I mean, don't get me wrong: Netflix is just as shit as Disney, as corporations go; but there's just something about Wish--seemingly so safe and soulless and focus-grouped with its generic, Rapunzel-faced, Disney Princess(TM) heroine and its paint-by-numbers plot and its Whedonesque, hang-a-lampshade-on-it humour, and its bland, inoffensive, Lin Manuel Miranda-pastiche musical numbers--losing a nomination to fucking Nimona, which is about as anarchic as mainstream entertainment media can be, featuring a protagonist who is about as far from being a Disney Princess as anyone can be, and which we all saw evolving organically in real time from someone's sketch on Tumblr. One of them feels like extruded film product; the other one feels like art.

The irony of this being that the Nimona film was originally a Disney project, being originally produced by Blue Sky Studios until Disney shut it down in 2021. Like…Disney doesn’t know what’s *actually* good any more

Tangled kind of marked the point where Disney started acting self-aware of the whole Disney Princess™ trope and by the time Frozen hit, they were acting self-aware and embarrassed by it. At that point it's like they started knee-capping themselves out of their own sense of cringe.

Their movies were already focus-group tested to hell and back and with being a corporation who mainly profits off of nostalgia for their older works, they're increasingly unwilling to take any risks by exploring new directions in both storytelling and animation.

And being unwilling to take risks + succumbing to cringe leads to just rehashing the same shit over and over again while not standing behind it. It's weak. It's boring. How I am supposed enjoy a story if it acts embarrassed of its own self.

Yes, it is kind of ironic that Disney, a company whose entire corporate brand was originally built on earnestly presented children's fantasy, is now associated with self-referential, immersion-breaking bathos and a refusal to take its own subject matter seriously.

The important thing to remember is that, when Shrek came out in 2001, its subversive, ironical tone was groundbreaking because it was up against a Disney machine that played everything completely straight (notwithstanding "Emperor's New Groove", which came out a few months earlier). Then Disney itself bought into that tone and hegemonized it, and now, movies that actually take their own fucking characters and premises seriously feel like a breath of fresh air.

@mage8 This is why I don't actually think it's always useful to say that art is good or bad; sometimes a work of art is just out of phase with the cultural ecosystem.

One thing about Shrek versus its commodification is, like most such appropriations, it was done without an understanding of why the ironic tone worked. The people who drive commodification only know how to look for the "trick" and in Shrek they saw this as "characters have modern awareness and make jokes about stupid things in fairy tales," but what they overlooked is that the ironic tone was a veneer to add something fun and interesting to an otherwise sincere movie. All the silly fairy tale jokes were a means to an end for a solid, kind story. But of course you can't package and sell the latter, so they took the superficial irony and made it the product.

Also? NOT EVERY STORY NEEDS THAT VENEER. Shrek was internally tonally coherent: the main character is the ogre that lives in a swamp and every other piece of attitude the camera has towards what's going on is based on that. When your protagonist is a would-be sorcerer's apprentice who wants to make people's wishes come true or an islander chief's daughter dreaming of the sea YOU DONT NEED THE POP CULTURE REFERENCES

CGI animators should unionize next. normally, their jobs would be too precarious to strike, since studios would replace them without a second thought, but if it's part of this larger general film strike, they might finally have meaningful power to better their working conditions

if CGI animators unionized, it would kill the MCU. straight up. the the entire business model is built on exploiting CGI animators

THEY ARE TRYING!!!!! SIGN THE PETITION TO GET THE DISNEY ANIMATORS' UNION RECOGNIZED

this petition is from IATSE (union), btw! it actually has credibility, unlike most change.org/etc petitions! please sign it!!

Hi sorry to correct this info but please actually read the petition from IATSE- it's specifically for union recognition for Disney Production NOT for CGI/VFX/3DAnimation artists- its for Disney Production workers such as production coordinators, assistants, managers, etc to be recognized as a craft and part of The Animation Guild (TAG) 839. they are the people who do the organizing, scheduling, trying to maintain budget and team pace. They are NOT cg/vfx artists. Please still support them bc their unionizing is critical and they're hugely underpaid and treated like garbage BUT these are not the same crafts.

