[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Hunchback; Disney (was: Aliteracy--various rants...)

[Ebony Elizabeth Thomas]

Rosmerta wrote:

>Three words for Ebony and Scott and other Disney apologists: The
>Little Mermaid. A movie so sexist and stupid it makes "Pretty Woman"
>look like "Little Women." The Disney you're remembering fondly (me
>too!) and the one currently keeping the "happy" in Happy Meals are
>two different beasts.
>

OK, OK... I give!  Yeah, *The Little Mermaid* was silly.  It's not one of my 
favorites.  One of the only modern ones I don't own.  But I wrote a short 
story as a teenager inspired by a song from it ("Part of Your World") that 
won an award, and I loved Sebastian the Singing Crab.

It's not PC, I know.  I can be shallow at times.  ;-)

To its credit, modern Disney has come up with some great stuff.  Mulan was 
pretty good (again, I *know* it wasn't the original legend, but it was still 
awesome to see a heroine not playing the traditional Disney role).  I liked 
Aladdin, because he *wasn't* the Handsome Prince... he was a "street rat"... 
Jasmine, the heroine, is already a princess and certainly isn't pining away 
for him.

The best of modern Disney IMO is (well, was) the show Gargoyles.  Gothic.  
Complex.  Multilayered.  There's also an active Gargoyles fandom with lots 
of sci-fi/fantasy type teens and adults contributing... I was reading Garg 
fanfic two years before I read a single piece of Harry Potter fic.

Try this article for further discussion and analysis of the modern Disney 
female protagonist:  "The Pumpkin and the Handgun: Elisa Maza and the Disney 
Heroine Tradition"--
http://www.gargoyles-fans.org/grimorum/chapter6.html

For the record, I never apologized for liking Disney--I told Scott not to.  
We have nothing to be ashamed of!  Disney's as American as apple pie and 
baseball... alas, our neighborhood lots are being plowed over to make way 
for Super Wal-Marts... and the majority of women in my generation wouldn't 
know how to make a crust from scratch if their lives depended upon it...

Ah, enough of the American identity crisis.  I need some sleep.  :-)

--Ebony (who complained once upon a time that there were no animated Disney 
heroines of African descent, but got over it)

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><
Ebony AKA AngieJ
ebonyink at hotmail.com

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