Disney Characters

[MsRuthieB]

Saturday night we did the family thing and saw Disney's Princess's on Ice. More than half way through the show I realized something. The villan's or bad people, when female, are always portrayed as overweight and ugly. The 'princess's' are always thin, young, and very pretty. I'm thinking of writing to Disney and asking them if just once they can write a story where the princess is overweight and not so pretty and the villianess is thin and pretty. Maybe it'll counteract some of the programming that happens with girls at a very early age. Now, I'm not blaming Disney 100%, but I believe they contribute to the information these young girls draw on to form opinions about theirselves and others around them.

FYI..my 10 year step daughter want's to go on a diet because she thinks she's fat. BTW, she's not overweight one bit (weights 83 lbs).

[VealPrincess]

disney is the root of all evil, imo.

and i'm being serious, i'm probably the person your most likely to find preventing any future offspring of mine from coming within 100 yards of anything disney related.

ugh, disney.

[Michael]

MRB - You'll find tons of stuff online anti-Disney and I'm absolutely positive there's stuff on what you mentioned. A letter certainly couldn't hurt but you might want to look around the internet first. Might give you some ideas. :)

[Max Power]

One day we'll all be producing goods for AOL-Time-McDisneyMart.com. I hope my bar code can be tattoo in red to match the blood streaming from my tear ducts.

[Seadolphin]

Its sad that a company so geared toward children would portray its characters this way. Considering the high numbers of young people w/eating disorders today, you'd think such well known companies would try to stop adding to the growing number of eating disorder cases in the world. Perhaps they could make a movie about how in the old days royalty was generally on the heavy side, as size was a sign of wealth, showing that the person could afford to eat lots of food. It angers me how much society & the media set this unattainalbe norm for how people are striving to look.

[Robert]

Just to take an opposing opinion here... Disney is a company that makes movies how it wants. That is their right. As a consumer, and parent, you have the choice of paying for such entertainment or not. There's no way a company that is obviously prosperous using its existing cartoon-movie-making formula will alter its equation unless they think it will be profitable.

To make changes, one must go where it is noticed by the company the most... their bottom line. If enough people stopped paying to see movies to which they object, then my guess is Disney would then alter its cartoon formula/sterotype to one that is more profitable.


Max Power said: One day we'll all be producing goods for AOL-Time-McDisneyMart.com.

Heheh, isn't that the truth. And don't even get me started on Yahoo and Microsoft :)

[LadyFaile]

i want my barcode put on my a$$ so when anyone scans me they get mooned.

anyway, i noticed that about Disney quite some time ago and chose to ignore it. though they do make older grandmotherly characters overweight as well i.e. the fairy godmother.
but yeah just once i'd like to see a normally proportioned main character, maybe even one that's not white?? god forbid!

disney funds the art programs at the college i went to. my friend couldn't get into the program she always planned on taking because her style of art doesn't coincide with disney style characters. see they take the grads with the best grades and portfolios and give them jobs at Disney, so when they do the application process they only let in people who are more likely to cater to their kind of work. forget the fact that art is something that comes from within the artist and can't be squeezed into someone else's mold.
for that, i really dislike Disney. and that college.

[Skylark]

Pocahontas looked Polynesian, not Native American. Not to mention that she looked about twice as old as the 'actual' legend puts her.

[WonderRandy]

what about Lilo? she was not white, and she was not skinny... (btw, Lilo in Hawaiian means "lost")

[MsRuthieB]

true. But wasn't Lilo a little kid (the skinny part). BTW, Mulan wasn't 'white' either.

[Skylark]

And how about the way Disney movies tend to portray parents? Belle's father was a bumbling idiot, Ariel's dad was a control freak, Snow White's dad was dead, and her stepmother was a witch... Hercules actually had two sets of loving, respectable parents, and Mulan did what she did out of love for her parents. Was The Emperor's New Groove a Disney film or not? I forget.

[Verbivore]

The Lion King is one of my favorite movies and I really want to see it at the IMAX. But I hate how Disney is so commercialized. And the Disney Store creeps me out, as does any store that refers to customers as "guests."

I like Beauty and the Beast but when I saw it again last year I realized that the guy from the mental asylum looked like the stereotypical money-grubbing evil Jewish psychiatrist.



FYI..my 10 year step daughter want's to go on a diet because she thinks she's fat. BTW, she's not overweight one bit (weights 83 lbs). [/B]

That's sad. :( Luckily she has you for a step-mom. I always see little girls in the grocery store reading labels and talking about fat. Occasionally an adult tries to discourage them from dieting and that gives me some hope.

[Skylark]

Verbivore,
A friend of mine worked at Disney World/Land (whichever one is in Florida), and she said that it was drilled into them every day that the visitors were guests, not customers. She really liked it, but I don't think I could do the acting-all-day bit.

[LadyFaile]

sorry, forgot about Mulan, and i didn't realize Lilo and Stitch was Disney, i haven't even seen it yet.
true Pocahontas isn't white, but her proportions and facial features are more white than anything. i'm sorry but most natives do not have that bodytype and facial structure. they make all their women tall and skinny but if you think about it, the majority of people with that bodytype are white european descent, am i right?
anyway i didn't want to get into all that cause i do enjoy the movies for the most part

[Skylark]

Did anyone like Anastasia? I didn't. She also fits the archetypal Disney female.

[iceflower]

true. But wasn't Lilo a little kid (the skinny part). BTW, Mulan wasn't 'white' either.

yes...but Lilo's sister is quite solid.
And in the Road to el Dorado, the native girl is very rounded has has a nice big butt.

