NightGallows That's what "strong female lead" means though. It doesn't mean they have be physically strong, just that they have well-developed arcs and character. A housewife can be a perfectly fine strong female lead, if written right. It's not your fault if you didn't know that though, it's companies and producers and writers who just don't get it. They think a strong character = literal strength. I.E. warriors or criminals (Those are the only examples I can think of, sorry 😂) It's actually a pretty upsetting misconception, if I'm honest. The idea that a (female) character can only be considered strong if they're "not reliant on any sort of man" or "uninterested in romance" or whatever, is completely ridiculous and needs to be destroyed. Sorry, I just wanted to say that XD
For example, Izumi "Teacher" Curtis from Fullmetal Alchemist: alchemist, runs a butcher shop with her husband, and proudly calls herself a housewife to strangers. Yet is one of the few alchemists that can perform alchemy without a circle, can catapult monsters ten times her size, and practically raised the two lead characters as well as strike fear into them.
Cinderella, Snowwhite, Ariel, Tiana, Pocahontas, Belle are all strong females. Strong female does not necessarily means strong in a masculine way. Feminine strength includes perseverance, integrity, kindness, dignity, hopefulness and many more traits. Snowwhite is kind, caring, persevering and positive despite the hardships at the hand of her stepmother who even tried to kill her, Ariel is kind, dignified and hopeful, also curious and stays true to her dreams despite being of different species (is there anyone beside me who thought it was hinted at interracial relationships as positive?) and had to give up everything she had to be part of the world she wanted, Pocahontas is kind, persevering, caring and brave despite her tribe being prejudiced, fearful and hateful (rightfully) of the newcomers, Belle is kind, hopeful, brave, caring and dignified despite losing her freedom and dreams to save her father, Tiana is hard working, kind, hopeful and persevering despite being discriminated, poor and turned into an amphibian! In contrast, the princesses who had strong male characteristics like Merida and Elsa are not memorable on their own.
Not to mention Cinderella's dress was originally her mother's. This alone makes the dress ripping scene so much more than the collection blasting scene.
Yeah because really...that stuff that Ariel had was temporary not permanent Cinderella’s mother’s dress was permanent because you can’t remake your dead mother’s dress because it’s technically not her dress anymore
I find modern Disney to be weird with its whole anti-princess thing. Like in Moana for example. The film has a scene insisting that she's not a princess. But she's a political figure who will inherit her land through birth right, something nobody elected her for but that she was born into. Call it by any other name, it's the exact same thing. Instead of pretending that princesses are weak, or that "princess" is a dirty word, they could just make cooler princesses, or not mention princesses at all.
A princess is actually a daughter of a ruler who will be a potential heir to be the next ruler. I know what you said is right, but I think it should have been reworded to make it clearer.
Why did Maui even mention princesses in the first place then? The whole scene was entirely pointless. It was just there to trash talk the idea of a princess, which I think is a weird concept.
Pm The only way I could see you making this statement is in regards to the word itself. In every culture that has a monarchy that repects some kind of Blood right inheritance (see, almost every culture at some point or another) there have been female heirs to the line, even if they have no rightful claim to the possessions of the family. These are the people we call "princesses" and almost any culture with a monarchy had them. I just dont understand your comment at all.
nothing wrong with being a princess (or prince), everybody is one! my t shirt from a christian store says "yes I am a princess, my father is the king of kings" and disney princesses (old and new) are so human and lovable because they can make mistakes
Thank you for stating that Snow White is a kind but stern leader figure. She rarely gets credit for that. Honestly, even Aurora (as underdeveloped as she was) have some modern traits that make her interesting. She was coy and excitable, and you could see she had a strong sense of duty. Cinderella was a fricken champ, dealing with her step-family without going insane. Older Disney movies, especially the princesses don't get enough praise.
@@ginauccelatore3002 Yes. Animated Alice was much closer to book Alice than Burton Alice. Book Alice is a strong determined character out to change her circumstances. She is proactive. Burton's Alice is all the cliche"s about modern "strong female characters". We are told she is strong whilst she is one of the most passive characters in the story.
I personally think the only true feminist modern disney female is Tiana, as it both doesn't shame her for running off with a man, whilst also showing how hard-working and intelligent she is. It also doesn't fall into that awful trope of using an independent female and therefore depriving her of a love interest. Why shouldn't the strong woman have a husband too? Women can be romantic and strong. I get super lost in romance and even fantasies about people I have just met, but I am still smart and have a job. Also Cinderella escaped an abusive household with her kindness intact, Snow White went from a scared child to running a household, Alice in Wonderland stood up for herself and faced her inner fears
she is one of the best villains to me. I generally gravitate to "human evil" types of villain, though I love the evil aesthetic some other villains pull off. To me villains like her, Rourke, Frollo and clayton just had much more impact and caused way more fear because they felt like people like them are out there. Some of the other villains are often kind of non-humans and feel that way too. maleficent, ursula and most of the aesthetically evil villains are often actually not human, so it makes them and their behavior fun, but not realistic
Yeah. The old Disney villains were usually over the top, but they were dripping with personality. My personal favorite would be Frolo from Hunchback, who also sings Hellfire (my favorite Disney song). I love how convinced he is of his own purity and justice, but suffers self doubt from his attraction to Esmeralda.
Agreed, along with Scar (to a point) and a few many good others, Who really if you think about it perhaps are not always so in the wrong about everything they believe, but past so much their choice of paths and actions to get their... And So Too Yet how upon that point, *"Shadow Play" MLP Season 7 Thoughts?* ^~^ - and the danger of self-assuming one self as the "Good Guys" who can do no wrong, eh
Agreed. The renaissance period had a balance of great character and villain. Shame that after Tangled, every movie afterwards consist of a plot-twist-villains.
To be fair, the 2010’s have been a great comeback decade for Disney after that miserable time that was the mid 2000’s where they almost gave up hand drawn animated films, were focusing more on teenage junk and making CG a bigger animation deal, it’s nice to know they’re bringing back 2D animation more, not being too much dependent on teenager shows and even mocking their own tropes.
I thought Shadow Play was a pretty good finale. It's been awhile since we had a new male villain. The Pony of Shadows has a cool design and is basically the MLP version of Venom. I see both parties as being in the wrong. The Pillars should have not jumped the gun and instead of sulking Stygian should have just went back to the castle and explained what he was doing.
I Get Really pissed off that People strip away other character traits from Old and new Disney princesses and just label them "Hopeless damsels" and "Bad Role Models" Just because they get to be with the prince in the end. A Strong Female character is not someone who doesn't up with the prince, Yes the Old Disney princesses weren't the best written but they have far more character than what people depict them. Snow white is very caring and kind. Cinderella is hardworking, Kind and patient. Ariel Is Curious, Adventurous and Free Spirited. Jasmine Doesn't take anyones Shit and is clever. Belle Is smart and doesn't give a shit what other people think and ect. Tell me again How are these Bad Role Models? But in All Honesty the weakest princess has to be Aurora well at least she has a nice singing voice and...the way her hair was animated was pretty....i got nothing.
You hit the nail on the head. THIS is exactly why I had a change of heart about Snow White and Cinderella, (not just her third movie) as I got older and more mature. The one gripe I have with Snow, though a small one mind you, is the fact that she still rhymes in things she’s featured in outside of the movie, that aren’t necessarily rated G or even E (10 and under). No one talks like that constantly irl, unless their doing it to be silly or on accident!
It's-a-me Sali Sorry, but Aurora is a _fantastic_ role model, and I’ll be darned if anyone tries to tell me otherwise. Even though we don’t get to see a lot of her, we see that she is obedient (still goes to the castle for her arranged marriage even when she’d rather not), kind and respectful to both her “aunts” and the forest animals, as well as dutiful in realizing her responsibilities as a princess. Although she may not be the greatest character ever depicted, she’s still pretty great in my eyes.
And Aurora isn't even a real protagonist; the fairies are. It's them (the prince fights Maleficent in the climax, but he still needs their help while doing it) and their struggle to protect their adoptive daughter from their nemesis that is the focus of the story; Aurora only has her romance, about which noone really cares that much.
Always loved Mulan, and it isn't because she's a 'strong independent women who doesn't need a man', it's because she's isn't. Mulan didn't go to war to prove herself and to break stereotypes. She didn't dress up as a man and defend China because 'Hey I'm a woman and I need to prove myself'. She did it because she had to. If not, her father surely would have died. Mulan risked her life to save her father, and in setting out to do that she also saved China. Her 'romance' wasn't the main focus, and she actually had guy friends. Which I think is super cool.
I have found that the villains in more recent disney movies are not physical characteristics, but more existential concepts. Zootopia's villain wasn't Ms. Bellweather, it was prejudice and racism. She was just the physical representation of that concept. Frozen had the fear of the unknown, with Elsa's ice powers, and Moana was pretty much an environmental message. Villains are less memorable because they serve as set pieces for the bigger picture.
Laura Rodemich I agree with you ... except for frozen because Elsa is shave baked song,dress and somehow a character. She literally does nothing rational for NO reason. No do not just run to your room run to the mountains build an ice palace and sing a song. Also she just kinda controls her powers when she needs to so uh
Zootopia didn't need a physical representation of prejudice though, the message was pretty clear since the beginning. And both Judy's and Nick's past revolves around it.
@@BestiaIustitia Well, she was told to hide her powers and stay away from Anna. She hasn't seen anyone since their parents' death. Add on that the coronation (still needing to hide her powers), Anna getting into a mess with Hans, and the public demonizing her, it'd make sense that she'd run away from the world - running from fear, rather than confronting it. She wants to ensure no harm to come to anyone, and not being near anyone is a good way at accomplishing this. Sure, her actions weren't rational, but I find that they're justifiable from the perspective of Elsa. As the Rock Trolls said: "people make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed."
I'm tired of these tropes in modern cgi (mostly "Princess") Disney: -Plucky sassy young female protagonist -Selfish/brutish/vain male protagonist with witty comments optional smirk -Male protagonist probably roped into doing stuff for female protagonist by means of blackmail or a hostage situation etc. -Journey with male hero to find The Thing they/she wants. Must include lots of bickering about each other's values or something. -WE GET IT. PRINCE CHARMING ISN'T REAL. MEN ARE GROSS AND VAIN. -LOOK AT THE PRINCESS DOING NOT PRINCESS THINGS! HOW HILARIOUS/AMAZING/WIERD! -Silent part of the movie where the female leads question their values while alone. -Male protagonist gets hurt in some way relating to protagonist in movie -The part of the movie in which they inevitably separate due to a problem. -The scene where they reunite and the male protagonist gets seriously injured but not really. -SMIRKING I'm not saying these cliches are bad and that every cgi Disney movie falls under them but it wouldn't kill them to shake it up a little, especially since they've been able to do that before with their television plots. I appreciate how Moana actually lets girls be on the receiving end of slapstick humour and not know everything and be willing to fail and learn, Frozen and Zootopia focusing on letting female leads have the strength to admit that they're not perfect and sometimes worsen the problem that they tried to fix and they have the courage to admit they're wrong and try again (Judy and Anna). Big Hero Six introduced other male protagonists who weren't all Smirky Mc Smirkface and full of themselves (Tadashi, Wassabi, Fred). Wreck It Ralph with the relationship between Vanellope and Ralph, Ralph's identity crisis, the romance between Felix and Calhoun showing that your first love may not be your only love and that you can open your heart again and that losing a partner can hurt really bad and affect how you function and see the world, the whole premise of the movie being that you aren't a mistake. But seriously the (princess) movies need protagonists who are diverse in *personality*. Not just spunky, rebellious girls with a dream and sly witty guys who begrudgingly get dragged into helping them.
Still better then ATLANTIS's Kida, whose pretty much a NON entity within her own movie. For a first time watcher you would think HELGA was basically the main female of the story given the weird fact that the film has no idea how wants it's story to be beyond the mindless action!!!!
You Never Saw Me No, it's actually my favourite cgi Disney Princess movie and I freaking love Rapunzel and Eugene's chemistry. I like all the movies that fall under these cliches, but they get boring over time.
I love the old Disney movies. They were very atmospheric and imaginative. And while the princesses didnt have that much spotlight, they werent as inactive and naive as people like to remember. Snow White was actually a great role model, she was kind and compassionate and caring, despite growing up hated and shunned. The Evil Queen literally tried to kill her and she had to run away into the woods to save herself, yet people blame her for hiding with the dwarves and not being heroic. She felt like an actual human being when she broke down and cried after running into the woods. The story wasnt about defeating evil or standing up to your abusors, it was about finding new happiness in life, staying positive even when you have nothing left, and creating your own home and family. Also she didnt just run away with a guy she just met. Her and the Prince were already in love at the beginning of the movie, the "kiss of true love" was more like a reunion than a first meeting. Sleeping Beauty is a bit different case. It was similar to Alladin, just not fully embracing it. The whole story was more about the three fairies and Prince Eric than anyone else. Aurora didnt do much, because she wasnt actually the protagonist. Even in the original story of Sleeping Beauty, the prince is the protagonist, and we learn about the tragic past of the castle covered in wild roses through him. The characters that actually learn a lesson and change, are the three fairies. And this isnt anything bad. The movie isnt exactly making any strong moral point or being progressive, but its still telling a great story very well, with memorable style and visuals. You couldnt possibly mistaken any frame from Sleeping Beauty for any other movie, thats how unique its style is. And Cinderella is a strong female character and a far better role model than most of the renessaince era princesses, even modern era ones. Sure, the ideals of its time are present in the movie, but anyone who says Cinderella is a passive character that does nothing to earn her happiness, simply didnt pay enough attention to the movie. A lot of people praise Cinderella II for making Cinderella herself more active in her own story. But the thing is, Cinderella was already plenty active and well rounded in the original movie. In the sequel, there was simply more action overall. The story changed from "dealing with emotional trauma and abusive household while trying to grasp the one chance to break free" to a "plain action movie about getting through ridiculous dangerous scenarios to get to a guy". Im not saying these movies are perfect, but there is definetely more to them than people nowdays give them credit for, if you just look more closely, see them for what they truly are and stop comparing them to todays standards of princess movies.
Marína Urbanová To be honest, Snow White kind of grew on me after not being a fan of hers simply because I initially grew up with the Renaissance princesses. The reason being as I’ve grown older, and seen other interpretations of her as in Once Upon a Time and Snow White and the Huntsman, I realized her innocent personality is kinda cute and not necessarily a bad thing with her age and initial upbringing. Even if Merida is the same age as she is. She is still my least favorite Disney Princess however, and only because she still rhymes in anything she’s featured in that’s not necessarily rated G, or in some cases E.
ALL OF THIS. The Walt era critics don't appear to have ever seen the old movies because their arguments never make sense and are usually outright sexist or victim blaming (Cinderella "took" abuse, she sat around waiting for a man, Snow was stupid and a doormat, etc). I would also argue Aurora is a good role model. She teaches kids you can respect your guardians even if you don't agree with or understand their rules they give you, to have dignity and not let sorrow keep you from doing what's right (ie finding out your life is a lie, your parents didn't actually abandon you, the one person you had a serious emotional non familial connection with you can never see again, you have to marry a stranger and rule a country... That would be tough!).
See that, people?! That's what's wrong with today's generation! We are forced to believe that the Disney Princesses that came before Princess Belle are the best Disney Princesses (instead of Moana, Mulan, Tiana and even Belle) are not inactive, naive nor one-dimensional. CellSpex was right to be critical towards Frozen. And its main characters are really two-dimensional. On a personality quiz that some jackass made, I chose (after testing that quiz) that I was frozen to death for disliking Frozen. Sure, Frozen is not extremely bad, hell, it's even a meh movie, but it's still not passable with the cliches and anti-feminism which it endorses having. Disney Princesses that came before the 90s FTL! The Seven Dwarves, Maleficent and Ursula the Sea Witch FTW, speaking of pre-90s Disney Princess movies. Do NOT disrespectfually disagree with us on that.
This was shockingly fair and objective, I really appreciate how far you went to respect all Disney decades without taking the easy route and bashing them on political principle alone. I really feel like you did your homework and didn't take any shortcuts just dismissing what's popular to mock without truly examining it.
yes, you proved it s ok to like them both, not set a war between them like the different periods of star wars and star trek and doctor who and unlike what is often said, each disney film is soooo different from the others, each is a universe of its own
There is also the time period to take into account for the differences between older and newer Disney movies. The older movies (from about 1930-1970) took place during a VERY tragic era. The 30’s has the Great Depression, the 40’s had World War II, the 50’s-60’s had the Cold War, and the 70’s-ish had the beginnings of the Vietnam War. America in particular was going through some tough times, so movies (particularly animated ones) were seen as escapist experiences. They didn’t need to reflect reality, they needed to be cheerful and make people happy to get them through some tough times. There is certainly tragedy these days (9/11, Persian Gulf War, etc), but there’s significantly less than there used to be. Therefore, movies can be more down to earth and have the characters behave like real people (tying into the humanization of villains, even). Even ignoring things like stereotypes being used, the time period had a huge impact on the tone of these movies.
In the context of their time period, a lot of those older Disney movies are actually fairly progressive. Even Song of the South. We shouldn't forget that when the movie was released, "Mommy" from Gone of the Wind was along the line of how African Americans were portrayed on the big screen. Having a movie in with a black title character from a major studio was actually a pretty big deal back then.
