by BRIAN KESLER
People tend to like Disney and Pixar movies. Both studios promote family-friendly, high quality entertainment. I view both Disney and Pixar films, in general, to be works of art - like any other film. And like any other work of art, they usually have strong (or sometimes subtle) social commentary. I never rate a film based on its political ideologies. 'The Dark Knight Rises' is a harsh repudiation of far left radicalism, whereas 'Spirited Away' is skeptical of capitalism and saddened by people's impact on the environment. I love both movies. But, it is fun and thought provoking to evaluate the implications of films. Now, while I think you could make the case that Disney has traces of conservative propaganda (feminists especially like to think so), I don't think it's out of the ordinary to suggest that - as a whole - Disney promotes and encourages liberal ideologies. Starting with:
Animals and Nature
'Bambi' is a perfect place to start. 'Bambi' is an animal rights activist's and conservationist's wet dream. The villain in 'Bambi' (named one of the all time greatest villains by AFI) is ... man. Yup. The entire human race is the bad guy in 'Bambi.' You never see or hear man, because Disney intended to dehumanize us, make us see the consequences of our actions from the point of view of the animals. Bambi's mother is shot by hunters and Bambi is left all alone, defenseless and motherless, and we're left to ponder why anyone would do that to poor Bambi. Obviously, we're supposed to feel sympathy to the animal at this point. But, it isn't only hunting that is chastised. Human impact on the earth is dealt with too. In the final act of 'Bambi,' campers inadvertently start a wildfire that spreads and destroys most of the forest. The fire separates little animal families, kills many of them, and destroys the homes and food supply of the rest.
In 'Wall*E,' which I'll talk about in a later segment as well, human consumption on earth leads to a future of endless piles of filth with no signs of sustainable life. The little trash compacting robot, the only entity left on earth after humans abandon it rather than attempt to make things better, finds the last living plant and through the rest of the movie he protects it as a sacred treasure.
In 'The Little Mermaid,' the chef is seen as a sadist when he gleefully chops off the heads of fish with a clever.
In 'Lady and the Tramp,' the pound is seen as an antagonistic entity. Animals are also seen as more resourceful than humans. When Lady senses a rat in the baby's room, the house sitter punishes her for barking too much. Lady must find a way to escape her chains before the baby gets bitten.
In 'The Lion King,' the opening song is "The Circle of Life," suggesting we are all connected to one another and to the earth.
In 'Pocahontas,' the title characters sings, "How high does the Sycamore grow? If you cut it down, then you'll never know." The Native Americans are seen as having a more nourishing connection with their surroundings, whereas the Englishman chop down trees and raid the land looking for gold.
In 'Dumbo,' mother elephant tries desperately to protect her child and the humans unjustly lock her up and separate her from her infant.
All the Disney princesses are friends with the animals, including birds, deer, squirrels, etc. For instance, Cinderella befriends the mice and her evil stepsisters try to kill them.
In '101 Dalmations,' the villain is the vain, fur-wearing Cruella de Ville, who wants nothing less than a beautiful coat of dog fur.
In 'The Fox and the Hound,' the two animals try to be friends, but because of a hunter's training of the dog, the two become fierce enemies.
In 'Finding Nemo,' the fish in the tank have gone insane with envy of ocean fish, and plot to escape.
Child and Parent Relations
While 'Pinocchio' deals with scaring little children into being good little boys and girls, most Disney movies tend to chastise parents for having too firm a grip on their child.
In 'The Little Mermaid,' Ariel wants to explore the shore and marry Prince Eric. Her father, however, strictly forbids it. He is overprotective and limits her freedoms of who she may or may not love. She must marry a merman. In 'Finding Nemo,' Marlin is overwhelmingly protective of Nemo, and won't let him out of his sight. In both films, the parents' relentless dictation ends up causing their children to rebel, which inevitably makes things worse. Both films end with the parents realizing that if only they let their kids go out into the world and explore and be themselves, the whole thing wouldn't have happened.