[allibaba]

Verbivore,
A friend of mine worked at Disney World/Land (whichever one is in Florida), and she said that it was drilled into them every day that the visitors were guests, not customers. She really liked it, but I don't think I could do the acting-all-day bit.


that is pretty typical for any amusement park i think. when i worked at kings island in cincinnati we were told the same thing. *always* GUESTS, not customers. its been that way there for a long time. even the help area up front is called "guest relations."

[*sprout*]

me and my friend were talking about this earlier !!

its always like that ! and thats why im coming up with the Ugly People Company !!

hahah

see i had an idea im going to be like an agent that gets people on tv except all my people will be like the not-typical tv peole they will all be ugly or sumthing
and then people wont have to worry about being all pretty all the time and feel better about themselves !

[Astarte]

Did anyone like Anastasia? I didn't. She also fits the archetypal Disney female.

It's true she does, but Anastasia was a Don Bluth film, not Disney.

And yes, the Emperor's New Groove *was* disney.

I don't think we can blame disney for this, though they are a huge perpetuator of the phenomenon. Think about it though... kids toys (like these in particular: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009P7IY.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg), all movies. Any movie, let alone a kid's movie, that shows an overweight/average heroine is rare. It's particularly bad in things for kids, but it's only echoing the larger cultural bias towards twiggy women. Manufacturers put these people on their products because it makes them sell better... Disney does it for the same reason. It's sad, but it'll be a while before you see it change :(

[Strix]

Just to take an opposing opinion here... Disney is a company that makes movies how it wants. That is their right. As a consumer, and parent, you have the choice of paying for such entertainment or not. There's no way a company that is obviously prosperous using its existing cartoon-movie-making formula will alter its equation unless they think it will be profitable.

To make changes, one must go where it is noticed by the company the most... their bottom line. If enough people stopped paying to see movies to which they object, then my guess is Disney would then alter its cartoon formula/sterotype to one that is more profitable.



Heheh, isn't that the truth. And don't even get me started on Yahoo and Microsoft :)

Edited:
Just to take a hypocritical view here... Michael Moore is a movie maker who makes movies how he wants. That is his right. As a consumer, and parent, you hav the choice of paying for such entertainment or not. There's no way a movie maker who is obviously prosperous using his political-irreverent-satirical movie making formula will alter his equation unless he thinks it will positive.

To make changes, one must go to where Moore will notice it most...his bottom line. If enough people (certain Canadians) stopped paying to see his movies to which they object, then my guess is Moore would say f-Canada, and continue to express himself in a way which is most profitable.

Heheh, isn't that the truth. And don't even get me started on "Rah-Rah Patriotism" since I don't have my pom-poms with me.

[Robert]

Hahaha, any opportunity to plug Moore huh? Disney makes fiction. Moore passes his stuff as documentaries. He can make all the movies he wants, but documentaries are *supposed* to be truthful ;)

And I agree with you that the best way to handle this is for the public to just stop paying for anything he does. Hopefully more folks will stop.

[Strix]

Hahaha, any opportunity to plug Moore huh? Disney makes fiction. Moore passes his stuff as documentaries. He can make all the movies he wants, but documentaries are *supposed* to be truthful ;)

And I agree with you that the best way to handle this is for the public to just stop paying for anything he does. Hopefully more folks will stop.


No, any opportunity to reveal your inconsistencies will do just fine.
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[808veggie]

I refused to see Pocahontas because of the load of crap Disney was feeding everyone. I still watch some Disney-love Sword in the Stone, but I don't like how they distort history.

[epski]

the Disney Store creeps me out, as does any store that refers to customers as "guests."

I don't mind it. I usually am a guest in most stores. I rarely buy anything anymore, so calling me a customer would be presumptuous.

As for Disney, they haven't made a good animated movie in years. The only reason they have had an astonishing level of filmic success in the last 9 years is Pixar. Mulan did okay, Lilo did quite well, and some of their live action pics did great, but the Disney name has become somewhat tarnished when it comes to animated films. That's why I don't understand why they aren't bending over backward to renegotiate their deal with Pixar. If Pixar took their creativity somewhere else, it'd be Disney's loss. I won't cry.

[Loki]

Disney, good ol' disney. I can remember my childhood, and a rodent called Michael (not VB's Michael - He's cool!) played quite a large part in raising me. It's kinda sad though, that disney is a huge commercial empire, which aims to sell happiness, as if happiness were a product which you can buy. I can just imagine walking into a supermarket and purchasing a tin that says "happiness" on it. That's my main deal with disney. Sure, kids do get made happy by disney, but to be honest, is happiness a rodent? Not really.

besides, the last decent film that disney made was the lion king. I must admit, I cried when Simba's dad died. And i can say that the Lion king is one of only two films that have made me cry. (The other one is pay it forward, but special note must be given to "Black hawk down." I nearly cried after realising that I had wasted 2 hours and a fiver on that film.) But disney's role in pixars films has been as the distributor, not the maker. You get the disney stores as well, which pretty much show how much they want people to buy stuff.

The thing is that the whole commercialisation of disney is weird to me. The whole fact that ther eis an entire empire, which is based solely around a rodent called Michael is a bit freaky when you think about it, and also the whole "Selling stuff to kids" thing doesn't go down with me all that well. when a company views a 3-year old as a customer, then I get worried. Ok, they may be "guests" but the execs at the top are probably relying on parents to fork out cash for disney products which are advertised to their children.

And my barcode? I'd have it on the back of my knee. i dunno why. I guess that if i can't see it then it's not a worry to me!