PaleoSteno: both My Little Pony and Pokemon have also been through these scenarios and they still influence each other. Brutal Legend on the other hand, is the cult of personality because that game knows how to bring one thing and another together. Even if that game isn't influenced by Disney, Brutal Legend kicks more ass than all Disney films combined. If anything, without question, Brutal Legend is probably my most favorite game of all time and is the best game I ever played.
I gotta disagree about Ariel's stuff being "just stuff." It's very symbolic to Ariel. It represents her connection to the human world, which she perceives as being more free than the ocean ruled by her father. When Triton destroys it, to her, it essentially means that she can never be free of her father's control.
Thank you for making that point about Cinderella. I do think people treat her quite unfairly because she was defined as being kind and a bit of a dreamer who wanted an escape. And I also think she is overall more proactive than people give her credit for. She was a heroine of her time and people view her through this cultural lens of "boring!". I remember really liking the movie when I was about 5 because Cinderella was. Realistic? Her stakes were very personal and I thought it was amazing how nice she was despite growing up in an abusive household. Thanks for this insightful video
超人 as someone who did grow up in an abusive household and has an abusive mother , quasimodo , ranpunzel and Cinderella do speak to me a lot more. Quasi specially since I remember him having a rather low self esteem and being treated like garbage for being disfigured was awful
I got to be honest: I'm getting tired of the "villain hidden as a good guy" bit long enough. I mean yes, at least Yokai, Hans, and Bellwhether (not Turbo, he was always a jerk) had their reasons when you look at it, but this cliche needs to stop.
Thing is, what made it cliche is because after their revelation of how evil they are, they continue to hammer it down in your face about how evil and heartless they are, like I guess a ticking bomb of personality blew up, if somehow they still kept the villain trying to make sense of their situation amd justify every action they did without any evil undertone, that might be interesting for a while haha
For Bellweather to be the "bad guy" was ok. It is supposed that in crime and investigation stories there must to be a guilty guy, who *must* be hidden among the rest of the characters. It's part of the genre itself
They really had no reason to make Hans a villain. They just wanted the surprise effect. The Duke of Wieselton or whatever would've made the perfect villain. Like, it's okay for a female to have more than one love interest too.
@@rockalinebellosa7907 Originally, he wasn't going to be a villain. The ice sister was (forgot her name) because that's how the original story went. Then they made the infamous "Let It Go" song, which changed the context of the story to the point that the ice sister couldn't work as the villain anymore. Rather than change the song, they made Hans the villain.
I think old Disney and new Disney were going for different things. Old Disney focused on the artistry of the animation and the timeless stories, while newer Disney focuses on complex characters and messages. I think both have their value. I still think Snow White holds up because it's a beautifully animated movie with both genuinely heartwarming and disturbing scenes. Old Disney provides that classic "Disney Magic", cliche as it is, that we all love. New Disney gives a contemporary spin on that. Being born in 1998, I grew up on both classic and Renaissance Disney films, and I liked both kinds, as well as a couple of picks from the dark age (Robin Hood, The Rescuers, and The Sword in The Stone are still hilarious to this day), because they weren't all failures.
MC Wyman someone gets it I consider new Disney to be anything cg 2010s and up For me classic Disney is anything from Snow White to princess and the frog
Glen Coco wrong and ignorant they just make them for new audiences and that bothers you that you aren't the demo anymore But no they don't do it for the money They are new takes for a new crowd
I wanna see a movie where that *_perfect strong lead woman_* Is actually the villain As in say the film moana, at the last moment she did something to the heart instead of putting it back You know??
@@carolmega2867 mmm i do love helga she was one badass woman. a "you fuck me over i will fuck you over 10 times harder." kind of girl. we saw what happened when roarke attempted to fuck her over. damn
To be completely honest, I think Wreck-it Ralph did a really good job avoiding a lot (not all but a lot) of the cliches of the newer Disney films, presenting to us an interesting, diverse in personality cast. The female characters are allowed to just do their own thing without being after a love interest the whole time or trying to prove themselves. All the characters are fundamentally flawed in some way and it just makes them feel more real idk. As well as not having a main focus on romance, but rather the friendship between Ralph and Vanellope and even the core 4 as a family together. Plus they actually pulled off the twist villain well, having enough exposure to King Candy and knowing something is off about him but not being able to pick what really sells me on the movie. if you think about it Turbo is quite a dark villain for a family movie and most of the scenes towards the end are quite frankly terrifying. heh sorry for going rambling but I *really love Wreck-it Ralph* and I think it sums up all that is good about modern Disney very well
I really do miss the 90's era villains, but I actually kinda appreciate how Disney tried to make the villains more ambiguous in Moana and Big Hero 6. Then, there's Frozen. Friggin' Hans. Worst. Villain. Ever. Honestly, I wish they had made Elsa the villain. With the way she gets shunned in the first half of the movie it would have been SO easy to make her go all "Treat me like a monster and I'll become a monster". They even had a perfect scene set up for the tragic villain-transition when they stormed her castle! From there, just grab the scene from one of the earlier drafts where she creates an entire army of snowmen and marches on Arendelle, and finish up with some sort of redemption arc where Anna still sacrifices herself for her sister and snaps her out of it! Sorry, I'm ranting. Frozen had so much potential and I'm still salty that it turned into just an 'okay' movie with awesome characters.
They were actually going to go that route, which is closer to the source material, until the song Let It Go was born. I feel like perhaps the decision was made a little too late to properly fix in production. Which is why it's so wonky in the final edit of the film.
Yeah, but I feel like Let It Go could have still fit well for a villain, especially if it's about a character being pushed over the edge by external forces. She tried to conceal it, she tried not feeling, it didn't work so let's just let it all out! But noooo! Too inspirational, they said! Too hopeful, they said! And the result is, as you said, a wonky final cut.
Oh I totally agree with you. i think it could have been a very interesting and complex (for Disney) character study. A bold iteration about the Snow Queen and her origins. But you know, studio mandates and whatnot. Le sigh. The Hallmark 2 part TV movie version is closer to the source material and frankly a tad more interesting. At least IIRC. That is sad to say the least.
Right? It's such a shame because Disney actually tends to take more risks than other studios, even though they're very small risks. I don't mind them deviating from the source material because, hey, that's what they do! I just wish they would do it in a more interesting way. I never watched the Hallmark version of The Snow Queen myself. I do remember watching an animated version of the fairy tale as a kid that scared the crap of me as a kid but I can't for the life of me remember who made it.
Risk taking is what gives Disney the edge, so to speak. I mean it's not going to be huge risks, but risks nonetheless. Haha I watched a live action version of the Snow Queen that scared the crap out of me as a kid and don't remember who made it
Why do you hate romance so much? Without it no one would be born. Yes some romances don't work out but to deny men and women what they are naturally meant to do with each other just to force something different ( aka boy/girl platonic friendships) is kind of silly.
It would be cool for a while but soon readers would get sick of it because what if some random guy came into the equation and the main female character fell for him even though she has better chemistry with the main character guy. Her and the random guy would get together just for the sake of being different and that's not always a good thing.
Can I play Devil’s Advocate about the Ariel scene for a minute? I think Triton destroying Ariel’s grotto is so devastating to her because it’s not about the stuff. It was never about the stuff. She’s “the girl who has everything”, she doesn’t need any more stuff. Yes she just sang a whole song about how she “wants more”, but the “more” is not a tangible item but actually getting to live life as a human. Before ever meeting a human or falling in love with one, might I add! Everyone always forgets that Part of Your World is not about Eric! He’s not even in the picture yet! This has been a lifelong dream of Ariel’s. She places more value on the human world than her own, and her stuff represents that. When her father destroys her grotto, I mean not only is it YEARS of human stuff she’s sacrificed life and limb to collect (remember the shark chase? she risks her life for a dinglehopper!), but moreso it’s that he outright rejects her ideas about humans. Her falling in love with a human was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the ultimate betrayal to him, but to her it was one step closer to self-actualizing the dream she’s always had of living in a world she feels she truly belongs in. This goes beyond reprimanding, it’s almost like he disowns her (though you can see an ounce of regret on his face as he leaves, which she doesn’t see because she’s sobbing). That’s what’s most devastating, that’s what she’s really sad about. Her dreams are shattered. She’s at the lowest of her lows. A perfect opportunity for a villain who knows her plight to take advantage of her and grant her wish (with some minor stipulations, which she can overlook because of what just happened to her, plus the manipulation). Ariel truly deserves better. She gets way too much flack imho. The girl is an anthropologist, heavily invested in scouting and researching a culture she’s not even allowed to participate in, but one she knows is truly good. Yes she isn’t perfect. But if she were, she wouldn’t be so compelling. She doesn’t have to be perfect to be valid. I think all of the Disney Princesses, old & new & in between, have something to be admired within each one of them. It’s not worth it to bash one to praise another, to me it’s apples and oranges. You can have personal preferences, but you can’t deny the facts of the character to confirm your own biases. That’s all I wanted to say, really liked the vid in general :)
I actually think you nailed pretty much on the head. If you take the time period into consideration a lot of the older films hold up pretty well stereotypes aside (heck there are a couple cases where even those were almost positive for the time period tbh, considering the Crows despite their obvious stereotypes were at least good natured and helpful in comparison to the pompous judgmental Elephants and Caucasian’s who spent the whole movie making Dumbo’s life hell for something out of his control due to their judgements attitudes). A lot of the films weren’t going for character studies as much as they used the stories to exploit the animation to its fullest extent. As long as the children understand the context the old movies are harmless and hold up better then the modern films in some aspects such as the artistry of them and such.
I mean, I loved the crows as a kid, too. They're likable and have a catchy song, but they are literal embodiments of lazy, jive-talking black caricatures who wear quite stereotypical clothing. Also, the lead crow's name is JIM. Jim. Crow. Yeah. That was a pun Disney thought was witty enough to make it into the film. Now, the main reasons that kids - white kids, especially - don't see the crows as offensive is because A) white people still largely live in communities where there simply aren't a lot of POC, so the things we like and media we consume wasn't really subjected to peer scrutiny until the Internet connected people in ways our neighborhoods and schools didn't. And B) the stereotypes the crows are apart of aren't really around as much these days. The shuffling, Stepin Fetchit-type characters are practically extinct, having been replaced with newer black stereotypes. Whereas the older stereotypes of the lazy, shuffling Sambo were very common, the newer stereotypes are things like fast-talking black comic relief or the drug-dealing thug. So, as a result, kids today don't recognize these older stereotypes because they're not around us constantly. But black kids tend to recognize them because their parents and grandparents grew up with them. White kids' parents and grandparents didn't see what was wrong with them. That's how a band of jive-talking, lazy birds dressed and designed like black caricatures where the lead crow's name was Jim can be beloved by modern white kids: Ignorance of what they represent. Not ignorance in a pejorative sense, but ignorance in the sense that one simply doesn't know something. You can't know sunlight exists if you were raised in a cave. Once you leave the cave, though, there's no going back. I'll give the filmmakers credit that the crows weren't as racist as they could have been, but they were still racist.
WildWestSamurai I didn’t mean to give off that the crows were perfect representations or weren’t racist or anything, they were a victim of their time period, but they were certainly not as bad as a lot of the black characatures were back in those days. Remember the racist stereotype in Bugs Bunny? I could find more I’m sure but given the time period and the awful stuff, by those standards, it was a lot better then other portrayals were at those times. Stuff like the Jim Crow joke are awful and deserve criticism, again this was the 1940s and this stuff was tragically prevalent in our culture. But like I said as long as your kids are told the context before going into the movie and know what the stereotype is and don’t believe it to be the norm I don’t think it will affect any kids of our generation growing up, so in the end it will be harmless. Besides most people don’t remember dumbo anyways, cept for the Pink Elephant scene. It’s like that really awesome line from God, the Devil, and Bob, that talked about passing down a softer punch from generation to generation. The Crows were a softer punch, like the unflattering comic relief portrayals seems during the 90s were a softer punch than the Crows were. Eventually it will die off assuming people take it into consideration and don’t encourage the bad behavior or blow things out of proportion and make things worse than they were.
Actually, the lead crow is NEVER named in the movie, not even in the end credit scene. That is supplemental information (it is the name the animators used for the character as a joke because they apparently were in the habit of giving each other similar nicknames, too, being a pretty diverse bunch themselves). Also, isn't the ignorance a good thing? It shows that people have moved past those stereotypes to a point that they don't even recognize them anymore. Because the crows, they aren't racist, racist is the person who looks at them and immediately makes those connections because he has already internalized those stereotypes.
Ahhhh the Crows are based on a group of African American performers.... they animators just copied their mannerisms ... why do people whine about this is beyond me!
The old Bugs Bunny cartoon (I'm assuming you mean the one with the black hunter trying to hunt Bugs) was not that bad. The design was by all means racist but the cartoon in terms of comedy was pretty well executed.
FanOfAnimation I'd put King Candy above Mother Gothel personally. Don't get me wrong. She was a good villain for the movie, but she was kind of dull to watch. King Candy was just so much more fun to watch.
King Candy was the only 'Twist Villian' that I can actually say I liked, mostly because he had good moments before the twist. I can't say that for Frozen, Zootopia, or Moana.
Moana actually was the first Disney film in a long time where a villain wasn’t even in it. Yes, that twist with the giant volcano rock lady proves it so it actually did shake things up.
One of the reasons I like having a love interest in Disney movies is that, when done right, they create role models for young boys, showing that it is okay to be affectionate and romantic. Typically in films boys are taught to be warriors and brave but rarely are they shown that it is okay to love. Flynn Rider and Kristoff are great examples of this as they fall in love but aren't defined as just love interests, they are still strong and heroic
Actually it's always the girls being shown strong warriors and brave "role models", male characters are either a villain or a bumbling idiot, the good news is young boys in the audience don't seek their life advise from films, don't think those guys are "role models" and can be just as inspired by the female characters as any girl can and is able to model her strength and bravery without needing to have the same body parts of her at all.
@@Mr.Goodkat In talking about old Disney films, not the currents one like Moana, Brave and Raya, and I don't think that’s necessarily true. If anyone can look at anyone in film and see themselves reflected or find them a role model, then that would means girls can find that with male characters. I just wish Disney hadn't sacrified their strong yet kind and gentle male characters that could have co-existed alongside their female counterparts.
@@cannotthinkofausername6379 "then that would means girls can find that with male characters." They CAN of course they can, look up Frank Darabont Shawshank redemption and find an interview with him he'll sometimes cite in them about how he still gets fan letters daily about the film and has been getting them for decades by countless people telling him stories about how it changed their life's and made them change their minds about suicide etc, I am sure considering the sheer amount many of these people are female yet it's a male character doing the things so why did him enduring hardship and remaining unbroken inspire them? when he has got different reproductive parts and urinates while standing? it's because he was enduring hardship and remaining unbroken, anyone watching that and is going through something in their own lives can be inspired by that and find a role model in it to overcome their own hardships and they don't need the character to be the same gender as them anymore than they need them to have the same colour of skin, hairstyle or sexual attraction, it's the situation being presented in the movie which they can parallel things in their own life with and that's what's having the effect not any details about the body of the person it's happening too.
@@cannotthinkofausername6379 A video about Disney is just as deserving of "deep" comments as any other vid, especially if it's what people believe in exposing the young to, superficial comments not saying all that much shouldn't be the preference, room for both.
I never understood the whole "the characters need to represent me" or "I need to relate to the main character" thing. Me , I don't really care if there is no female characters in a film as long as what I am is not being insulted in some way( AKA the whole "you throw/fight/cry like a girl" bullcrap etc). I just like my films to be interesting to watch and not be insulting in any way
@afootineachworld Right, and I think representation wouldn't really work in the older films anyway because they are set in a very european setting a long time ago where there wouldn't be much diversity. I think it'd be pretty cool if they made newer films (in the same vein as the old movies) about different culture's fairy tales, that way the setting could match the characters.
While I do enjoy the focus on platonic friendships (though it doesn't stop me from shipping in certain cases), what I would love to see that we VERY rarely see is a main protagonist whose impetus is protecting his/her established family. The last such hero we got was Pacha (or it might have been Mr. Incredible; I don't remember which came first). Give the hero something to protect. Instead of establishing a romance (or even a friendship that shippers can turn into a romance), give the hero a spouse and children to return home to. Use the old "love conquers all" trope, but use it at its strongest; when it's already established, not when it's still building. Love is like fire. When you have a tiny ember or even a small flame, it can be easily snuffed out by just about anything. Even if it came from a 3,000 degree spark. But a bonfire going strong is hard to suppress. It provides light and wamth, and it draws people to it. That tiny spark that you're struggling to keep alive only frustrates you, and it makes you look like a castaway desperate to survive the night.
Emperor's New Groove came out in 2000. The Incredibles came out in 2004. So Mr. Incredible was the last hero like that we had, though it might've also been MRS. Incredible with the release of the sequel. Though it really is too bad that we don't see more active parent figures like Pacha in movies.
Meanwhile, Fritz The Cat is praised as being a work of 'subversive genius' for making crow caricatures far more insulting than ANYTHING Disney ever did...
