans, especially with the accents.  The accents were so heavy on certain African American characters that Disney was trying to overemphasize that the company was trying to be the diverse and include different races as the stars of the movie. I also wonder why Disney didn't do a lot of advertising for this movie.  Since the movie came out in 2009, I must have been 12-13 around the time it came out. I don't remember seeing commercials for the movie or even seeing any merchandise after the movie came out. Disney kept this movie on the down low which is such a shame because it really is an excellent movie.  Because this movie does not follow the traditional princess route, that is not an excuse for not putting effort into advertising the product.

Response To Up

I had never actually seen the full movie of Up before until now.  I knew the general logistics about what happened in the movie, but I never realized how much depth is behind the movie.  I really enjoyed Up because it is much different than any of the other Disney movies that I have seen before.   Up is a heartfelt movie because within the first five minutes of the movie so much tragedy happens and I felt for Carl for losing his true love because unlike the other romances in Disney movies, this love was more equal in contribution from each individual.  That's why for the audience it was heart-breaking to see Ellie die.

Carl loves Ellie so much that he is filled with so much guilt that he never fulfilled Ellie's dream of going to Paradise Lands and living their days out there. He loves her so much that he takes this adventure upon himself in order to live the adventure that Ellie always dreamed of living since her childhood.  Carl has always kept to himself throughout the course of his life, he is quiet, soft-spoken and really does not go against anything. However, in pursuing Ellie's dream, he lets himself open up to others and let himself be the person he truly is and the person that Ellie always saw.  He will not let anyone define who he is and what he does, he become adventurous and takes risks when they are necessary, and he ends up becoming a parental figure and forming a family of his own.  One of the most important messages in this movie is family, and Pixar adapts to modern definition of it.  Your family is the individuals that you love in your life, not necessarily your biological family.  Carl forms his own family with Russell and Dug and recovers from his guilt and depression of losing Ellie.  There will be always individuals in your life who will love you and want to be there for you and losing someone is not the end of the world. Also another important message that Pixar portrays through this movie is when Carl finally looks through Ellie's adventure book in the end and sees that she put pictures of them growing up and growing old together as what she accomplished in her life.  Ellie realized that Carl would feel guilty for not fulfilling their childhood dream and going to Paradise Islands, but she actually fulfilled her new dream. She got to spend her life with the individual that she loves and that was more important than any childhood fantasy that she had.  Pixar portrays an important message here in saying that people should not let their careers and goals take away what is most important to them. Always have the individuals that you love in your life and don't let anything take that away from you

Up is one of the most fantastic movies that Pixar has created with some meaningful themes that relate to society today. Pixar company illustrates that it is keeping up with the ideals of society and knows the questions that challenge individuals today.  Overall, Up is a great movie which I cannot wait to watch again

Response to John Morton

By reading through Morton's response to Robert Gooding Williams' article, Morton really despises everything that William.  His hatred of Williams shines through his argument which makes it hard for his audience to really focus on his argument and see the arguments that he is making.  If one puts aside his hatred of Williams, he actually makes some really interesting arguments about The Lion King.  One of the arguments that I found really interesting.  Morton argues against Williams' idea that  "this picturing of Disney's Africa as a place without history, to which Scar's revolution is a counter-trend".  Instead Morton argues that "the circle of life", the whole theme of this movie is the history behind Africa.  The history is that individuals want to maintain the standard ideology that has been intact for centuries in this land.  Mostly everyone is happy with the hierarchy of the land and understands the importance that society has a circle of life, they go through their struggles and eventually life will be alright again.  This circle of history is what defines Africa so I side with Morton on this argument that there is a history behind Africa. Morton also brings in an excellent point that the hyenas are not the only ones who represent the low order class in the movie. Timon and Pumba are two individuals who have been essentially exiled from the mainland.  However, these individuals are happy with their status in the circle of life.  They have one of the lowest status and Williams fails to mention anything about them.  Timon and Pumba are a prime example in illustrating that not everyone has the viewpoint that the hyenas have in the fact that they must overthrow the whole regiment to get what they want. Timon and Pumba lived their life normally and ended up moving up the social ladder by sticking by the rules of the circle of life.

Another really interesting point that Morton makes is about the different ruling styles of Simba and Scar. Morton says that Scar's revolution "based exclusively on a politics of resentment" while Simba's revolution is "both democratic and productive".  Scar has resented his brother all his life because he ended up ruling over the whole kingdom and he did not.  His ruling was based purely on his hatred for the standards of society and ended up doing so much harm to society that there was famine spreading everywhere, there was no really equality among the individuals, and everything was being destroyed.  Scar's resentment towards the hierarchy of society caused him to end up destroying the thing he wanted to fix.  Williams nowhere in his article mentions about why Scar's reign failed and the reason behind the failure.  Williams avoided everything that would make his point contradicted, which excluded so much information about The Lion King. Williams was stretching what little information he had to make his argument, which Morton was able to tear apart easily.  If Morton hid his disdain for Williams, his argument would certainly have been stronger and still have his credibility as a critic.