Disney "animators" (story, *anim, design, edit, writers, etc) are already unionized if they are in-house artists (*so 3D cg animators @ disney who animate in-house on the films are union- while most TV series are outsourced to vendor studios with some exceptions of the rare dtva in-house animator like Spencer Wan who is probably the most well known despite there being a bunch of them. this also doesnt include freelance workers but thats a different problem all together)

"CGI"/VFX is hugely underpaid, undervalued and unrecognized. Most people have never heard of ILM, Framestore, Animal Logic, or Ghost VFX despite them working on some of the biggest Marvel movies of the past few years. If you want to advocate for VFX workers unionizing, go to the source, do a bit of research, find and advocate for them in specific rather than a broad "disney" bc Disney will always say they're already union when they're using outsourced labor (which to be clear totally legal and unfortunately normal just. VFX should also unionize. lol)

Support both and be vocal about workers rights for all animation workers from Prod to CGI/VFX (fittingly- the very beginning and very end of production pipeline)

1. Doctor finds anecdotal evidence that people are passing kidney stones after riding on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World

2. Doctor makes 3-D model of kidney, complete with stones and urine (his own), takes it on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 60 times

3. “The stones passed 63.89 percent of the time while the kidneys were in the back of the car. When they were in the front, the passage rate was only 16.67 percent. That’s based on only 60 rides on a single coaster, and Wartinger guards his excitement in the journal article: ‘Preliminary study findings support the anecdotal evidence that a ride on a moderate-intensity roller coaster could benefit some patients with small kidney stones.’”

4. “Some rides are going to be more advantageous for some patients than other rides. So I wouldn’t say that the only ride that helps you pass stones is Big Thunder Mountain. That’s grossly inaccurate.”

5. “His advice for now: If you know you have a stone that’s smaller than five millimeters, riding a series of roller coasters could help you pass that stone before it gets to an obstructive size and either causes debilitating colic or requires a $10,000 procedure to try and break it up. And even once a stone is broken up using shock waves, tiny fragments and “dust” remain that need to be passed. The coaster could help with that, too.”

SCIENCE: IT WORKS

Update: 

MSU Today

I just love this because it’s HILARIOUS and yet also a perfect archetypal example of The Scientific Method:

1. Hypothesis

2. Experiment

3. Results

4. Discussion 

5. Conclusions

6. GOTO 1 (the scientific method is iterative, don’t forget that part)

was this like… done in cooperation with disney management or did some  random scientist go through bag check with a 3d printed kidney and a bottle of piss and start looking for big thunder mountain fastpasses

He asked first!

that is beautiful.

I love this

Science makes your look really fucking weird sometimes, but by hell you’re helping

Lilo & Stitch is a great example of a story that has no villains. It has antagonists, sure, but most of them are well-meaning. The worst person in the film is that little shit Myrtle, but she’s not in the film that much anyway.

Since this post is getting traction I want to clarify how not-villainous the antagonists are:

what would you say to the take of “stitch is an antagonist”

like this is not an attempt to argue with you im fishing for any interaction in this fandom whatsoever and i think it could be an interesting perspective to consider

I think he’s as much an antagonist as any of the above, in fact his whole arc is basically “antagonist journey to hero”

yeah! the movie is about the denial of the whole concept of “villain”. Stitch is  presented as one at the start, and then the whole plot is about his rehabilitation instead of punishment - and the movie does not pull off a bait and switch and go “yeah but this other guy is actually evil and irredeemable”. It keeps the focus on “but what if we were one big family instead though” and pulls it off brilliantly.

someone in the notes said that one villain in the movie is the american foster care system tearing apart a hawaian family, well let’s pour one out for the (interstellar in-universe) prison complex too. the representatives of these systems are well-meaning and trying to do what’s right, but their premise is wrong, and at the end of the movie they see it as-applied-to-this-one-specific-case (because it’s a kids’ movie not trying to make waves)

it’s pretty fucking metal actually

Mr. Jorge Gutierrez is an inspiration, a trailblazer, a singularly visionary artist with an instantly recognizable style and I love him and admire him so much. But the family of the main character (girl on the left) in his new Netflix show “Maya y los tres” (”Maya and the Three” in English) looks like this:

and one of my special personal character design least favorite things is this god dang

HUGE DAD tiny dainty mom and look-alike dainty daughter animated family arrangement

and I am at my limit, sir. Mr. Gutierrez I love you and I’m going to watch this show but you are on thin ice my man

Hiccup isn’t a daughter but How To Train Your Dragon did this exact same thing and I was just as disappointed with that too. So he’s also invited to this post.