Thank you for pointing the uselessness of the whole "we can't make the films scary for our kids and yet we'll keep showing them the old stuff." It doesn't make sense!
For someone who says "stay Shiny animaniacs" and just discussed modern Disney villains, you sure did miss the opportunity to at least mention Tamatoa. Sure his screen time was very limited but his presence harkened back to the bombastic unpredictable villains of the 90s. Something I very much appreciated in this current world of super developed, backstory laden twist villains.
saintfighteraqua untrue, Tamatoa gave a significant blow to Maui’s self esteem by pointing out his need for love from humans / dependence on his hook (which parallels his need for shiny things) and dragging him while Moana had to the the one that saved him. This becomes a central plot point later.
I would argue old-school Disney is more subversive than modern Disney, at least in terms of plot structure and pacing. Something like Bambi simply would not be made today, especially by Disney. The plot is too meandering, there are too many quiet and atmospheric moments, and the film generally has this somber tone that modern Disney just doesn't like. For Disney these days, everything has to follow a strict three-act structure, there has to be a lot of talking and very little in the way of quiet moments, and in-your-face "subversive" statements have to be shoehorned into the story. It's almost like they're ashamed of deviating so far from the norm in the 40s and 50s that they now have to make up for it with ultra-conventional storytelling. Yes, even Zootopia hits all of the same beats as your typical buddy cop story, and I would argue sticking to the book like that hurts the overall product.
Brian Collins I think you have an interesting argument, but I disagree with what you said about Zootopia. It's not really fair to say a film isn't as good just because it uses the three act structure. It is used for a reason and that's because it works. The screenwriters clearly did it on purpose to reference buddy cop films, but they still do their own spin on it. It's just a tool, if anything. Otherwise, I agree with everything else you said.
What I implied with Zootopia is that the film's adherence to convention prevented it from being as good as it could've been, at least for me. The three-act structure works, true, but it can also lead to a story feeling very predictable. I guess Big Hero 6 would be a better example, since that movie feels *very* safe and cookie cutter, the antithesis to what classic Disney was doing.
Brian Collins That's because kids aren't like that anymore, they don't like super long quiet moments, they don't have that patience in a world full of distractions. I'm in the same case, growing up with the Renaissance movies, I always found Bambi to be terminally boring and I still do to some extent. It has great animation and atmospheres, I can admit its merits but I can't hide the fact I just can't enjoy that movie.
To add to the comparison of the Little Mermaid and Cinderella scenes: also keep in mind that the dress was something left behind to her by her DECEASED MOTHER. They basically destroyed her most important keepsake of the only good time in her life.
I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. All of your videos are thoughtful and entertaining, and I appreciate the amount of work you've put in. :) As for my thoughts on this, I mostly agree with what you said. "Good" is subjective, and it's tough to compare films from different generations objectively since there are so many factors to consider. I love the cinematic and breathtaking visuals of classic Disney (snow white, bambi, cinderella, fantasia, etc.) Those movies do a great job at presenting an emotional spectacle that is amazing to watch. However, modern disney is SO much better at presenting memorable and lovable characters, and telling compelling stories. Honestly, if I want entertainment, I'll watch modern disney...if I want inspiration, I'll watch classic disney. Not to say I can't get entertainment from classic or inspiration from modern, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Both do their own things quite well, and both have flaws. I'm certainly happy that both exist.
Great video! For me, I feel like Disney's "ha-ha look at our past tropes" regime has become tiresome lately. That's why I think the older films hold up better.
Glad someone else is tired of that thing they've been doing. They're so focused on trying not to be like their old selves that they are beginning to seem less concerned with how the movies themselves will hold up on their own.
Yeah I wished they'd stop that too. I personally miss the love at first sight, 3 day romances, no one acknowledging their singing/sidekicks. The ones in Frozen and Moana were painful. Disney already did all these in Enchanted. Give it up lol
Speaking of "staying Shiny"... He may not be the main villain in Moana, but.. *excessive coughing* TAMATOA is literally one of the most memorable and well developed Disney villains, despite his brief appearance. He feels just like an old, flamboyant Disney villain while at the same time being EXTREMELY unique. (To say the least XD)
Well developed? He enters the story, brings up history, tries to kill Moana and Maui, loses, and that’s it. He doesn’t change or grow in anyway. Granted I admit he’s cool, I really liked his character, but he’s not well developed.
6:00 For no reason? Well, kinda, sorta. Evil stepmother, master manipulator that she is, again, doesn't want Cinderella going to the ball and stealing all the attention from her daughters. So, she discreetly mentions the elements that belong to her daughters, namely the sash and the beads. She then stands by and watches as her psychotic daughters tear her dress to shreds and accuse her of stealing their stuff, which they had thrown out earlier that day. "HOW DARE YOU STEAL OUR TRASH!" Evil stepmother then calls things to order, claiming that the only thing that happened was that the girls almost upset themselves. She then leaves Cinderella, standing in a torn dress, and doesn't believe she even owes her an apology. She just excuses herself, "Good night." Not for no reason. This crap was deliberate!
JakeyStar 2017 I see why but older ones are more nostalgic and just magical and they give you a feeling that makes you feel more like a child now I love the new movies but I will always like the older movies and that is only my opinion
Mexican Representation is not something that "concerns" me, but it's certainly nice when they show it, I get a good kick out of it and appreciate that they took time to do some research on my culture. With that being said, I enjoyed The Incredibles far more than I enjoyed Coco (We got it Early in Mexico) because of character development and story. So at the end of the day Diverse representation to me is like Whipped cream on a Milkshake. If you have it is great, but if it's all you have, it's just not a complete dessert (I could've thought of a better analogy)
I do have to append this here: The lack of any diverse representation does bother me when it's distracting to the world building of the movie/TV Show. Meaning, that if a show takes place in Mexico and there are no Mexican Characters/Actors, it's really distracting, lazy and at some point, insulting
I thought the analogy was pretty solid. It's similar to my analogy on video game graphics some people say graphics don't matter as long as the game as fun but to me that's like saying you don't care if your cake has frosting on it.
Cinderella is, in my honest opinion, a very independent, smart, and creative woman. It really makes people out to be total assholes when their putting the image of a “bad role model” onto a person who was abused, physically and mentally, and who was likely brainwashed as a child to never leave her house. Even with all that, she fights back, gets angry, and is very knowing of how to make her situation bearable. Shut up radical feminists, emphasis on radical, and don’t blame someone of abuse as being a terrible role model, when she is probably more capable than you.
We had the discussion about Dumbo and racism in my animation class. In our class analysis, the movie seemed to be more of an attempt at addressing racism head on, rather than being blindly racist itself. Some points I remember: • Mrs Jumbo was not scorned for being a single mother until it was revealed that her child was racially different than the other elephants, and the audience is made to feel sympathetic with her rather than feel shock. • The friendship between Timothy and Dumbo was a symbolic one of overcoming prejudices and stereotypes. • Dumbo was most miserable when he was staged as a white-faced clown. • As for the crows, they were a striking contrast to the manipulative and selfish white characters (the clowns, elephants, and the cruel kids). There is no mistaking that these sympathetic, empowering, and clever birds were indeed black. The creators really bent over backwards using many devices to show that these were African-American characters. It's unfortunate that they chose to include offensive stereotypes to get the point across. But this singular scene gives the pre-Civil Rights Era film the same moral of the story as the Good Samaritan: Truly unselfish kindness can indeed come from people we have been conditioned to designate as 'Other Than Us'. I always feel badly when this movie gets a bad rap for this scene when it seems that it may have actually been an ahead-of-its-time civil rights expression. Incidentally, they are doing a live-action remake of Dumbo in 2019 - it will be interesting to see how they address all of this...
It's also fair to question whether or not the writers/animators were aware that certain stereotypes were offensive, or even if they were offensive at the time at all. I think modern audiences aren't aware that A - the only way to convey a non-human character's nationality or race is through stereotypes that are laid on thick enough to be recognized and that B - what is and is not offensive changes over time, because the people they are about have different concerns over time. I genuinely think the Siamese cats were just meant to be cats, that were a little more interesting because they had a different ethnicity.
@@adde9506 I remembered the Siamese Cats used to creep me out when I was little, mostly for their introduction being bright eyes appearing out of a dark space (the basket) and their movements being synchronised to the point of being unnatrual.
Much of this seems like stretching, though--"he's most depressed with a white face" he's a CLOWN and there's a plethora of sad clown elements through history. It's not whitewashing at all. Similar with Dumbo's mother being a "single mom"--it's never specifically addressed that she's single and that's cool. There just aren't any guy elephants in the movie. xD But I do agree that despite the terrible name the crows were not necessarily depicted negatively (aside from the entire song where they mock Dumbo). For the most part they are supportive.
@@carlotta4th they also based the crows on a very popular black band called the crows who dressed like that and played their crows selves but as the crows weren't really remembered we lost that context
Alice in Wonderland (1951) is probably one of the best Disney films of all time. Seriously, it includes -a female lead who stands up for herself (this was the Disney movie after Cinderella, so it was a pretty big jump) -gorgeous animation -every character is unique -the Queen of Hearts is a perfect balance of scary and likeable - it has the most songs out of any Disney movie (which may sound overwhelming but most of them are less than a minute long) - THE DAMN CAST -child friendly story that adults can enjoy -comedy that holds up -out of all Disney movies that are based on something, I think this is the closest to the book than any other contender.
big jump how? Cinderella saved herself with her wits and teamwork with her friends. The prince was just an escape out of her crappy life. He didn't save her. Plus Alice wasn't an abuse victim, so standing up for herself is much easier.
I'm loving this video so far, but saying a musical number is just a flashy break from a narrative is.. just not entirely correct. That definition to me fits songs like Olaf's Summer song in Frozen, just a fun little break from the plot to dive into Olaf's naïveté and his motivations. But that movie also has "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" a song that contains an enormous passage of time, the girls growing up, and their parents dying. I think musical numbers are more often than not used to quickly further the plot, especially in Disney movies.
+Pm No, that pub scene is to set the outlaws up as allies to break out Eugene. They were vital to the plot. Without that scene, we have no one to break out Eugene, he gets hung, and Rapunzel is trapped forever. Plus it's a lesson on "don't judge a book by its cover."
Cinderella is one of my favorite princesses, and I hate when people act like she’s “weak” or whatever. She was in an abusive situation, and she had to be obedient to survive. She’s not “strong”, but not all women are. in order to be a well rounded female, you don’t have to be a big tough fighter all the time. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to quietly dream. I love that about her, and I do wish there were more diverse personalities among fleshed-out female characters. Not everyone (male or female) is a witty, cut-throat, independent fighter. And that’s okay.
While I like the fact that Disney is trying to make their female leads have more importance and action in their stories that doesn't mean that some of the original princesses weren't good role models. Cinderella and Snow White were two women living in harsh conditions under the supervision of a harsh overseer, both of which are also women. The narrator in Cinderella even admits that she was a victim of abuse and humiliation by the people who were supposed to be her family. To say that they aren't strong because they didn't act out or fight against their oppressors is strange because it implies that you can only act a certain way to be considered strong. As a girl I always admired Cinderella for how she remained kind and optimistic despite the shit she had to deal with everyday and sympathized with creatures that were in the same situation as her. She was abused and belittled since she was a child and has no where else to go. If she did rebel against her step-mother that would either result in her becoming homeless and basically left to starve or being punished harshly. The fact that she still has hope can be an inspiration for people who might also be going through difficult situations were they feel powerless. The same can be said for Snow White as well. That's not to say that Disney shouldn't push for more active female roles, but it's important that you can have variety too. Strength can come in a heroic act or how you choose to live as a person, you don't have to have one way of being admirable. Maybe in the future we can have a Disney female lead that is passive but can get out of a situation in a interesting and unique way and that's okay. We're humans after all and we don't act the same way nor live in the exact same circumstances. Great video by the way keep up the awesome work!
@Sydney Chuang I like both of them so I guess to me imo neither one of them is the other done right or wrong and also please STFU about CINDERELLA YA JERK!!!
See as a girl who grew up watching the old Disney i have to say that todays Disney is much much better with their female leads. I could never relate to s single disney princess except for Mulan. Girls were taught to be like disney princess. To be humble and kind and to wait for their prince charming. It was sickening. Now the female leads are the leaders and instead of marrying a ruler they are the ruler . I mean in frozen 2 when elsa left Anna became the ruler and not kristoff, jasmine became the ruler and not aladdin. The fact that we have female rulers and leaders is so amazing. I have loved merida as well cause I could see myself in her . I also like how in couples the girl is the dominating one . In the superhero world we are having more female leads ( caption marvel and ladybug) I am happy with the woman empowerment cause at the end woman are the better ones. Its just a fact, we are the ones who gave birth to men in the first place, we are the stronger ones emotionally and we are smarter as well. I am happy as a woman about our empowerment
I'm actually finding myself liking older Disney films a lot more as I've gotten older than when I was a kid. Like, Beauty and the Beast will still be my favorite Disney movie ever. But now that I'm older, I can appreciate some of the great stuff in older Disney films, like the animation in Fantasia or the music in Pinnochio. So, even if older Disney films weren't perfect, there's still some good stuff there, and I think it'd be shameful to reject them entirely just because of weak female leads or the fact that side characters get more screen time than main ones.
"[Musical numbers] _do_ tend to be more character-centric now, rather than random dance parties." Well, maybe for some animation studios. _eyes Dreamworks suspiciously_
Honestly I think what doesn't hold up in the older disney movies are more "in-movie" songs that really don't work outside of it. Where with a lot of the ones made in the 90's and today tend to have songs really remembered and enjoyed on their own. As far as animation, style, storytelling, well with the princess ones really some are either rebellious and doing very non princess things while others are like, practically princess stereotypes. Something I really liked about Anna is she was kinda both, she was rebellious but she still wanted to fall in love and have her "prince" and while obviously hans turned out to be evil, she still found someone. If I just say "new disney" as in post 2000, as a whole I have to say no, the older films were definitely better. Until Zootopia I honestly didn't think they'd beaten out "Tarzan" in terms of quality and storytelling since 2000 or before that. And honestly I thought Pixar's "Brave" was lightyears better than Frozen, if if I enjoyed the later. idk i feel the 2000's (not the 2010's) was a pretty weak point for Disney.
At the end of the day i think old Disney will always hold up as being better, artistically and storytelling. The only reason ppl say the modern movies are better is because of the strong empowerment female leads. But if you sit and examine every Disney princess or female character in classic Disney movies you’d be surprised at how amazing the diversity in personalities are and how strong the women have always been. For example; Queen of Hearts, Cinderella, Wendy, Bianca from the Rescuers, Lady Tremaine, Maleficent, the three good fairies, etc. These are all strong women in their own ways. Real women are the same way, we don’t all look the same nor do we each share the same strengths, but as a woman you fight for what you believe in whether it be right or wrong. Whether you’re the villain or princess. And if that’s the only thing you can come up with as being a flaw in their older movies well then i don’t think there is a problem at all. You have to look harder.
true. emphasis is put on the princess because theyre the supposed role models but there's are other female characters encompassing a large variety of roles, though I still wish there were more active females per movie.
Modern Disney has also focused more on internal conflict outweighing external conflict, which greatly undercuts the importance of the villain as plot-driver. This has merit, but ignores the fact that the whole purpose of resolving internal conflict is to stand a chance against the external conflicts. Despite many failures and near-misses in recent years, Moana and Tangled did pretty well with this idea. Still, I agree - the ultimate protagonist/antagonist balance remains elusive.
the character journey has become more important than the villain/mission at hand. it would be like frodo and sam just throwing the ring down a well and sit down and talk about what it means to be a hobbit for 9 hours.
Good editorial! I personally don't like the idea of separating disney films by old vs. new. I feel they each bring something traditional to their previous films while adding something new. It's easy to see how current trends that impact the films at the time they were made, therefore allowing it's audience to look back and say what works and what doesn't in the current time it's viewed.
Yeah I agree a lot with what you say, hadn't really considered the whole twist villain trend either but now that you mention it (although I adore the TeKa/Tefiti idea, and that destroying a villain isn't always the best way to overcome them). But one of my favourite villains is actually mother Gothel, a more recent one. She is dramatic, manipulative, 3 dimensional, and almost real in the way she emotionally and mentally abuses Rapunzel, which made it a really spectacular conflict between them
I think newer Disney is way better at creating cool characters and telling stories, but old Disney is just beautiful. I mean, as freaky as that scene in pinnochio was as a kid, you gotta admit that it looked fantastic. So I guess it just comes down to whether you prefer artistry of if you prefer story. I personally prefer new Disney but I can understand if someone likes old Disney better.