In a more drastic version of this story, 'Tangled' shows a mother locking her daughter up in a tower and forcing her to live there her entire life. The mother ends up being the villain and the daughter goes out into the world where the dangers are made up for by the human connections and experiences. The same sort of thing can be seen in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' where the villain is, in fact, Quasimodo's parental guardian, who forces him to stay in the bell tower, hidden from the world. Doing so only advances people's fear of the bell ringer as they come up with all kinds of stories and legends about the unknown man.
In 'Sleeping Beauty,' the prince's father tells his son he cannot see his new girlfriend. The three fairies, likewise, tell Briar Rose she can't see her new suitor. This causes Briar Rose unhappiness and puts her and the Prince in Melificent's snare - where they both get caught. When the three fairies realize that Rose was actually in love with the Prince, they realize that they shouldn't have meddled with the love affair in the first place. They only made things worse.
Parents with an especially firm grip are seen as downright evil. The Stepmother in 'Cinderella' forces the title character to clean and work for her. The inequality in which she treats her children, favoring the other two, causes the stepsisters to become spoiled brats and emotionally damages Cinderella.
In 'Mary Poppins,' Julie Andrews is a nanny who comes to reconcile an estranged father to his children. The father has no imagination, and isn't any fun to be around. He treats his children with an uptight formality, and discourages their wild fancies and eager spirits. Everything revolves around money to him.
Being Yourself and Whatever You Want to Be
In Disney movies, there is a great deal of pretense, and the pretense almost always turns out badly.
In 'Aladdin,' the title character tries to manipulate a girl into liking him, and her father into approving their marriage. This leads to lies and betrayal and the damage is only repaired when Aladdin can be himself. In the end, the Sultan realizes how much he likes the boy and cuts down social barriers by dismissing a conservative law.
In 'Dumbo,' the title character is relentlessly made fun of for his oversized ears. Eventually, he learns to use his assets to his advantage and learns to be happy with who he is. This stresses that people come in all shapes and sizes and we shouldn't put anyone down for it.
In 'Ratatouille,' rather than accept his lot in life, the rat Remmy goes out of his way to be a chef, because it's the only thing he's ever wanted to be. Although people put him down at every turn, he pushes his dream until he changes preconceptions.
There are endless Disney songs which enthusiastically decree that any goal is attainable and that you can be whoever you want to be. 'When You Wish Upon a Star,' 'A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,' 'Part of Your World,' etc.
Consumerism is Bad
In Disney movies, Consumerism and Big Business are generally seen as not good.
In 'Wall*E,' the corporation BnL gets so large that it starts to control the American Government, and eventually the world, until people are living in Fascism. People are told what to buy, what to eat, what colors to like, what things they need for their home, etc. People are unable to think for themselves because of the relentless advertisements that they are constantly attacked with. On top of that, people are totally unaware of their surroundings, they're lazy, and they're generally unintelligent. Consumerism also causes the destruction of the earth. Humans must leave earth because they've burned through every resource in their need to have and buy things all the time. Things are only set right again when the humans eventually decide to let go of their possessions, overtake the brainwashing corporation, and rebuild plant life on earth.
In 'Mary Poppins,' Julie Andrews sings 'Feed the Birds,' which gives the children a choice between investing their money in the bank, as the money hungry big business bankers want, or having charity upon a poor woman in the street selling her wares. When the children decide to feed the birds, it upsets the bankers who manipulate the little boy until he finally gives them his coin - the bankers licking their chops all the while. Only after he gives them his coin does he realize he's been duped, but the bankers refuse to give his money back.
In 'Monster's Inc.,' the Monsters scare children as a source of energy. When some of the monsters start to realize the immorality of getting energy from a child's scream, they are hunted down by their own corporation. It is only when the monsters find alternative sources of energy and the corporate head honcho is revealed to be a liar and scum bag that things are well again.
In 'Beauty and the Beast,' the Beast is punished with a curse because of his vanity, his greed, and his inability to use his money for those less fortunate rather than his own selfishness.
In 'Pocahontas,' as mentioned earlier, the villain wants gold and is willing to rape the land and go to war with the Native Americans in order to get it.