One day someone will do an animated family where the mom is huge and beefy and the dad is small and delicate, or the courageous daughter main character takes after Beef Dad much more than she takes after Dainty Mom, or some other kind of subversion, and on that day I will be healed. But today is not that day.

can i say something controversial

screw it imma do it, “let it go” deserved the hype

writing the song is what caused elsa to change from flat-out villain to an actual hero of her story and realizing that what she hates about herself is actually something beautiful, which was inspired by a child who struggled with diabetes and the idea that elsa can find empowerment in what amounts to a disability and/or neurodivergence metaphor in this film, as well as the fact the song has gone on to inspire multiple disabled and queer viewers 

also the lyrics are??? god tier??? and idina menzel just goes OFF and how about that goddamn animation, oh my god the snow and ice looks so good and all the movement is so fluid. “let it go” was the first disney song in fourteen years to get an academy award and it goddamn deserved it 

and i know every comment is gonna be “yeah but it was overplayed” well BITCH does it look like i care?? does it look like i’m not gonna rewatch the youtube video and relive being a repressed autistic bisexual genderfluid 13yo watching this movie and already being swept up in the story of sisterly love and then suddenly watching elsa look me dead in the eye and tell me to love myself while singing the most beautiful song until “show yourself” would rip my heart out six years later? 

no more making fun of “let it go,” society has progressed past the need for making fun of “let it go”, we’re all just gonna cry together ok

frozen 2 did not live up to let it go

anyway that song is good

Ya'll be like "Shang was having a bi freak out, realizing he was into Ping". NO HE WASN'T. He already knew he was into men. His bisexual freak out was when he realized Ping was Mulan and hey maybe he's into girls too whatdoya know?

Legit you think a bi man who has always been in such a male-dominated space like the army hadn't already figured out that he liked men? Come oooonnnn... It's women he has rarely had contact with and has no idea how to talk to or flirt with (you fight good) I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

In "A Girl Worth Fighting For" Li Shang has zero lines I REST MY FUCKING CASE.

No thanks

A guy at a princess store in Disneyland was asking me if I related to Merida in any way and I was like

“I don’t know man. I’m more of an Elinor.”

And he busted out laughing.

What I love most about this movie is that shows that being a princess is not wearing a beautiful dress, marrying a prince and live happily ever after, but a job, a hard job with duties and responsibilities were a lot of people depend on you

being the Lady of a medieval estate was SUCH AN IMPORTANT FUCKING JOB AND SO FUCKING FULL OF HARD WORK WHICH MEDIEVAL MEN ACKNOWLEDGED TBH

(one problem with perception of medieval gender roles is that most of the people who were writing, especially those who were writing HISTORY, were CLERGYMEN who had never been married and lived in a weird situation cut off from the way the rest of the world worked and had like no actual life experience with the real world - and then popular culture’s idea of it has been heavily informed by VICTORIAN choices of who and what to translate and popularize)

upper class medieval women were expected to run and manage the entire estate that they got from their husband (or that they already had in their own right through inheritance or as their marriage portion), a job which was acknowledged as being way difficult and requiring a wife with strength and fortitude and business sense if you wanted to be a successful person

they were the HR managers of households that might have over a hundred people in, and tho a duchess or a queen would certainly not go to the store to do the household shopping, and she probably had a steward to assist her, it was ultimately her responsibility to know what things were needed for that household, to make sure that the appropriate people obtained those things, to oversee the use of the household materials, to make sure that EVERYTHING got done so that ALL those people could live and work smoothly. they wrote letters and managed the business of the estate and networked with other members of the nobility for both important game-of-thrones political reasons and for smaller more personal reasons like ‘that guy has a really nice deer chase, so if i send him some marmalade from our garden, he might send some venison back as a return gift”

even in lower class households mom managed everything and women were basically considered to be shrewder and have better heads for that particularly kind of business than men and choosing a wise wife was the best thing you could do for yourself as a man who intended to be successful

they were like hands-on CEOs and shit yo and don’t get me wrong society was sexist as fuck and they were limited as hell in what they could do and everything was classist beyond belief but no way was being a noblewoman just a matter of sitting up a tower looking pretty & the contributions that they made are so important

also, the ladies of castles were responsible for defense when their husband was away at war (which happened a lot), so while personally participating in battle was unusual (though not entirely unheard-of) they did often find themselves in strategic command. and in wartime they frequently functioned as a sort of de facto logistics officer.