Pretty much hit a lot of things on the head there. I never, ever felt like any Disney movies were "bad", really. Weak, sure, but not horrible. It's really all in the context and style that each was in. I always enjoy a lot of the older movies because, as you mentioned, while the main character gets some impactful moments but really little development, all of the secondary characters are, in their own sense, rounded and actually enjoyable. I kinda wish we started trying to find a happy medium where all the villians, protags, and seconds start feeling like actual people, I feel like we've still got a ways to go before we fina a truly perfect happy medium. As far as the whole rascism thing, for me, is...I actually like the characters for who they were. Even Song of the South. Idk if it's just me never truly giving a fuck, or if I'm unknowingly some racist asshole, but I actually love a lot of the non-caucasian roles. Hell, I'll giggle at their appearance because of how over the top stereotypical they are. But, they were also some of the best or favorite moments for me, with a lot of them, aside from the siamese cats, really being, at their core, friendly and helpful to the protagonists. Best examples ARE Dumbo and Song of the South. Literally the only scenes I could ever remember as a kid for Dumbo was the Pink Elephants scene and the crows. I loved those damn crows. Still do. Love their dialogue, love their design, love the fact that they're really ruffians and vagrants, but after finding out about Dumbo's own struggles, they LITERIALLY GIVE HIM THE POWER TO FLY. Same thing with Song of the South. Sure, it's very dated and the direction is bad, but I loved the older gentlmen who told the kid all of those stories and things. The kid had no qualms learning important life lessons from the wise old man, and even developed a, even if sort of felt like cheesy or tacked on, father/grandfather and son relationship because his owm dad was out trying to help the world be more progressive and he couldn't learn shit from him. I feel like these older videos should take the high road and put a warning up front. They, for the modern progressive climate, are not pc, at all. They're but a product of their time. But really, censoring them will just keep them from showing what good these characters can still be despite how dated their charactures and viewpoints could be. People need to accept and embrace the bad, but also try to find the good in them, too. It is a shame how far opposite the villians have gone, though, but like I said, hopefully we can start finding a more happy medium to give all people enough roundess to make them memorable, but to be able to spread it out amongst the cast.
Critica 77y Again, to me, they have weaknesses and some good strengths. And all of that is more story and character flaws. The animation and art is still really good Every film is without sin. Every film is without strength. ..except Emoji Movie. Fuck that movie
Just because they have strengths doesn't mean they're not bad movies. The Emoji Movie's animation actually looks like it was made by professionals, but that doesn't change the fact that it sucks.
The only movie made in-house at Walt Disney Animation Studios that I honestly think was "bad", is Chicken Little. The others are weak at worst. As for films that were only *distributed* by Disney and *weren't* made in-house (such as Mars Needs Moms, those cheesy Disney Channel movies, the Direct-to-Video Cheapquels, among others) that's a whole other story... I could go *all day* about how many "bad" films there are from that bunch...
Amazing video! I really like the point you made about the earlier films, that some scenes (or even whole movies) could explore animation and not always/necessarily story. It makes me wonder if there will be anything like that in future movies.
To me, "racial representation" isn't a problem. I don't care if a character is white, black, red, or blue. I literally don't care. I'm Mexican myself, and I don't get all pissed off because a movie didn't have a Mexican or POC in it. All I care about is the fact if the movie/show is well done with what they were trying to achieve. I think trying to shove "equal representation"down people's throats is a annoying and bothersome. Sometimes it's to a point where it just ruins the movie/show for me because all they care about is looking morally superior and/or correct. If there's a certain culture being portrayed, like Mexican culture, then I understand all the diversity and what not (The Book of Life, Coco). I generally enjoyed The Book of Life a lot because holy shit the visuals and story telling was excellent, and the representation of Mexican culture was really, really cool. I'm not saying I don't want diversity in movies or whatever, I just don't want it to be shoved down our throats while the company is saying "Look! A strong POC lead who is also female! Look how progressive we are!" I think you did a great job with handling this video, however. Although I might differ slightly in my view on this, I think this was an amazing and well thought out video.
I agree that calling attention to the diversity can seem self-righteous and two-faced. I think that casting is at times dependent on whose available at the time and if they agree to be in the feature. There's still white privilege in US society but I won't condemn every media piece that doesn't have a rainbow palette of characters.
+BigBossMan538 "White Privilege"? Generation Films on TH-cam pretty much explained what the actual reason for having mostly whites in films is because movie makers want the characters to reflect the audience(IDK why, I guess it makes more of a profit that way somehow). That's why Star Wars has more Asian characters nowadays, and they're more numerous than black despite being some 5% of the population - because a third of their market is China. :P Granted, it didn't work out very well, because the Chinese care more about the actor being handsome than them being Asian.
tyjo hey!!! I get where your coming from, but at the same time it doesn't hurt to have the amount of representation we do now! One of the main reasons a lot of studios claim to not make movies with diverse leads is that it won't make money. But Black Panther is an excellent example of a Black led movie that made a shit ton of money. It's incredibly important to be able to represent every group of people. Love Simon is out and I really love what it's doing for the LGBT community. Coco was great for Latinos. It's just nice to be able to relate to characters on a deeper level u know?
Well, to be fair, women aren't actually a minority, so it isn't fair to lump them and POCs together like that. There's *nothing* progressive about a female protagonist, because women are just normal.
The great irony is new Disney films are not that different from the old ones. "Wow ! This Disney princess film has her want to be independent and she isnt rescued by a man!" Wow great, theyve done that in every film since Beauty and the Beast.
Well, Belle did have to be saved by the Beast when she was being chased by wolves and she had to be saved by Chip when Gaston locked her in her father's basement.
When I was younger and saw the drunken elephant scene in Dumbo I wasn’t scared, I was bored. That scene was like 5-7 minutes long and the same thing, elephants doing weird things.
How harmful are characters like the crows from Dumbo really? Sure, they are caricatures, but they aren't unlikable. In fact, I straight-up love 'em! I love how they talk, I love how they sing, I love how they dance, I love how fun-loving and carefree they are, I love that they're not just there to make fun of Dumbo, they actually help him after they have a change of heart. They're the ones who actually get Dumbo to fly. Now, I didn't live in the 40s, so I have no idea how real black folks talked or acted back then but if the crows are anything to go by, then I would've loved to hang out with people like them back in the day. I guess what I'm trying to say is not every stereotype is a negative stereotype. If they had JUST been assholes and nothing else, then I could understand the outrage, but like this? Not really.
ShyGuyXXL While I also find the crows enjoyable characters, stereotypes make assumptions on how a person behaves based solely on a label, like race, sex, religion, etc. Even if the label isn’t directly harmful (like the cheerful attitude of the crows or Asians being good at math), it indirectly builds expectations that some people of that label can’t achieve. I had an Chinese friend who was terrible at math. His math skills were below average and because of that, he had to deal with people thinking he was good at math solely because he was Chinese. Again, as enjoyable as I find the crows (they’re probably the most likable characters in Dumbo), stereotyping in of itself can be very dangerous, even if the stereotype isn’t something immediately negative.
+Stephen Brown Of course, assuming something about someone because of a stereotype is dumb. But not everyone thinks that way. I know that stereotypes are just stereotypes and so do most people. But some people are just ignorant. But I don't know if we should never use stereotypes (regardless of what they are) because of that. I mean, if someone is ignorant enough to believe all asians are good at math, I think that will be the least of their problems. I've never met a reasonable person who assumed a stereotype was true about someone they didn't know. But the thing is, thinking a stereotype MAY be true is a different matter. Stereotypes don't come out of nowhere. The stereotype that asians are good at math exists because they are good at it *on average.* At least compared to other parts of the world. So acknowledging that this stereotype is more likely than not going to be accurate is not the same as thinking it's accurate every single time. I know what it's like to be the butt of the joke, when it comes to stereotypes. I'm a fat guy, and I'm not a fan of fat guy stereotypes either, but... ...I still think they should have a place. They should be allowed to exist in our media. Some may be in bad taste, some may be all in good fun, but that should be up to the writers. We can say we like it or don't like it, but we shouldn't go like "This shouldn't even exist!" Instead, I think we should encourage characters that break away from the stereotypes who can exist alongside the stereotypes. We shouldn't create a media world where no stereotypes are ever true, instead we should create one where sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Just like in real life. After all, the people you mentioned who assumed your friend was good at math, now that they've met an asian who isn't good at it, they may think twice next time they meet another asian. I don't like that almost every fat guy on TV or in videogames is either stupid, gross, lazy, or all three, but instead of removing them, we should create and celebrate characters who are fat and smart, dilligent, pleasant, or all three. ^^ Positive fat characters in general. For example, one of my favourite videogame characters growing up was Wario, since he wasn't just a stereotype. He was a badass treasure hunter who got shit done with pure force. Sadly, in recent years he has become more and more of a stereotype, to the point where he's even known for farting a lot, even though that was never meant to be part of his character. -_- So this bothers me not because another stereotype was born, but rather because a stereotype subversion was lost. U_U But I digress.
+Charlie Odinoco There's nothing that indicates it besides their voices. So if you're watching a dub from a different country then you would never know.
ShyGuyXXL Of course there’s a time and place for stereotypes to be used. As harmful as they can be, there certainly are times where they can be used. But they’re very difficult to use effectively since for the most part, they’re used quite lazily.
Aside from the more well known classics, there are definitely older Disney movies that hold up even to this day, some of which are hidden gems in my opinion. While films like Fantasia, Make Mine Music, and Melody Time may be "package films," you can easily tell how much passion was put into the animation, music, and everything else going on in each segment, and viewing each is quite a nice experience (especially with Fantasia)! Of course, there are a couple of older Disney movies that are dull and interesting, namely "Saludos Amigos (1942)" and "The Three Caballeros (1944)," with the former it's just a few shorts that the Disney animation staff put together after visiting Brazil which may have a few interesting visuals, but doesn't have much else to offer other than that. In both films, we hear some narration by Fred Shields (the voice of The Great Prince of the Forest from Bambi), and I think he did better as a voice actor than a narrator (though he was at least a decent narrator), and the only segment of The Three Caballeros that's a little interesting is the "Cold-Blooded Penguin" segment narrated by Sterling Holloway. There isn't much of a story to the latter either, though it is a little bit better than Saludos Amigos. There are also others worth checking out IMO such as "Fun and Fancy Free (1947)," "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)," "The Black Cauldron (1985)," and "The Great Mouse Detective (1986)."
I have a feeling that the twist villian plots were made because people have become too smart and aware of creepy people nowadays. It's a shame that I found the man/woman platonic team-ups A LOT more romantic than the actual romantic couples. Why is that?
Farah Ahmad probably because there allow to breath and just be casual with each other withouth the lovey dowey nonsense nor the forcefulness of trying to hook them up
My guess would the that it's because the Actual Romantic Couples (TM) are shown doing things that, while nice to do, aren't really a good foundation for a relationship. But because the writers of movies with platonic team-ups aren't trying to portray "look, they're romantic", they end up showing a far more healthy relationship over all, that could be applied to a romantic coupling just as easily.
Cinderella gets too much flack imo. ScreenPrism did a good bit about her and why I feel she gets too much crap from feminists. I think you made a lot of good points, but I also think maybe parents who want to show their kids the older movies should explain to them why the female lead is strong if that's the issue they take, or not show it at all. Or tell them what she did that wasn't right. Maybe people ought to consider how it's not Aurora's fault she's bland, but the fact that Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather weren't the best people to raise Aurora. They sheltered her from the world, kept her away from everything harmful, forbade her from interacting with other people, didn't tell her anything about her true identity, lied to her for 16 years, and then dumped everything on her at once, didn't give her much time to process everything, took her from the only home she's ever known, forbade her from ever seeing the only other human she's seen and thus formed a strong attachment to, and then left her completely alone to stew in all this new information while knowing she was at risk.
I love your comment about how the trend of twist villains these days is both bad and good: Bad, because they don't get built up and remain 1-dimensional, but also good because they aren't mustache-twirling cloak-wearing fiends (which I have a strong issue with, blame soap operas), they're just like us and they're liars and manipulators. We should keep the movies of the past in mind so we can learn how to improve, and also learn from the movies of this era, so that we can prevent mistakes when the next era comes around.
Not saying the 3D ones are bad or anything, but one thing I miss from the 2D era is not only the villains from the past, but that the background for each movie had it style, like old movies only looking at a background you know what movie it was, nowadays the background are beautiful and breath taking sometimes, but don't have this charm anymore. And for me the only time when they subverted trope and worked really well was on Enchanted, the new ones seen too forced and isn't funny, on Enchanted at least the dude that complain about the songs didn't sing and was confused as hell on the musical scene. Representation is a two edge sword, but yeah I agree I prefer not so good representation than none, like Zé Carioca I can hate it's character and what he represents, but thanks to him, in the comics at least, we now have other brazilian characters that are much better, even that some are just knockoffs from Monica's Gang.
Bud Buddie That’s not true actually. You can easily look at the background stuff for Tangled and know it’s Tangled. Or look at Zootopia and know that’s what you’re watching.
@@RM-cn8pw It's not the objects in the background that differentiates them, it's the art style. E.g, if you looked at several CG movie scenes of a field you wouldn't be able to tell which movie they're from. But if you looked at, say, a field from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty you'd easily tell bc their styles are so different.
Aurora You basically summed up my point but still found a way to disagree with what I said. That’s what I was saying, that the art styles differentiate the movies. You can differentiate Moana from Tangled, or Big Hero 6 from Zootopia, etc. based on their different art styles.
Bud Buddie So, you “miss” something that never went away. “Like old movies only looking at a background you know what movie it was” Just like the new ones.
Disney fan of 28 years of age here and been one since i can think. When i grew up, i was raised on the disney renaissance movies like Beauty and the beast, aladdin and the lion king. But i also loved movies from the walt era like Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Pinocchio. While i am still more of a fan of traditional animated movies, i admit that i also enjoy todays movies, with Moana being the most recent example. You can do so much with the medium of animation and it really dosen't matter if we have empowering women or damsels in distress in it, as long as the movie is good all around, i am happy. the older disney movies may not be strong in the story department, but they have different great things in it. Fantasia is still one of the greatest achievements in animation history for it's artistic value. The Jungle Book, while having a simple story, has some of the greatest cast of characters and songs i have seen in a disney movie. Sure, not everyone will love every disney movie, but over the last 8 decades, the movies have been great for different reasons. I am still watching the classics and will still go to the theatre for the next disney animated movie. :)
Here’s my 12 12.frozen 11.frozen 10.frozen 9.frozen 8.frozen 7.frozen 6.frozen 5.frozen 4.frozen 3.frozen 2.frozen Aaand nuber one Frozen Can you tell I don’t like frozen
I've never had issues with the old disney films, what or how they portrayed with certain themes, characters and stories. Even as an adult I can enjoy both the old and new films all together. I'd like a return of interesting villains though
I loved Mother Gothel because I thought it was refreshing to have a villain for the first time in years whose goal wasn't to "take over the kingdom" (Ursula, Jafar, Scar, Hades, Shan Yu, Dr. Faciliar). Gothel kidnapped the heir to a neighboring kingdom not to conquer, but for their magical qualities that's keeping her young and beautiful. Mother Gothel seemed to also be a throwback to Disney villains that were drven by vanity like the Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine, or Cruella DeVil.
The other thing about villains is that pixar likes to write stories where there isn't specifically any villain. Sure, toy story always had a villain, or rather, the conflict wasn't specifically to fight that villain. Like in Finding Nemo, if I had to choose a villain, I guess you'd go with darla, but really? There isn't really a villain, it's more man vs. situation. Cars, again technically the green car (forgetting the name) could be the villain but it's more about McQueen learning humility and the connection between two very different American cultures. Brave is about family connection, Walle is about environmental health. But the most recent movies literally have no villain. Finding Dory, Inside Out, and Monsters University have no villain. There just isn't one. Pixar likes to go a lot deeper and have their conflicts and storylines teach about greater issues, which often mean the world or situation is the conflict.
Honestly, while I know Cinderella's dress being torn was more meaningful, than say Ariel's stuff getting blown up because didn't change her, I think people relate to Ariel more because many people have those kinda parents. The parent that constantly crushes on their children's dreams about something or doesn't approve of the lover for whatever reason (such as being gay, trans, of a difference race/class, ect). Cinderella's step mom does this but because the step mom treats her as a maid than a child, people grasp more with Ariel because the relationship with her father is a parent and child relationship. A really unstable parent and child relationship. Even though I don't relate to her in that way, I always find myself tearing up at Ariel's scene than Cinderella's, because I feel closer to Ariel in terms of passion of being into something and getting crushed by something. It doesn't change the situation of her status, true, but when it's someone that claims to love you and you are suppose to trust hurts you like that, it's a much more deeper pain. The step mother never ever said or shown love to Cinderella as said she's treated like a maid. Cinderella did trust her but it feels unrealistic because well she shouldn't have realized that before when she realized her step sisters are spoiled and she gets diddly squat? Anyway sorry for the rant! XD I love the Little Mermaid, it literally fights the top spot with Lion King in my favor, so I'm a little protective of it.
True, I felt Cindy´s pain, but as you said, she never received any love fron her step-family, so you could kind of pre imagina what´s going to happen. With Ariel I felt totally heartbroken becaus I could easily relate with her, for the same things you said. And because her own dad, whom she loves, does it to her, makes it worse.
Sorry this is late, just a quick FYI Cinderella's dress was her mom's, so...while Ariel's scene was sad in terms of who was destroying it, Cinderella's was more sad in the what was destroyed. Both have their own sadness def though!
