Another one in The Conscious Reporter

Article Review by Colleen Sedgwick

Disney - Making Evil Look Good?

by David Gardner
It is amazing how many people criticise Disney these days: I grew up on Disney movies - both the animated ones (e.g. the Mouse Factory) and the video-graphic ones (e.g. Wonderful World of Disney).  I also used to read the Disney comics - my parents used to buy them for us when we were going into the city for the day (we lived on the outskirts of the city at the time) or when we were about to go on a long road trip - mostly to ease the boredom of an otherwise dull trip.  The influence of Disney was all-pervasive, whether it was good or bad, especially in our family.  It was highly influential in shaping my own world-view.

In this instance, Gardner points out the ways in which evil can be made to look good, and then questions as to whether it was really evil, or simply misunderstood.  An example is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and its remake, Maleficent (which makes the 'evil' sorceress the centrepiece of the script instead of Snow White).  Other examples include Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty - also examples of wicked, 'ugly' women picking on innocent little girls, who (in turn) need to be rescued from some 'knight in shining armour'.

In fact, we can pretty much question the role of women in Disney films e.g. the 'pure and innocent child' versus the malevolent adult, or the benevolent adult/rescuer, and how it affects peoples' perceptions of the roles of women.

However, does the critique necessarily have to be confined to women's roles, especially since films like Peter Pan, Tonka, and The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle also talk about males and their development and rites of passage from boyhood to manhood.

Certainly, the older films, based on fairy tales portray the women as 'hapless victims' who need to be rescued, while the men are featured as 'overcoming the odds' and undergoing certain 'rites of passage' in order to do so, but not really needing alot of help in order to do so.  Or are they really going to be like Peter Pan if they fail to 'grow up'?

But what about the more recent films which look at the roles of women differently?  Is Frozen, for instance, the exception to the rule?  For instance, the Snow Queen, Elsa has a special 'gift' of making ice and snow, but this gift becomes a curse when her sister, Anna, slips and falls and Elsa is consequently imprisoned.  In turn, the town basically freezes over.  When she has to marry her 'prince', she gets 'caught out' and has to go into exile because of what happened to the town.

It not only makes you wonder what other issues come into play - the way 'gifted' children can be treated, particularly talented girls whose talents can sometimes land them in trouble, and get them ostracised from society.  Though she is the 'damsel in distress', the real villain in this instance is the man (who is, in fact, a 'handsome prince'), and her rescuers are her family and friends.

Or is this when good is made to look 'evil', when someone who is taken advantage of, bullied and ridiculed is forced into exile?  Certainly, that is my opinion.

The story, however, is that good triumphs evil, or overcoming whatever odds are in our path; and this is something we all need to take into consideration, stereotypes aside.

Anyway, I diverge and must bring it back into the context of the 'art world' - in this instance, how does the film industry (in conjunction with artists) portray gender roles, cultural norms and the historical context in which they exist? Certainly one needs to be able to understand this in order to fully appreciate the films for what they are and not just take it all as gospel.

cheers,

Colleen