oh, and has anyone mentioned diplomacy. because an arranged marriage is only the START of a princess’s diplomatic career. the alliance she forges with her marriage is one she’s responsible for maintaining her entire life. unless she decides to go ahead and take over the country; that’s been an option too from time to time. :D

suddenly i really want to see a disney movie about a princess AFTER the wedding — forging a political bond with her new husband, defending the castle, sending troops and supplies to make sure he comes home from the war, reading secret reports from her spies in the enemy’s court… *swoon*

YES.

And I’ve tried to touch on this with Merida, because ALL OF THIS? THIS is why Merida has absolutely ZERO desire to get married or (eventually) become Queen. Because it means her life - every second of her free time - going down the drain as she becomes more and more tangled up in running the castle AND the kingdom.

(This is also why Elinor’s such a freaking BAMF, she’s got this shit down, man.)

I also loved that this movie featured Merida realizing just what her mother was trying to teach her about commanding a room, and getting shit done. This movie was a mother-daughter movie with both sides conceding on certain points. Elinor realises she has been too focused on the big picture, and not her daughter’s actual valid problems with this future plan that has removed her agency, and Merida recognises her mother has been trying to teach her valuable life skills. The two of them learn how to talk to one another again, to treat each other like actual, flawed and multi-faceted people, and their relationship is stronger for it.

Cinderella was too weak to fight for herself...AND THAT’S OKAY!

I cannot believe we’re still tearing Cinderella down! 2018 only has a few months left and we’re still doing this, we’re still painting her as the weakest Disney princess and we’re still painting her weakness as a bad thing?

Why?

Why are people so caught up on bashing this princess?

“The movie is so simplistic—”

In what way is it possibly simplistic?!

“She didn’t work hard—”

YES, SHE DID!

“Well, okay, but the fairy godmother still had to come in—”

Yep, I remember the movie too, and the countless stories on which it’s based.

“So the fairy godmother was the one who caused the happily ever after.”

She sure was, now, what’s your point?

No, really, what’s your point? Is the point that Cinderella is somehow weak because she wasn’t 100% in control of her own life? Seems like a pretty disgusting opinion to have when the whole movie is about an abuse victim finding a way out of her horrible situation. So Cinderella wasn’t the one who got herself out. So what? Instead of looking the movie at its bare surface, maybe try analyzing it with a bit more thought and tact. You might see something a little different. A magical transformation, if you will.

Because Cinderella did work hard.

And guess what we learned from that?

You can work

and work

and work

And there will still be people out there who will try to tear you apart:

Literally.

And that sucks. It’s a horrible lesson to learn but it is something we will all face in our lifetimes. There will always be people who will try to tear us down, there will always be people who will try to rip us apart, until we’re in a low place:

Until it seems like there’s no hope…

Until it seems like you’re too weak to get out on your own…

And maybe you are.

Maybe you are too weak to get out on your own. Maybe you’re not the strongest woman in the world. Maybe you’re not capable of screaming at the top of your lungs or brandishing a weapon or throwing a punch. Maybe you’re not able to get out of something on your own. Maybe you hit a low point and maybe you have no way out of it. Not alone. But that’s just it.

You’re not alone.

Even at your lowest point, someone will come help you.

You don’t have to do it all alone.

It’s okay to have a little help when you have nowhere else to turn.

Cinderella is the story about an abuse victim who is unable to get out of her toxic situation by herself and just when she begins to lose all hope, is able to get help from an unlikely source. It’s the story about a girl who needs help getting to her happily ever after and that’s okay. 

Give us advocates:

They deserve their happily ever afters!

Give us warriors:

They deserve their happily ever afters!

Give us fighters:

They deserve their happily ever afters!

Give us girls who are not advocates, girls who are not warriors, girls who are not fighters, girls who still deserves their happily ever afters:

Does…does this apply to guys too sometimes?

@xmonotone

Hmm…I gotta admit that while Cinderella could be the ideal role model for men as well, it might not be the same if you don’t exactly see yourself on the screen. So what you would need is another Disney animated movie about a male character who isn’t strong enough to rise up against his toxic family on his own but is able to do so when others help him:

Just…um…don’t read the book.