I'll take Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty over Little Mermaid or Pocahontas any day. Then movies like Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia are just masterpieces anyways. As for villains, I do agree that we've been in a bit of a slump, but I think Callaghan gets way too much shit. I mean, he's incredibly terrifying! He's perfectly willing in killing his own students, people who look up to him as an inspiration, and he's even the cause of one of his students death (even more so if he started the fire). He perfectly personifies that idea of evil perfectly blending in to the background to seem normal, and you can sort of sympathize with why he's doing what he's doing. I mean, I wouldn't say he's the best of the plot twist villains, that'd be King Candy, since they actually foreshadow it, and rewatching the movie gives you even more hints, but Callaghan is good too. As for the worst of the plot twist villains, Bellweather is my least favorite. Her twist and the way she gets foiled is pretty much a rip off of Waternoose from Monster's Inc.
Also on Cinderella's dress: not only did her friends risk a lot to update it, it was her late mother's dress, and probably one of the only things she had left of her
I just had to cackle at the fanart comment, especially as it lined up with the Zootopia clip... On to the topic at hand however. Honestly I'd say a lot of the the old Disney films hold up well through a lens of nostalgia. If you're looking at it through the lens of modern social values some of them are... less than appropriate. And there are some films which were excellent in my opinion, but for some reason or other didn't pan out. For example, Treasure Planet, which was well received by critics, but Disney put no effort into promoting the film, what few trailers they released spoiled the plot of the entire thing, and the released it against one of the most anticipated family/kid films of all time, namely Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone(Its the proper title of the first book/film. Fight me.) In the end, it's a real shame it failed for a number of reasons: 1) It was a labor of love. The minds behind it had wanted to do it for years. 2) It was a much improved story over the original, expanding Jim's and Silver's characterization a great deal. 3) It was beautifully animated, and for its time, unique, a combination of traditional animation, CG animation, and Deep Canvas, which is somewhere between the two.(I only learned this recently, but Silver was traditionally animated, except for his mechanical parts, which were CG animated) **deep breath** Eheh.. Sorry for the rant.
Treasure Planet is in my top 10 Fave Animated Disney movies of all time. I even had a plush of Morph from a Happy Meal I got at the time lol! They showed us the movie while we were on a school camp. It was awesome. And I totally agree with your assessment.
Also, in terms of "subverting old Disney tropes"... uhhh.... I KIND of have to say that Frozen to me was sort of the "Disney Drinking Game" with only ONE real major trope subverted in my opinion, that being who's love actually undoes that whole "Freezing heart" thing. I mean, you have the parents dying, the little rolly polly troll guys showing up but not really doing anything, goofy-cute animal buddy... I hear SO MANY PEOPLE talking about Frozen subverting old Disney tropes when in MY opinion, they're all THERE. Its just that one of them is subverted, and another (the whole "love at first sight" thing) is heavily mocked and self aware of itself. Also if you want to get into the whole princess aspect, Jasmin from Aladdin was sort of a subverting of everything Disney had did before in terms of princess characters. And I TOTALLY love your thing about the focus on making the characters "Strong" but not interesting. That whole "Feminist icons" thing is only subjected to the eye of the beholder, if you will. I mean, I have a character I'm currently afraid of getting flack for over the fact that she's essentially a hot shot type but I make her a slapstick magnet to counter that.
One thing I find can and should be mentioned is terms of Disneys past with animation vs. fleshed out characters is that you can see it as the same amount of overall artistic effort put in: take for example, Snow White: the dwarves are essentially just a set of emotions as characters. We don't need to establish anything for the audience cause they know them at a glance, so that leads to more experimenting with what you could do with them: a ton more animated "goofing off" if you will that doesn't take away from the rest of things. Now on the opposite end, Zootopia: where they actually pretty much scrapped a whole 'nother movie by shifting the focus from Nick to Judy when they realized that HIS story arch was pretty much established as soon as he decided to resolve himself to his fate of being what everyone assumed him to be, while Judy's was still unwilling to let that be the end of it: in fact, Nick practically rattles off the TL;DR version of THAT movie's setup during his whole "You got nothing on me" talk with Judy soon as she realizes hes a con artist. So you kind of got two separate movies from two separate times, but in a way the creative and artistic effort needed to get them made and shown to veiwers is kind of mirrored between them. Personally, Dumbo is one of my all time favorite Disney movies, and that one was one of said movies Disney himself wasn't that invested in, seeing it as more a means to an end to get back out of the red from other things like Fantasia, I believe...(another good point to mention seeing as WITHOUT competition at the time, Disney's financial history was VERY roller coastery- I'd hate to think how much Walt's headaches would be if he had competition like Disney currently has back THEN.) OH yeah, since I bring up dumbo: for all the flack the crows get, they are the only characters beyond the mouse and his mother who are NICE to Dumbo, AND they help out Dumbo pretty much as much if not more then the mouse... Not saying the mouse was a bad friend, but through his best efforts he did end up getting Dumbo ridiculed and turned into a clown. Personally I grew up liking Bosco the talk-ink kid and I'm BLACK. And yes, that speech you did there was SO FUCKING AWESOME and I agree entirely.
I know. And the crow is named Jim Crow. And technically Dumbo's name is Jumbo Jr. and the train is named Casey Jr. But we can still call them the mouse, the crow, and the train without being formal about everything, right? :P
Sleeping Beauty is weird, being strangely progressive if you remember it's about the fairies but everyone places it in the "standard princess movie" corner.
Maybe that why they made a remake because the show doesn't make sense or boring. Now the remake of maleficent makes sense too me. She is a fairy and she got wings.
@@thisaccountisembarrassingi4429 But how is it fair that girls have to live with being viewed as some strange and abnormal minority group, in the same vein as blacks and LGBT people, when they're ubiquitous in our modern society? The sooner we start treating women as just normal, average people, the sooner they might actually be taken seriously as individuals, instead of existing solely to fill diversity quotas.
This was GREAT! Yes there are things from the past that are wrong and we as a culture are better off without but ignoring them is to ignore history and when we blind ourselves to the mistakes of the past we're going to repeat them or worse repackage them, trading old stereotypes for new stereotypes (ask Jail Break from the movie that mustn't be named). And yes Walt Era Disney films all had more strengths and great values than unfortunate and outdated trends. Keep on the great work CellSpex.
I think it's strange to harsh on Aroura for not being a 'strong female lead.' She doesn't even know there's a conflict. She's just having a Tuesday until they tell her she's a princess and whisk her off to the castle. Where she's promptly hypnotized and dropped into a coma. At what point did she have the chance to be 'strong' or any reason to do so? Sure, she could have run away when her guardians told her she couldn't see the boy they didn't know was Phillip, but it's actually normal for her to have flopped on the bed crying first. She didn't have time to get defiant against the guardians she'd never before had reason to defy. And she's probably been dreaming about having other people in her life for her entire life; she's been denied one in favor of many and that has to be a strong lure for her. Yes, the movie happens to her, but it's not a deficit to her character that it does. Not to mention: AROURA IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST. She's a secondary character, entitling her to have less development. She seems like the protagonist because of the Disney Princess marketing strategy that she was shoehorned into, and the tiny cast of the movie. The Fairies are the joint protagonists, and their pretty awesome.
Good video - you bring up a lot of great points! I'd like to point out though that the pink elephant scene in Dumbo was not the result of Walt Disney's creative vision and was actually done when he was away from the studio (and he was not happy with it)
I've been saying it for years and I'll say it again, *golden era Disney princesses were GOOD ROLE MODELS!* I doubt people who shit on them have actually recently watched the movies. Snow White went through some tough shit, had to run away from home into woods and still tried to make the best out of her situation and create a new warm home with her new family she chose on her own. She was incredibly caring and a hard worker with a good heart that was surprisingly mature for a 14 year old. Yes, the plot "happened to her" instead of her moving the plot, but sometimes life's like that. Sometimes we don't have much choice beside withstanding all the shit thrown at us with grace, then leaving it behind and moving on. Also she didn't run away with a stranger, she knew the Prince before, it was clear at the beginning of the movie they were already at the flirting stage. And Cinderella was VERY proactive the whole damn movie. I always wonder what version are people watching when they say Cinderella was just a damsel in distress and did nothing and it was more about the mice. She didn't have big action scenes and yea some of her screen time was taken away by her animal friends, but she did a lot in the movie. She actually decided on her own to stand up against her oppressors and have something nice in her life. She was in a terrible situation but she wasn't a pushover. It must've taken a lot of courage for her to put that dress on and tell her step mother she's going to the ball. Only after THAT did the fairy godmother give her the dress and carriage and glass slippers. And then at the end she didn't choose to be quiet and continue her miserable life, she seized the opportunity to break out of that horrible situation. Now Aurora is a bit different story, because it's clear she is not actually the protagonist of the movie. I think she still have lots of personality, but the main focus was on Phillip and the fairies. Overall they did the most in the movies and it was their story. And that's arguably more progressive than developing Aurora would ever be. I personally cherish these older Disney Princess movies, because they show a different kind of a strong female character. They are all very feminine and have typical feminine traits like nurturing and caring and hard working and kind, but these are all good things. I myself am a stereotypical mom friend and seeing these female leads finding strength in such typical feminine traits while not resorting to being cruel, violent or vengeful, felt very empowering.
While the newer Disney films are more focused on creating fully developed characters - which isn't just expected in Disney Films it's also expected in most movies nowadays - the original Disney films (From Snow White to I guess Sword in the Stone) while not being character driven (which is understandable considering that animation was a developing art form) they were able to harness the power of emotion. On a storytelling aspect I understand why Disney is trying to make their main characters more developed: they want to sell role models for younger girls and I guess a few adults. If Disney tried to return to form from the days of the 40's and 50's it would come across as extremely dated. Because while elements worked for them back in those days, times and people's perceptions and tastes have changed too. It could be likely that people could be offended and more critical towards these elements. And while yes Disney tried to replicate the 90's era elements with "The Princess and the Frog" it sadly didn't do as well as Disney was hoping for it to be. I do one day hope that we can see those memorable emotional moments once again with Disney films, but even I acknowledge that it's a fools wish at best lol.
I think one factor in The Princess And The Frig not getting more money was the release Of The Squeakquel From Fox. Those bad chipmunks caused a lot of trouble for better animated films like Fantastic Mr Fox
A very nice example of good representation in modern animation is in "The Dragon Prince". Characters are never defined by whomever they are representing, the are just people.
5:00 - 6:15 is one of the reasons I LOVE Cinderella as both a character and an overall film. Cinderella IS STRONG, despite not being a modern “active” Disney princess, and showing her strength in a traditionally feminine way. She had real stakes and real struggles and approached them with kindness, resourcefulness and positivity. Her goal isn’t to meet a prince, its to escape her oppressive situation for ONE NIGHT. Also. In the end, the prince does NOT SAVE HER. She saves herself by her resourcefulness of keeping the other glass slipper on her (which in and of itself represents a manifestation of her internal hopes and dreams which resulted in the Fairy Godmother appearing.) Her signature song, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is not about finding a man. Its about finding strength in your dreams. (And as Cindy says, “They can’t order me to stop dreaming.” She’s actually defiant in her own way.)
It's as I always say in my videos in fiction you are never wrong. Two people can be shown the same exact product and take away a subject entirely different from the other. This pertains to old vs new ideals. If anything its kind of fascinating isn't it? To watch classic to modern disney movies could essentially be a subject of social studies and history. Cause Disney movies reflect the culture of the era of that time. In a way its watching evolution not only of Disney but of society itself how they reflect a desire for more progression, more character, and elements that not only entertain but speak to people on a level that they'll remember forever.
I feel like the "strong female lead" is overrated. I want dynamic characters. They don't have to be strong for me to like them.
NightGallows That's what "strong female lead" means though. It doesn't mean they have be physically strong, just that they have well-developed arcs and character. A housewife can be a perfectly fine strong female lead, if written right.
It's not your fault if you didn't know that though, it's companies and producers and writers who just don't get it. They think a strong character = literal strength. I.E. warriors or criminals
(Those are the only examples I can think of, sorry 😂)
It's actually a pretty upsetting misconception, if I'm honest. The idea that a (female) character can only be considered strong if they're "not reliant on any sort of man" or "uninterested in romance" or whatever, is completely ridiculous and needs to be destroyed.
Sorry, I just wanted to say that XD
Totally agree!
For example, Izumi "Teacher" Curtis from Fullmetal Alchemist: alchemist, runs a butcher shop with her husband, and proudly calls herself a housewife to strangers. Yet is one of the few alchemists that can perform alchemy without a circle, can catapult monsters ten times her size, and practically raised the two lead characters as well as strike fear into them.
Yea but it's important to hear you don't need a man (or woman for that matter) to be happy or complete.
Cinderella, Snowwhite, Ariel, Tiana, Pocahontas, Belle are all strong females. Strong female does not necessarily means strong in a masculine way. Feminine strength includes perseverance, integrity, kindness, dignity, hopefulness and many more traits. Snowwhite is kind, caring, persevering and positive despite the hardships at the hand of her stepmother who even tried to kill her, Ariel is kind, dignified and hopeful, also curious and stays true to her dreams despite being of different species (is there anyone beside me who thought it was hinted at interracial relationships as positive?) and had to give up everything she had to be part of the world she wanted, Pocahontas is kind, persevering, caring and brave despite her tribe being prejudiced, fearful and hateful (rightfully) of the newcomers, Belle is kind, hopeful, brave, caring and dignified despite losing her freedom and dreams to save her father, Tiana is hard working, kind, hopeful and persevering despite being discriminated, poor and turned into an amphibian! In contrast, the princesses who had strong male characteristics like Merida and Elsa are not memorable on their own.
Not to mention Cinderella's dress was originally her mother's. This alone makes the dress ripping scene so much more than the collection blasting scene.
true! it might be the only thing she had from her mother
true
@Just a Maybe you almost never do
Yeah because really...that stuff that Ariel had was temporary not permanent Cinderella’s mother’s dress was permanent because you can’t remake your dead mother’s dress because it’s technically not her dress anymore
@@immstarry7175 true
I have not problem with romance as long it's done right.
Me too!
Ikr
Same
I agree
Thank You
additionally, Cinderella's dress was a modernized version of her mother's dress, the only remnant of her mother we see
I find modern Disney to be weird with its whole anti-princess thing. Like in Moana for example. The film has a scene insisting that she's not a princess. But she's a political figure who will inherit her land through birth right, something nobody elected her for but that she was born into. Call it by any other name, it's the exact same thing. Instead of pretending that princesses are weak, or that "princess" is a dirty word, they could just make cooler princesses, or not mention princesses at all.
A princess is actually a daughter of a ruler who will be a potential heir to be the next ruler. I know what you said is right, but I think it should have been reworded to make it clearer.
Why did Maui even mention princesses in the first place then? The whole scene was entirely pointless. It was just there to trash talk the idea of a princess, which I think is a weird concept.
Pm The only way I could see you making this statement is in regards to the word itself.
In every culture that has a monarchy that repects some kind of Blood right inheritance (see, almost every culture at some point or another) there have been female heirs to the line, even if they have no rightful claim to the possessions of the family.
These are the people we call "princesses" and almost any culture with a monarchy had them. I just dont understand your comment at all.
nothing wrong with being a princess (or prince), everybody is one!
my t shirt from a christian store says "yes I am a princess, my father is the king of kings"
and disney princesses (old and new) are so human and lovable because they can make mistakes
IceFire that's just moana tho
Ana and Elsa know they are princesses same with Merida
Thank you for stating that Snow White is a kind but stern leader figure. She rarely gets credit for that. Honestly, even Aurora (as underdeveloped as she was) have some modern traits that make her interesting. She was coy and excitable, and you could see she had a strong sense of duty. Cinderella was a fricken champ, dealing with her step-family without going insane.
Older Disney movies, especially the princesses don't get enough praise.
YES !!!!!!! and even little girls (alice, wendy...) get little credit for being so brave
@Rizzo Grant uhh. Preach
@@ginauccelatore3002 Yes. Animated Alice was much closer to book Alice than Burton Alice. Book Alice is a strong determined character out to change her circumstances. She is proactive. Burton's Alice is all the cliche"s about modern "strong female characters". We are told she is strong whilst she is one of the most passive characters in the story.
Elsa is still the best.
I personally think the only true feminist modern disney female is Tiana, as it both doesn't shame her for running off with a man, whilst also showing how hard-working and intelligent she is. It also doesn't fall into that awful trope of using an independent female and therefore depriving her of a love interest. Why shouldn't the strong woman have a husband too? Women can be romantic and strong. I get super lost in romance and even fantasies about people I have just met, but I am still smart and have a job. Also Cinderella escaped an abusive household with her kindness intact, Snow White went from a scared child to running a household, Alice in Wonderland stood up for herself and faced her inner fears
also I really miss 2d
And Rapunzel. Even though she ends up with Eugene in the end, she still is very much an independent woman that can fend for herself!
Tiana was a traditional Disney princess
i hate that trope too
Mulan literally went to the war and saved the whole China from going to hack but people are mad bcs Shang stayed for dinner like wtf?