While Feminists have a problem with the portrayal of women in Disney films, it is safe to say that overall, Disney has a liberal ideology. Disney films decry animal cruelty, promote environmentalism, caricature big business, abhor consumerism, chastise parents who are too strict and conservative with their children, and encourage people to go after their dreams and be who they want to be.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Listmania! Worst Best Picture Winners
A friend asked me for my least favorite Best Picture Winners today, and it gave me the idea to do a Listmania! on the subject. There are a lot of bad Best Picture Winners. Not all of them are bad movies, exactly, but most of them are bad choices. Why? Because movies with momentum and popularity at a certain time don't necessarily age well. In fact, I would say they age less gracefully than usual. Why? Because they cater to a specific audiences' wants and needs of a certain era. With almost all of the movies on this list, I am judging the win to be miscalculated due to competition - in fact, I LOVE some of the movies on this list, but they won against better movies. The list is in alphabetical order.
'Around the World in 80 Days' - This cheesy and unfortunate film version of Jules Vern's novel had stiff competition that year. 'Giant,' and 'The Ten Commandments.' Some might also consider 'The King and I' stiff competition, but movies about Christian white women teaching barbaric Buddhist Asians how to be human beings instead of animals aren't really my thing.
'Dances with Wolves' - A good film, but winning against a masterpiece from Martin Scorsese, 'Goodfellas.' This has gone down as one of the biggest snubs in the history of the Academy.
'The Departed' - After the aforementioned snub, and feeling like Scorsese might die soon and they need to give him an Academy Award sometime, the Academy finally blessed the gifted director for one of his least liked films. Considering 'Letters from Iwo Jima' and 'Little Miss Sunshine' were fellow nominees, this pity win was less than satisfactory.
'Forest Gump' - I love this movie. I truly do. I love Tom Hanks in this movie. I love the lightness of the film and the fun it pokes at history and the groundbreaking special effects it uses to do so. However, this film went up against 'The Shawshank Redemption.' Oh, and 'Pulp Fiction.' To put it in perspective, 'The Shawshank Redemption' is listed as IMDB's number 1 movie, voted by users. And 'Pulp Fiction'.... need I say more?
'Gentleman's Agreement' - Considering this film went up against David Lean's 'Great Expectations,' and considering that David Lean is one of my favorite directors and Charles Dickens one of my favorite novelists, and considering the two of them combined makes for a happy Brian .... this is a no brainer. Also, 'Miracle on 34th Street.'
'Gigi' - Not that it had stiff competition - 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' is a great film, though. I just don't really love 'Gigi.' Not my favorite MGM musical. And old men singing about little girls is just creepy. 'The Greatest Show on Earth' - I'm going to say it. This is the worst Best Picture Winner of them all. Imagine a bloated, 3 hour commercial for the Ringling Bros. Circus staring Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston, and Betty Hutton. This is that commercial, directed by the sloppy hand of Cecil B. DeMille, this movie is an abomination that should burn in Hell where it belongs.
'Hamlet' - 'The Red Shoes' has become, in many ways, the ultimate classic. Martin Scorsese praises it as his favorite movie, and people have become dangerously obsessed with the Archers' technicolor masterpiece. It is THE "composed picture" (a movie with the perfect combination of visuals, colors, sound, music, editing, movement, acting, and dialogue). That is why 'Hamlet' seems an odd choice.
'Kramer Vs. Kramer' - A good, if not sentimental, movie with demanding performances from Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, 'Kramer Vs. Kramer' took the award against Bob Fosse's final film, 'All that Jazz' and Francis Ford Coppola's daring and astonishing Vietnam War epic, 'Apocalypse Now.'
'A Man for All Seasons' - 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,' the first film from Mike Nichols, with brilliant photography, a nearly perfect screenplay, and divine performances from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, was passed up for this good, but somewhat forgettable, film.
'Out of Africa' - Steven Spielberg's powerful adaptation of Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple,' received eleven nominations and received exactly zero awards. It was an unfortunate snub for the best movie of that year.
'Rocky' - You're shocked, I know. Let me first say that I love 'Rocky,' and that it does fall somewhere on my favorite movies list. However, 'Network' is higher up on that list and 'Taxi Driver' is my favorite Martin Scorsese movie ever made, falls in my top ten ever list, and is the biggest snub of Scorsese's career.
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