I have to say that Mother Gothel was the best 3D animated villain
She scares me. And I was like a teenager and she scares the crud out of me.
she is one of the best villains to me. I generally gravitate to "human evil" types of villain, though I love the evil aesthetic some other villains pull off. To me villains like her, Rourke, Frollo and clayton just had much more impact and caused way more fear because they felt like people like them are out there. Some of the other villains are often kind of non-humans and feel that way too. maleficent, ursula and most of the aesthetically evil villains are often actually not human, so it makes them and their behavior fun, but not realistic
*Syndrome has entered the chat*
@Mustiboi Salman Lol
Don't forget Tomatoa, King Candy and Syndrome. Um.. mostly that's it.
Yeah. The old Disney villains were usually over the top, but they were dripping with personality. My personal favorite would be Frolo from Hunchback, who also sings Hellfire (my favorite Disney song). I love how convinced he is of his own purity and justice, but suffers self doubt from his attraction to Esmeralda.
Agreed, along with Scar (to a point) and a few many good others,
Who really if you think about it perhaps are not always so in the wrong about everything they believe, but past so much their choice of paths and actions to get their...
And So Too Yet how upon that point, *"Shadow Play" MLP Season 7 Thoughts?* ^~^
- and the danger of self-assuming one self as the "Good Guys" who can do no wrong, eh
I think we love Scar because he's so flamboyant
Agreed. The renaissance period had a balance of great character and villain. Shame that after Tangled, every movie afterwards consist of a plot-twist-villains.
To be fair, the 2010’s have been a great comeback decade for Disney after that miserable time that was the mid 2000’s where they almost gave up hand drawn animated films, were focusing more on teenage junk and making CG a bigger animation deal, it’s nice to know they’re bringing back 2D animation more, not being too much dependent on teenager shows and even mocking their own tropes.
I thought Shadow Play was a pretty good finale. It's been awhile since we had a new male villain. The Pony of Shadows has a cool design and is basically the MLP version of Venom. I see both parties as being in the wrong. The Pillars should have not jumped the gun and instead of sulking Stygian should have just went back to the castle and explained what he was doing.
I Get Really pissed off that People strip away other character traits from Old and new Disney princesses and just label them "Hopeless damsels" and "Bad Role Models" Just because they get to be with the prince in the end. A Strong Female character is not someone who doesn't up with the prince, Yes the Old Disney princesses weren't the best written but they have far more character than what people depict them.
Snow white is very caring and kind. Cinderella is hardworking, Kind and patient. Ariel Is Curious, Adventurous and Free Spirited. Jasmine Doesn't take anyones Shit and is clever. Belle Is smart and doesn't give a shit what other people think and ect. Tell me again How are these Bad Role Models?
But in All Honesty the weakest princess has to be Aurora well at least she has a nice singing voice and...the way her hair was animated was pretty....i got nothing.
They where strong in their own way.
Bianca LAND preach!
You hit the nail on the head. THIS is exactly why I had a change of heart about Snow White and Cinderella, (not just her third movie) as I got older and more mature. The one gripe I have with Snow, though a small one mind you, is the fact that she still rhymes in things she’s featured in outside of the movie, that aren’t necessarily rated G or even E (10 and under). No one talks like that constantly irl, unless their doing it to be silly or on accident!
It's-a-me Sali Sorry, but Aurora is a _fantastic_ role model, and I’ll be darned if anyone tries to tell me otherwise. Even though we don’t get to see a lot of her, we see that she is obedient (still goes to the castle for her arranged marriage even when she’d rather not), kind and respectful to both her “aunts” and the forest animals, as well as dutiful in realizing her responsibilities as a princess. Although she may not be the greatest character ever depicted, she’s still pretty great in my eyes.
And Aurora isn't even a real protagonist; the fairies are. It's them (the prince fights Maleficent in the climax, but he still needs their help while doing it) and their struggle to protect their adoptive daughter from their nemesis that is the focus of the story; Aurora only has her romance, about which noone really cares that much.
Always loved Mulan, and it isn't because she's a 'strong independent women who doesn't need a man', it's because she's isn't. Mulan didn't go to war to prove herself and to break stereotypes. She didn't dress up as a man and defend China because 'Hey I'm a woman and I need to prove myself'. She did it because she had to. If not, her father surely would have died. Mulan risked her life to save her father, and in setting out to do that she also saved China. Her 'romance' wasn't the main focus, and she actually had guy friends. Which I think is super cool.
I have found that the villains in more recent disney movies are not physical characteristics, but more existential concepts. Zootopia's villain wasn't Ms. Bellweather, it was prejudice and racism. She was just the physical representation of that concept. Frozen had the fear of the unknown, with Elsa's ice powers, and Moana was pretty much an environmental message. Villains are less memorable because they serve as set pieces for the bigger picture.
Laura Rodemich I agree with you ... except for frozen because Elsa is shave baked song,dress and somehow a character. She literally does nothing rational for NO reason. No do not just run to your room run to the mountains build an ice palace and sing a song. Also she just kinda controls her powers when she needs to so uh
Zootopia didn't need a physical representation of prejudice though, the message was pretty clear since the beginning. And both Judy's and Nick's past revolves around it.
INTO THE UNKNOWN
(i am so sorry i had to do it)
@@BestiaIustitia Well, she was told to hide her powers and stay away from Anna. She hasn't seen anyone since their parents' death.
Add on that the coronation (still needing to hide her powers), Anna getting into a mess with Hans, and the public demonizing her, it'd make sense that she'd run away from the world - running from fear, rather than confronting it. She wants to ensure no harm to come to anyone, and not being near anyone is a good way at accomplishing this.
Sure, her actions weren't rational, but I find that they're justifiable from the perspective of Elsa. As the Rock Trolls said: "people make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed."
I think villains are too simplistic anyway.
I'm tired of these tropes in modern cgi (mostly "Princess") Disney:
-Plucky sassy young female protagonist
-Selfish/brutish/vain male protagonist with witty comments optional smirk
-Male protagonist probably roped into doing stuff for female protagonist by means of blackmail or a hostage situation etc.
-Journey with male hero to find The Thing they/she wants. Must include lots of bickering about each other's values or something.
-WE GET IT. PRINCE CHARMING ISN'T REAL. MEN ARE GROSS AND VAIN.
-LOOK AT THE PRINCESS DOING NOT PRINCESS THINGS! HOW HILARIOUS/AMAZING/WIERD!
-Silent part of the movie where the female leads question their values while alone.
-Male protagonist gets hurt in some way relating to protagonist in movie
-The part of the movie in which they inevitably separate due to a problem.
-The scene where they reunite and the male protagonist gets seriously injured but not really.
-SMIRKING
I'm not saying these cliches are bad and that every cgi Disney movie falls under them but it wouldn't kill them to shake it up a little, especially since they've been able to do that before with their television plots.
I appreciate how Moana actually lets girls be on the receiving end of slapstick humour and not know everything and be willing to fail and learn, Frozen and Zootopia focusing on letting female leads have the strength to admit that they're not perfect and sometimes worsen the problem that they tried to fix and they have the courage to admit they're wrong and try again (Judy and Anna).
Big Hero Six introduced other male protagonists who weren't all Smirky Mc Smirkface and full of themselves (Tadashi, Wassabi, Fred). Wreck It Ralph with the relationship between Vanellope and Ralph, Ralph's identity crisis, the romance between Felix and Calhoun showing that your first love may not be your only love and that you can open your heart again and that losing a partner can hurt really bad and affect how you function and see the world, the whole premise of the movie being that you aren't a mistake.
But seriously the (princess) movies need protagonists who are diverse in *personality*. Not just spunky, rebellious girls with a dream and sly witty guys who begrudgingly get dragged into helping them.
Still better then ATLANTIS's Kida, whose pretty much a NON entity within her own movie. For a first time watcher you would think HELGA was basically the main female of the story given the weird fact that the film has no idea how wants it's story to be beyond the mindless action!!!!
Anna Bridgette - ya really hate tangled don't you
You Never Saw Me No, it's actually my favourite cgi Disney Princess movie and I freaking love Rapunzel and Eugene's chemistry. I like all the movies that fall under these cliches, but they get boring over time.
It seems to me that the only two Modern Disney movies that have these cliches are Frozen and Tangled.
Another Emma! Moana, Zootopia, Princess and the Frog, and Wreck it Ralph all had their fair share of the cliches listed above.
I miss Disney villains. They really made the movies for me.
Same and ikr
SAME HERE.
The last good Disney villain was Mother Gothel
eyubeon I think it’s more of Dr. Facilier
@@therafmaster5958 I'd say turbo is the last one
I love the old Disney movies. They were very atmospheric and imaginative. And while the princesses didnt have that much spotlight, they werent as inactive and naive as people like to remember.
Snow White was actually a great role model, she was kind and compassionate and caring, despite growing up hated and shunned. The Evil Queen literally tried to kill her and she had to run away into the woods to save herself, yet people blame her for hiding with the dwarves and not being heroic. She felt like an actual human being when she broke down and cried after running into the woods. The story wasnt about defeating evil or standing up to your abusors, it was about finding new happiness in life, staying positive even when you have nothing left, and creating your own home and family. Also she didnt just run away with a guy she just met. Her and the Prince were already in love at the beginning of the movie, the "kiss of true love" was more like a reunion than a first meeting.
Sleeping Beauty is a bit different case. It was similar to Alladin, just not fully embracing it. The whole story was more about the three fairies and Prince Eric than anyone else. Aurora didnt do much, because she wasnt actually the protagonist. Even in the original story of Sleeping Beauty, the prince is the protagonist, and we learn about the tragic past of the castle covered in wild roses through him. The characters that actually learn a lesson and change, are the three fairies. And this isnt anything bad. The movie isnt exactly making any strong moral point or being progressive, but its still telling a great story very well, with memorable style and visuals. You couldnt possibly mistaken any frame from Sleeping Beauty for any other movie, thats how unique its style is.
And Cinderella is a strong female character and a far better role model than most of the renessaince era princesses, even modern era ones. Sure, the ideals of its time are present in the movie, but anyone who says Cinderella is a passive character that does nothing to earn her happiness, simply didnt pay enough attention to the movie. A lot of people praise Cinderella II for making Cinderella herself more active in her own story. But the thing is, Cinderella was already plenty active and well rounded in the original movie. In the sequel, there was simply more action overall. The story changed from "dealing with emotional trauma and abusive household while trying to grasp the one chance to break free" to a "plain action movie about getting through ridiculous dangerous scenarios to get to a guy".
Im not saying these movies are perfect, but there is definetely more to them than people nowdays give them credit for, if you just look more closely, see them for what they truly are and stop comparing them to todays standards of princess movies.
Marína Urbanová To be honest, Snow White kind of grew on me after not being a fan of hers simply because I initially grew up with the Renaissance princesses. The reason being as I’ve grown older, and seen other interpretations of her as in Once Upon a Time and Snow White and the Huntsman, I realized her innocent personality is kinda cute and not necessarily a bad thing with her age and initial upbringing. Even if Merida is the same age as she is. She is still my least favorite Disney Princess however, and only because she still rhymes in anything she’s featured in that’s not necessarily rated G, or in some cases E.
I dunno, I still think Maid Marion and Tigerlilly (if Pocahontas qualifies...) are still pretty flat and passive.
ALL OF THIS. The Walt era critics don't appear to have ever seen the old movies because their arguments never make sense and are usually outright sexist or victim blaming (Cinderella "took" abuse, she sat around waiting for a man, Snow was stupid and a doormat, etc).
I would also argue Aurora is a good role model. She teaches kids you can respect your guardians even if you don't agree with or understand their rules they give you, to have dignity and not let sorrow keep you from doing what's right (ie finding out your life is a lie, your parents didn't actually abandon you, the one person you had a serious emotional non familial connection with you can never see again, you have to marry a stranger and rule a country... That would be tough!).
See that, people?! That's what's wrong with today's generation! We are forced to believe that the Disney Princesses that came before Princess Belle are the best Disney Princesses (instead of Moana, Mulan, Tiana and even Belle) are not inactive, naive nor one-dimensional. CellSpex was right to be critical towards Frozen. And its main characters are really two-dimensional. On a personality quiz that some jackass made, I chose (after testing that quiz) that I was frozen to death for disliking Frozen. Sure, Frozen is not extremely bad, hell, it's even a meh movie, but it's still not passable with the cliches and anti-feminism which it endorses having. Disney Princesses that came before the 90s FTL! The Seven Dwarves, Maleficent and Ursula the Sea Witch FTW, speaking of pre-90s Disney Princess movies. Do NOT disrespectfually disagree with us on that.
Cody Hines Tiger Lily is from Peter Pan.
This was shockingly fair and objective, I really appreciate how far you went to respect all Disney decades without taking the easy route and bashing them on political principle alone. I really feel like you did your homework and didn't take any shortcuts just dismissing what's popular to mock without truly examining it.
yes, you proved it s ok to like them both, not set a war between them
like the different periods of star wars and star trek and doctor who
and unlike what is often said, each disney film is soooo different from the others, each is a universe of its own
There is also the time period to take into account for the differences between older and newer Disney movies. The older movies (from about 1930-1970) took place during a VERY tragic era. The 30’s has the Great Depression, the 40’s had World War II, the 50’s-60’s had the Cold War, and the 70’s-ish had the beginnings of the Vietnam War. America in particular was going through some tough times, so movies (particularly animated ones) were seen as escapist experiences. They didn’t need to reflect reality, they needed to be cheerful and make people happy to get them through some tough times. There is certainly tragedy these days (9/11, Persian Gulf War, etc), but there’s significantly less than there used to be. Therefore, movies can be more down to earth and have the characters behave like real people (tying into the humanization of villains, even). Even ignoring things like stereotypes being used, the time period had a huge impact on the tone of these movies.
Katie Lewis Thanks
The 70s were the closing of the Vietnam War era.
eyabkcbmop
Hfdhi
In the context of their time period, a lot of those older Disney movies are actually fairly progressive. Even Song of the South. We shouldn't forget that when the movie was released, "Mommy" from Gone of the Wind was along the line of how African Americans were portrayed on the big screen. Having a movie in with a black title character from a major studio was actually a pretty big deal back then.
This is one the best videos I've seen about Disney films in general. Seriously, great job.
PaleoSteno Take notes. *Buh-dum-tshh*
Agreed as like your work man.
I recommend checking out the Tony Goldmark work she referenced at the end.
PaleoSteno: both My Little Pony and Pokemon have also been through these scenarios and they still influence each other. Brutal Legend on the other hand, is the cult of personality because that game knows how to bring one thing and another together. Even if that game isn't influenced by Disney, Brutal Legend kicks more ass than all Disney films combined. If anything, without question, Brutal Legend is probably my most favorite game of all time and is the best game I ever played.
Agreed as like mlp more than Pokemon actually.
I gotta disagree about Ariel's stuff being "just stuff." It's very symbolic to Ariel. It represents her connection to the human world, which she perceives as being more free than the ocean ruled by her father. When Triton destroys it, to her, it essentially means that she can never be free of her father's control.
Thank you for making that point about Cinderella. I do think people treat her quite unfairly because she was defined as being kind and a bit of a dreamer who wanted an escape. And I also think she is overall more proactive than people give her credit for. She was a heroine of her time and people view her through this cultural lens of "boring!". I remember really liking the movie when I was about 5 because Cinderella was. Realistic? Her stakes were very personal and I thought it was amazing how nice she was despite growing up in an abusive household. Thanks for this insightful video
超人 as someone who did grow up in an abusive household and has an abusive mother , quasimodo , ranpunzel and Cinderella do speak to me a lot more. Quasi specially since I remember him having a rather low self esteem and being treated like garbage for being disfigured was awful
@Sydney Chuang omg sounds like someone doesn't actually understand or know a single damn thing about CINDERELLA!!
I got to be honest: I'm getting tired of the "villain hidden as a good guy" bit long enough. I mean yes, at least Yokai, Hans, and Bellwhether (not Turbo, he was always a jerk) had their reasons when you look at it, but this cliche needs to stop.
Thing is, what made it cliche is because after their revelation of how evil they are, they continue to hammer it down in your face about how evil and heartless they are, like I guess a ticking bomb of personality blew up, if somehow they still kept the villain trying to make sense of their situation amd justify every action they did without any evil undertone, that might be interesting for a while haha
For Bellweather to be the "bad guy" was ok. It is supposed that in crime and investigation stories there must to be a guilty guy, who *must* be hidden among the rest of the characters. It's part of the genre itself
They really had no reason to make Hans a villain. They just wanted the surprise effect. The Duke of Wieselton or whatever would've made the perfect villain. Like, it's okay for a female to have more than one love interest too.
@@rockalinebellosa7907 Originally, he wasn't going to be a villain. The ice sister was (forgot her name) because that's how the original story went.
Then they made the infamous "Let It Go" song, which changed the context of the story to the point that the ice sister couldn't work as the villain anymore. Rather than change the song, they made Hans the villain.
@@foxymetroid Yeah, that's why it makes little to no sense :P
I think old Disney and new Disney were going for different things. Old Disney focused on the artistry of the animation and the timeless stories, while newer Disney focuses on complex characters and messages. I think both have their value. I still think Snow White holds up because it's a beautifully animated movie with both genuinely heartwarming and disturbing scenes. Old Disney provides that classic "Disney Magic", cliche as it is, that we all love. New Disney gives a contemporary spin on that. Being born in 1998, I grew up on both classic and Renaissance Disney films, and I liked both kinds, as well as a couple of picks from the dark age (Robin Hood, The Rescuers, and The Sword in The Stone are still hilarious to this day), because they weren't all failures.
Agreed as for me and if dumbo or Alice in wonderland is playing on tv, I'll turn it on quickly since there great pieces of art and media.
New Disney focused on making money. The stories are just safe interpretations of the same formula
I thought I was the only one who still loved Sword in the Stone!
MC Wyman someone gets it
I consider new Disney to be anything cg 2010s and up
For me classic Disney is anything from Snow White to princess and the frog
Glen Coco wrong and ignorant they just make them for new audiences and that bothers you that you aren't the demo anymore
But no they don't do it for the money
They are new takes for a new crowd
I wanna see a movie where that
*_perfect strong lead woman_*
Is actually the villain
As in say the film moana, at the last moment she did something to the heart instead of putting it back
You know??
You mean...¿Helga from Atlantis? Idk...
Hmmmm i think you dont get it about the moana part
@@carolmega2867 mmm i do love helga she was one badass woman. a "you fuck me over i will fuck you over 10 times harder." kind of girl. we saw what happened when roarke attempted to fuck her over. damn
Who?
Inside Out
To be completely honest, I think Wreck-it Ralph did a really good job avoiding a lot (not all but a lot) of the cliches of the newer Disney films, presenting to us an interesting, diverse in personality cast. The female characters are allowed to just do their own thing without being after a love interest the whole time or trying to prove themselves. All the characters are fundamentally flawed in some way and it just makes them feel more real idk. As well as not having a main focus on romance, but rather the friendship between Ralph and Vanellope and even the core 4 as a family together. Plus they actually pulled off the twist villain well, having enough exposure to King Candy and knowing something is off about him but not being able to pick what really sells me on the movie. if you think about it Turbo is quite a dark villain for a family movie and most of the scenes towards the end are quite frankly terrifying.
heh sorry for going rambling but I *really love Wreck-it Ralph* and I think it sums up all that is good about modern Disney very well
I really do miss the 90's era villains, but I actually kinda appreciate how Disney tried to make the villains more ambiguous in Moana and Big Hero 6. Then, there's Frozen. Friggin' Hans. Worst. Villain. Ever. Honestly, I wish they had made Elsa the villain. With the way she gets shunned in the first half of the movie it would have been SO easy to make her go all "Treat me like a monster and I'll become a monster". They even had a perfect scene set up for the tragic villain-transition when they stormed her castle! From there, just grab the scene from one of the earlier drafts where she creates an entire army of snowmen and marches on Arendelle, and finish up with some sort of redemption arc where Anna still sacrifices herself for her sister and snaps her out of it!
Sorry, I'm ranting. Frozen had so much potential and I'm still salty that it turned into just an 'okay' movie with awesome characters.
They were actually going to go that route, which is closer to the source material, until the song Let It Go was born. I feel like perhaps the decision was made a little too late to properly fix in production. Which is why it's so wonky in the final edit of the film.
Yeah, but I feel like Let It Go could have still fit well for a villain, especially if it's about a character being pushed over the edge by external forces. She tried to conceal it, she tried not feeling, it didn't work so let's just let it all out! But noooo! Too inspirational, they said! Too hopeful, they said! And the result is, as you said, a wonky final cut.
Oh I totally agree with you. i think it could have been a very interesting and complex (for Disney) character study. A bold iteration about the Snow Queen and her origins. But you know, studio mandates and whatnot. Le sigh. The Hallmark 2 part TV movie version is closer to the source material and frankly a tad more interesting. At least IIRC. That is sad to say the least.
Right? It's such a shame because Disney actually tends to take more risks than other studios, even though they're very small risks. I don't mind them deviating from the source material because, hey, that's what they do! I just wish they would do it in a more interesting way. I never watched the Hallmark version of The Snow Queen myself. I do remember watching an animated version of the fairy tale as a kid that scared the crap of me as a kid but I can't for the life of me remember who made it.
Risk taking is what gives Disney the edge, so to speak. I mean it's not going to be huge risks, but risks nonetheless. Haha I watched a live action version of the Snow Queen that scared the crap out of me as a kid and don't remember who made it
"Just because certain cliches are get subverted or mocked, doesn't mean that those cliches are inherently bad" cough cough *Cinemansins* cough cough
Thank you
The era of short films was actually because of low budgets during the war. My bad.
Why do you hate romance so much? Without it no one would be born. Yes some romances don't work out but to deny men and women what they are naturally meant to do with each other just to force something different ( aka boy/girl platonic friendships) is kind of silly.
@@candicemceady308 because not everything needs romance i prefer platonic relationships.
@@candicemceady308 And how is saying that having boy girl platonic relationships in movies forced?
It would be cool for a while but soon readers would get sick of it because what if some random guy came into the equation and the main female character fell for him even though she has better chemistry with the main character guy. Her and the random guy would get together just for the sake of being different and that's not always a good thing.
Can I play Devil’s Advocate about the Ariel scene for a minute? I think Triton destroying Ariel’s grotto is so devastating to her because it’s not about the stuff. It was never about the stuff. She’s “the girl who has everything”, she doesn’t need any more stuff. Yes she just sang a whole song about how she “wants more”, but the “more” is not a tangible item but actually getting to live life as a human. Before ever meeting a human or falling in love with one, might I add! Everyone always forgets that Part of Your World is not about Eric! He’s not even in the picture yet! This has been a lifelong dream of Ariel’s. She places more value on the human world than her own, and her stuff represents that. When her father destroys her grotto, I mean not only is it YEARS of human stuff she’s sacrificed life and limb to collect (remember the shark chase? she risks her life for a dinglehopper!), but moreso it’s that he outright rejects her ideas about humans. Her falling in love with a human was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the ultimate betrayal to him, but to her it was one step closer to self-actualizing the dream she’s always had of living in a world she feels she truly belongs in. This goes beyond reprimanding, it’s almost like he disowns her (though you can see an ounce of regret on his face as he leaves, which she doesn’t see because she’s sobbing). That’s what’s most devastating, that’s what she’s really sad about. Her dreams are shattered. She’s at the lowest of her lows. A perfect opportunity for a villain who knows her plight to take advantage of her and grant her wish (with some minor stipulations, which she can overlook because of what just happened to her, plus the manipulation). Ariel truly deserves better. She gets way too much flack imho. The girl is an anthropologist, heavily invested in scouting and researching a culture she’s not even allowed to participate in, but one she knows is truly good. Yes she isn’t perfect. But if she were, she wouldn’t be so compelling. She doesn’t have to be perfect to be valid. I think all of the Disney Princesses, old & new & in between, have something to be admired within each one of them. It’s not worth it to bash one to praise another, to me it’s apples and oranges. You can have personal preferences, but you can’t deny the facts of the character to confirm your own biases. That’s all I wanted to say, really liked the vid in general :)
I actually think you nailed pretty much on the head. If you take the time period into consideration a lot of the older films hold up pretty well stereotypes aside (heck there are a couple cases where even those were almost positive for the time period tbh, considering the Crows despite their obvious stereotypes were at least good natured and helpful in comparison to the pompous judgmental Elephants and Caucasian’s who spent the whole movie making Dumbo’s life hell for something out of his control due to their judgements attitudes). A lot of the films weren’t going for character studies as much as they used the stories to exploit the animation to its fullest extent. As long as the children understand the context the old movies are harmless and hold up better then the modern films in some aspects such as the artistry of them and such.
I mean, I loved the crows as a kid, too. They're likable and have a catchy song, but they are literal embodiments of lazy, jive-talking black caricatures who wear quite stereotypical clothing. Also, the lead crow's name is JIM.
Jim. Crow.
Yeah. That was a pun Disney thought was witty enough to make it into the film.
Now, the main reasons that kids - white kids, especially - don't see the crows as offensive is because A) white people still largely live in communities where there simply aren't a lot of POC, so the things we like and media we consume wasn't really subjected to peer scrutiny until the Internet connected people in ways our neighborhoods and schools didn't.
And B) the stereotypes the crows are apart of aren't really around as much these days. The shuffling, Stepin Fetchit-type characters are practically extinct, having been replaced with newer black stereotypes. Whereas the older stereotypes of the lazy, shuffling Sambo were very common, the newer stereotypes are things like fast-talking black comic relief or the drug-dealing thug. So, as a result, kids today don't recognize these older stereotypes because they're not around us constantly. But black kids tend to recognize them because their parents and grandparents grew up with them. White kids' parents and grandparents didn't see what was wrong with them.
That's how a band of jive-talking, lazy birds dressed and designed like black caricatures where the lead crow's name was Jim can be beloved by modern white kids: Ignorance of what they represent. Not ignorance in a pejorative sense, but ignorance in the sense that one simply doesn't know something. You can't know sunlight exists if you were raised in a cave. Once you leave the cave, though, there's no going back.
I'll give the filmmakers credit that the crows weren't as racist as they could have been, but they were still racist.
WildWestSamurai I didn’t mean to give off that the crows were perfect representations or weren’t racist or anything, they were a victim of their time period, but they were certainly not as bad as a lot of the black characatures were back in those days. Remember the racist stereotype in Bugs Bunny? I could find more I’m sure but given the time period and the awful stuff, by those standards, it was a lot better then other portrayals were at those times. Stuff like the Jim Crow joke are awful and deserve criticism, again this was the 1940s and this stuff was tragically prevalent in our culture. But like I said as long as your kids are told the context before going into the movie and know what the stereotype is and don’t believe it to be the norm I don’t think it will affect any kids of our generation growing up, so in the end it will be harmless. Besides most people don’t remember dumbo anyways, cept for the Pink Elephant scene.
It’s like that really awesome line from God, the Devil, and Bob, that talked about passing down a softer punch from generation to generation. The Crows were a softer punch, like the unflattering comic relief portrayals seems during the 90s were a softer punch than the Crows were. Eventually it will die off assuming people take it into consideration and don’t encourage the bad behavior or blow things out of proportion and make things worse than they were.
Actually, the lead crow is NEVER named in the movie, not even in the end credit scene. That is supplemental information (it is the name the animators used for the character as a joke because they apparently were in the habit of giving each other similar nicknames, too, being a pretty diverse bunch themselves).
Also, isn't the ignorance a good thing? It shows that people have moved past those stereotypes to a point that they don't even recognize them anymore. Because the crows, they aren't racist, racist is the person who looks at them and immediately makes those connections because he has already internalized those stereotypes.
Ahhhh the Crows are based on a group of African American performers.... they animators just copied their mannerisms ... why do people whine about this is beyond me!
The old Bugs Bunny cartoon (I'm assuming you mean the one with the black hunter trying to hunt Bugs) was not that bad. The design was by all means racist but the cartoon in terms of comedy was pretty well executed.
I feel like with the Disney villains, I feel the last great ones were Dr. Facilier, Mother Gothel and debatably King Candy.
FanOfAnimation I'd put King Candy above Mother Gothel personally. Don't get me wrong. She was a good villain for the movie, but she was kind of dull to watch. King Candy was just so much more fun to watch.
King Candy was the only 'Twist Villian' that I can actually say I liked, mostly because he had good moments before the twist. I can't say that for Frozen, Zootopia, or Moana.
What about Tamatoa?
Moana actually was the first Disney film in a long time where a villain wasn’t even in it. Yes, that twist with the giant volcano rock lady proves it so it actually did shake things up.
FanOfAnimation preach!
One of the reasons I like having a love interest in Disney movies is that, when done right, they create role models for young boys, showing that it is okay to be affectionate and romantic. Typically in films boys are taught to be warriors and brave but rarely are they shown that it is okay to love. Flynn Rider and Kristoff are great examples of this as they fall in love but aren't defined as just love interests, they are still strong and heroic
Actually it's always the girls being shown strong warriors and brave "role models", male characters are either a villain or a bumbling idiot, the good news is young boys in the audience don't seek their life advise from films, don't think those guys are "role models" and can be just as inspired by the female characters as any girl can and is able to model her strength and bravery without needing to have the same body parts of her at all.
@@Mr.Goodkat In talking about old Disney films, not the currents one like Moana, Brave and Raya, and I don't think that’s necessarily true. If anyone can look at anyone in film and see themselves reflected or find them a role model, then that would means girls can find that with male characters. I just wish Disney hadn't sacrified their strong yet kind and gentle male characters that could have co-existed alongside their female counterparts.
@@cannotthinkofausername6379 "then that would means girls can find that with male characters." They CAN of course they can, look up Frank Darabont Shawshank redemption and find an interview with him he'll sometimes cite in them about how he still gets fan letters daily about the film and has been getting them for decades by countless people telling him stories about how it changed their life's and made them change their minds about suicide etc, I am sure considering the sheer amount many of these people are female yet it's a male character doing the things so why did him enduring hardship and remaining unbroken inspire them? when he has got different reproductive parts and urinates while standing? it's because he was enduring hardship and remaining unbroken, anyone watching that and is going through something in their own lives can be inspired by that and find a role model in it to overcome their own hardships and they don't need the character to be the same gender as them anymore than they need them to have the same colour of skin, hairstyle or sexual attraction, it's the situation being presented in the movie which they can parallel things in their own life with and that's what's having the effect not any details about the body of the person it's happening too.
@@Mr.Goodkat Jesus that is too long of a paragraph and too deep for a video about Disney...
@@cannotthinkofausername6379 A video about Disney is just as deserving of "deep" comments as any other vid, especially if it's what people believe in exposing the young to, superficial comments not saying all that much shouldn't be the preference, room for both.
I never understood the whole "the characters need to represent me" or "I need to relate to the main character" thing. Me , I don't really care if there is no female characters in a film as long as what I am is not being insulted in some way( AKA the whole "you throw/fight/cry like a girl" bullcrap etc). I just like my films to be interesting to watch and not be insulting in any way
Excuse me you just got a call it’s from the if we give a girl a gun/sword/superpowers she is a character and look how progressive we are
@afootineachworld Right, and I think representation wouldn't really work in the older films anyway because they are set in a very european setting a long time ago where there wouldn't be much diversity. I think it'd be pretty cool if they made newer films (in the same vein as the old movies) about different culture's fairy tales, that way the setting could match the characters.
This comment. I want a statue of you with this quote. My god this. This is my problem with representation nowadays.
While I do enjoy the focus on platonic friendships (though it doesn't stop me from shipping in certain cases), what I would love to see that we VERY rarely see is a main protagonist whose impetus is protecting his/her established family. The last such hero we got was Pacha (or it might have been Mr. Incredible; I don't remember which came first). Give the hero something to protect. Instead of establishing a romance (or even a friendship that shippers can turn into a romance), give the hero a spouse and children to return home to. Use the old "love conquers all" trope, but use it at its strongest; when it's already established, not when it's still building. Love is like fire. When you have a tiny ember or even a small flame, it can be easily snuffed out by just about anything. Even if it came from a 3,000 degree spark. But a bonfire going strong is hard to suppress. It provides light and wamth, and it draws people to it. That tiny spark that you're struggling to keep alive only frustrates you, and it makes you look like a castaway desperate to survive the night.
@@aspasp9568 So does Mulan. She literally went to protect her father. Shang was just a bonus cut.
pacha is underated
he s so lovable
literally Brave
why does no one remember that fucken movie
Emperor's New Groove came out in 2000. The Incredibles came out in 2004. So Mr. Incredible was the last hero like that we had, though it might've also been MRS. Incredible with the release of the sequel. Though it really is too bad that we don't see more active parent figures like Pacha in movies.
So, Demon Slayer?
Honestly, all I could think about during this video was "Man, Wreck-It Ralph was awesome."
Same.
I hope you’re hyped for Ralph Breaks the Internet- Wreck-it Ralph 2!
Much better than Lion King(haters gonna hate)!
Meanwhile, Fritz The Cat is praised as being a work of 'subversive genius' for making crow caricatures far more insulting than ANYTHING Disney ever did...
Fritz the Cat was the first X-Rated animated film.
So... how come it's okay for *us* to complain about "racist caricatures" in movies?
Thank you for pointing the uselessness of the whole "we can't make the films scary for our kids and yet we'll keep showing them the old stuff." It doesn't make sense!
Also nothing can be funny unless it’s super bland and safe and villains have to be all “he will perish..... after I eAt ThIs DoNuT
"But I saw the old stuff as a kid, so therefore THAT must be okay. It's just the newer stuff that can't be scary."
For someone who says "stay Shiny animaniacs" and just discussed modern Disney villains, you sure did miss the opportunity to at least mention Tamatoa. Sure his screen time was very limited but his presence harkened back to the bombastic unpredictable villains of the 90s. Something I very much appreciated in this current world of super developed, backstory laden twist villains.
And he had that delightful David Bowie-era vibe.
Wyatt Andrews I loved him, but maybe she didn't discuss him because he's not the main villain. Still the best part of the film tho.
saintfighteraqua untrue, Tamatoa gave a significant blow to Maui’s self esteem by pointing out his need for love from humans / dependence on his hook (which parallels his need for shiny things) and dragging him while Moana had to the the one that saved him. This becomes a central plot point later.
I would argue old-school Disney is more subversive than modern Disney, at least in terms of plot structure and pacing. Something like Bambi simply would not be made today, especially by Disney. The plot is too meandering, there are too many quiet and atmospheric moments, and the film generally has this somber tone that modern Disney just doesn't like. For Disney these days, everything has to follow a strict three-act structure, there has to be a lot of talking and very little in the way of quiet moments, and in-your-face "subversive" statements have to be shoehorned into the story. It's almost like they're ashamed of deviating so far from the norm in the 40s and 50s that they now have to make up for it with ultra-conventional storytelling. Yes, even Zootopia hits all of the same beats as your typical buddy cop story, and I would argue sticking to the book like that hurts the overall product.
Brian Collins I think you have an interesting argument, but I disagree with what you said about Zootopia. It's not really fair to say a film isn't as good just because it uses the three act structure. It is used for a reason and that's because it works. The screenwriters clearly did it on purpose to reference buddy cop films, but they still do their own spin on it. It's just a tool, if anything. Otherwise, I agree with everything else you said.
What I implied with Zootopia is that the film's adherence to convention prevented it from being as good as it could've been, at least for me. The three-act structure works, true, but it can also lead to a story feeling very predictable. I guess Big Hero 6 would be a better example, since that movie feels *very* safe and cookie cutter, the antithesis to what classic Disney was doing.
Brian Collins “Very few quiet moments,” That is a blatant lie.
Brian Collins That's because kids aren't like that anymore, they don't like super long quiet moments, they don't have that patience in a world full of distractions. I'm in the same case, growing up with the Renaissance movies, I always found Bambi to be terminally boring and I still do to some extent. It has great animation and atmospheres, I can admit its merits but I can't hide the fact I just can't enjoy that movie.
Johtonian to be fair, the book it was based on was boring to me as a child, but I still enjoyed the movie heavily.
To add to the comparison of the Little Mermaid and Cinderella scenes: also keep in mind that the dress was something left behind to her by her DECEASED MOTHER. They basically destroyed her most important keepsake of the only good time in her life.
I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. All of your videos are thoughtful and entertaining, and I appreciate the amount of work you've put in. :)
As for my thoughts on this, I mostly agree with what you said. "Good" is subjective, and it's tough to compare films from different generations objectively since there are so many factors to consider. I love the cinematic and breathtaking visuals of classic Disney (snow white, bambi, cinderella, fantasia, etc.) Those movies do a great job at presenting an emotional spectacle that is amazing to watch. However, modern disney is SO much better at presenting memorable and lovable characters, and telling compelling stories.
Honestly, if I want entertainment, I'll watch modern disney...if I want inspiration, I'll watch classic disney. Not to say I can't get entertainment from classic or inspiration from modern, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Both do their own things quite well, and both have flaws. I'm certainly happy that both exist.
Great video! For me, I feel like Disney's "ha-ha look at our past tropes" regime has become tiresome lately. That's why I think the older films hold up better.
Agreed! I'm so sick of Disney doing that in their movies!!
Glad someone else is tired of that thing they've been doing. They're so focused on trying not to be like their old selves that they are beginning to seem less concerned with how the movies themselves will hold up on their own.
Even enchanted did it better and it was made back in 2007
Yeah I wished they'd stop that too. I personally miss the love at first sight, 3 day romances, no one acknowledging their singing/sidekicks. The ones in Frozen and Moana were painful. Disney already did all these in Enchanted. Give it up lol
Phin68 These newer movies hold up just as well, if not better.
Speaking of "staying Shiny"... He may not be the main villain in Moana, but.. *excessive coughing* TAMATOA is literally one of the most memorable and well developed Disney villains, despite his brief appearance. He feels just like an old, flamboyant Disney villain while at the same time being EXTREMELY unique. (To say the least XD)
ParietinaeUmbra also his musical number is awesome 👌
*Oh yeah, I feel like they're really getting back to the whole theatrical villain thing- but in a different way. And it's thrilling!
He isn’t really considered a villain despite having villainous intentions
Well developed? He enters the story, brings up history, tries to kill Moana and Maui, loses, and that’s it. He doesn’t change or grow in anyway.
Granted I admit he’s cool, I really liked his character, but he’s not well developed.
Morgan Rakes well he’s like a part of the movie itself not really a permanent character
I like how you compared Cinderella's moment with Ariel's moment
6:00 For no reason? Well, kinda, sorta. Evil stepmother, master manipulator that she is, again, doesn't want Cinderella going to the ball and stealing all the attention from her daughters. So, she discreetly mentions the elements that belong to her daughters, namely the sash and the beads. She then stands by and watches as her psychotic daughters tear her dress to shreds and accuse her of stealing their stuff, which they had thrown out earlier that day. "HOW DARE YOU STEAL OUR TRASH!" Evil stepmother then calls things to order, claiming that the only thing that happened was that the girls almost upset themselves. She then leaves Cinderella, standing in a torn dress, and doesn't believe she even owes her an apology. She just excuses herself, "Good night." Not for no reason. This crap was deliberate!
"Are newer Disney movies better than older movies?"
Short answer: No. Long answer:NOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Nice Escapist reference.
I like the new movies
JakeyStar 2017 I see why but older ones are more nostalgic and just magical and they give you a feeling that makes you feel more like a child now I love the new movies but I will always like the older movies and that is only my opinion
JakeyStar 2017 I like also, what doesn't make them better than Walt-Era movies
XD Yes!
Mexican Representation is not something that "concerns" me, but it's certainly nice when they show it, I get a good kick out of it and appreciate that they took time to do some research on my culture. With that being said, I enjoyed The Incredibles far more than I enjoyed Coco (We got it Early in Mexico) because of character development and story. So at the end of the day Diverse representation to me is like Whipped cream on a Milkshake. If you have it is great, but if it's all you have, it's just not a complete dessert (I could've thought of a better analogy)
I do have to append this here: The lack of any diverse representation does bother me when it's distracting to the world building of the movie/TV Show.
Meaning, that if a show takes place in Mexico and there are no Mexican Characters/Actors, it's really distracting, lazy and at some point, insulting
I thought the analogy was pretty solid. It's similar to my analogy on video game graphics some people say graphics don't matter as long as the game as fun but to me that's like saying you don't care if your cake has frosting on it.
Coco still is one of the better pixar movies
I respectfully disagree
I can agree somewhat on what you said there but do you like coco by any change?
Cinderella is, in my honest opinion, a very independent, smart, and creative woman. It really makes people out to be total assholes when their putting the image of a “bad role model” onto a person who was abused, physically and mentally, and who was likely brainwashed as a child to never leave her house. Even with all that, she fights back, gets angry, and is very knowing of how to make her situation bearable. Shut up radical feminists, emphasis on radical, and don’t blame someone of abuse as being a terrible role model, when she is probably more capable than you.
We had the discussion about Dumbo and racism in my animation class. In our class analysis, the movie seemed to be more of an attempt at addressing racism head on, rather than being blindly racist itself. Some points I remember:
• Mrs Jumbo was not scorned for being a single mother until it was revealed that her child was racially different than the other elephants, and the audience is made to feel sympathetic with her rather than feel shock.
• The friendship between Timothy and Dumbo was a symbolic one of overcoming prejudices and stereotypes.
• Dumbo was most miserable when he was staged as a white-faced clown.
• As for the crows, they were a striking contrast to the manipulative and selfish white characters (the clowns, elephants, and the cruel kids). There is no mistaking that these sympathetic, empowering, and clever birds were indeed black. The creators really bent over backwards using many devices to show that these were African-American characters. It's unfortunate that they chose to include offensive stereotypes to get the point across.
But this singular scene gives the pre-Civil Rights Era film the same moral of the story as the Good Samaritan: Truly unselfish kindness can indeed come from people we have been conditioned to designate as 'Other Than Us'.
I always feel badly when this movie gets a bad rap for this scene when it seems that it may have actually been an ahead-of-its-time civil rights expression.
Incidentally, they are doing a live-action remake of Dumbo in 2019 - it will be interesting to see how they address all of this...
It's also fair to question whether or not the writers/animators were aware that certain stereotypes were offensive, or even if they were offensive at the time at all. I think modern audiences aren't aware that A - the only way to convey a non-human character's nationality or race is through stereotypes that are laid on thick enough to be recognized and that B - what is and is not offensive changes over time, because the people they are about have different concerns over time.
I genuinely think the Siamese cats were just meant to be cats, that were a little more interesting because they had a different ethnicity.
@@adde9506 I remembered the Siamese Cats used to creep me out when I was little, mostly for their introduction being bright eyes appearing out of a dark space (the basket) and their movements being synchronised to the point of being unnatrual.
Much of this seems like stretching, though--"he's most depressed with a white face" he's a CLOWN and there's a plethora of sad clown elements through history. It's not whitewashing at all. Similar with Dumbo's mother being a "single mom"--it's never specifically addressed that she's single and that's cool. There just aren't any guy elephants in the movie. xD
But I do agree that despite the terrible name the crows were not necessarily depicted negatively (aside from the entire song where they mock Dumbo). For the most part they are supportive.
@@carlotta4th they also based the crows on a very popular black band called the crows who dressed like that and played their crows selves but as the crows weren't really remembered we lost that context
Alice in Wonderland (1951) is probably one of the best Disney films of all time. Seriously, it includes
-a female lead who stands up for herself (this was the Disney movie after Cinderella, so it was a pretty big jump)
-gorgeous animation
-every character is unique
-the Queen of Hearts is a perfect balance of scary and likeable
- it has the most songs out of any Disney movie (which may sound overwhelming but most of them are less than a minute long)
- THE DAMN CAST
-child friendly story that adults can enjoy
-comedy that holds up
-out of all Disney movies that are based on something, I think this is the closest to the book than any other contender.
big jump how? Cinderella saved herself with her wits and teamwork with her friends. The prince was just an escape out of her crappy life. He didn't save her. Plus Alice wasn't an abuse victim, so standing up for herself is much easier.
I never saw alice in wonderland
Go watch it. go watch all the Disney movies. :) and dreamworks and Pixar.... WATCH ALL THE ANIMATED MOVIES XD
alice in wonderland bombed when first released...
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I'm loving this video so far, but saying a musical number is just a flashy break from a narrative is.. just not entirely correct. That definition to me fits songs like Olaf's Summer song in Frozen, just a fun little break from the plot to dive into Olaf's naïveté and his motivations. But that movie also has "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" a song that contains an enormous passage of time, the girls growing up, and their parents dying. I think musical numbers are more often than not used to quickly further the plot, especially in Disney movies.
Join us from a bit more of the car with the after and get w I your in says jbshvfbdvdxcMzcxvhhhzhzzvbbzjsbzjzz
What?
+Pm
No, that pub scene is to set the outlaws up as allies to break out Eugene. They were vital to the plot. Without that scene, we have no one to break out Eugene, he gets hung, and Rapunzel is trapped forever.
Plus it's a lesson on "don't judge a book by its cover."
Cinderella is one of my favorite princesses, and I hate when people act like she’s “weak” or whatever.
She was in an abusive situation, and she had to be obedient to survive. She’s not “strong”, but not all women are. in order to be a well rounded female, you don’t have to be a big tough fighter all the time. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to quietly dream.
I love that about her, and I do wish there were more diverse personalities among fleshed-out female characters. Not everyone (male or female) is a witty, cut-throat, independent fighter. And that’s okay.
@Sydney Chuang OMG if Rapunzel wasn't a damsel in distress then neither was Cinderella for crying out loud😧😩😡
Honestly, I though cinderella is incredibly strong. To go through all that and still be kind and caring and loving and patient…. what a badass.
While I like the fact that Disney is trying to make their female leads have more importance and action in their stories that doesn't mean that some of the original princesses weren't good role models. Cinderella and Snow White were two women living in harsh conditions under the supervision of a harsh overseer, both of which are also women. The narrator in Cinderella even admits that she was a victim of abuse and humiliation by the people who were supposed to be her family. To say that they aren't strong because they didn't act out or fight against their oppressors is strange because it implies that you can only act a certain way to be considered strong. As a girl I always admired Cinderella for how she remained kind and optimistic despite the shit she had to deal with everyday and sympathized with creatures that were in the same situation as her. She was abused and belittled since she was a child and has no where else to go. If she did rebel against her step-mother that would either result in her becoming homeless and basically left to starve or being punished harshly. The fact that she still has hope can be an inspiration for people who might also be going through difficult situations were they feel powerless. The same can be said for Snow White as well.
That's not to say that Disney shouldn't push for more active female roles, but it's important that you can have variety too. Strength can come in a heroic act or how you choose to live as a person, you don't have to have one way of being admirable. Maybe in the future we can have a Disney female lead that is passive but can get out of a situation in a interesting and unique way and that's okay. We're humans after all and we don't act the same way nor live in the exact same circumstances.
Great video by the way keep up the awesome work!
@Sydney Chuang I like both of them so I guess to me imo neither one of them is the other done right or wrong and also please STFU about CINDERELLA YA JERK!!!
See as a girl who grew up watching the old Disney i have to say that todays Disney is much much better with their female leads. I could never relate to s single disney princess except for Mulan. Girls were taught to be like disney princess. To be humble and kind and to wait for their prince charming. It was sickening. Now the female leads are the leaders and instead of marrying a ruler they are the ruler . I mean in frozen 2 when elsa left Anna became the ruler and not kristoff, jasmine became the ruler and not aladdin. The fact that we have female rulers and leaders is so amazing. I have loved merida as well cause I could see myself in her . I also like how in couples the girl is the dominating one . In the superhero world we are having more female leads ( caption marvel and ladybug)
I am happy with the woman empowerment cause at the end woman are the better ones. Its just a fact, we are the ones who gave birth to men in the first place, we are the stronger ones emotionally and we are smarter as well.
I am happy as a woman about our empowerment
@@monabohamad2242 opinions
I'm actually finding myself liking older Disney films a lot more as I've gotten older than when I was a kid. Like, Beauty and the Beast will still be my favorite Disney movie ever. But now that I'm older, I can appreciate some of the great stuff in older Disney films, like the animation in Fantasia or the music in Pinnochio. So, even if older Disney films weren't perfect, there's still some good stuff there, and I think it'd be shameful to reject them entirely just because of weak female leads or the fact that side characters get more screen time than main ones.
"[Musical numbers] _do_ tend to be more character-centric now, rather than random dance parties."
Well, maybe for some animation studios. _eyes Dreamworks suspiciously_
Ah, true
Honestly I think what doesn't hold up in the older disney movies are more "in-movie" songs that really don't work outside of it. Where with a lot of the ones made in the 90's and today tend to have songs really remembered and enjoyed on their own. As far as animation, style, storytelling, well with the princess ones really some are either rebellious and doing very non princess things while others are like, practically princess stereotypes. Something I really liked about Anna is she was kinda both, she was rebellious but she still wanted to fall in love and have her "prince" and while obviously hans turned out to be evil, she still found someone. If I just say "new disney" as in post 2000, as a whole I have to say no, the older films were definitely better. Until Zootopia I honestly didn't think they'd beaten out "Tarzan" in terms of quality and storytelling since 2000 or before that. And honestly I thought Pixar's "Brave" was lightyears better than Frozen, if if I enjoyed the later. idk i feel the 2000's (not the 2010's) was a pretty weak point for Disney.
At the end of the day i think old Disney will always hold up as being better, artistically and storytelling. The only reason ppl say the modern movies are better is because of the strong empowerment female leads. But if you sit and examine every Disney princess or female character in classic Disney movies you’d be surprised at how amazing the diversity in personalities are and how strong the women have always been. For example; Queen of Hearts, Cinderella, Wendy, Bianca from the Rescuers, Lady Tremaine, Maleficent, the three good fairies, etc. These are all strong women in their own ways. Real women are the same way, we don’t all look the same nor do we each share the same strengths, but as a woman you fight for what you believe in whether it be right or wrong. Whether you’re the villain or princess. And if that’s the only thing you can come up with as being a flaw in their older movies well then i don’t think there is a problem at all. You have to look harder.
true. emphasis is put on the princess because theyre the supposed role models but there's are other female characters encompassing a large variety of roles, though I still wish there were more active females per movie.
Modern Disney has also focused more on internal conflict outweighing external conflict, which greatly undercuts the importance of the villain as plot-driver. This has merit, but ignores the fact that the whole purpose of resolving internal conflict is to stand a chance against the external conflicts. Despite many failures and near-misses in recent years, Moana and Tangled did pretty well with this idea. Still, I agree - the ultimate protagonist/antagonist balance remains elusive.
the character journey has become more important than the villain/mission at hand.
it would be like frodo and sam just throwing the ring down a well and sit down and talk about what it means to be a hobbit for 9 hours.
Just get rid of villains!
Good editorial! I personally don't like the idea of separating disney films by old vs. new. I feel they each bring something traditional to their previous films while adding something new. It's easy to see how current trends that impact the films at the time they were made, therefore allowing it's audience to look back and say what works and what doesn't in the current time it's viewed.
Prince John is one of my favorites! I think he is so much different than a lot of classic Disney villains.
Yeah I agree a lot with what you say, hadn't really considered the whole twist villain trend either but now that you mention it (although I adore the TeKa/Tefiti idea, and that destroying a villain isn't always the best way to overcome them). But one of my favourite villains is actually mother Gothel, a more recent one. She is dramatic, manipulative, 3 dimensional, and almost real in the way she emotionally and mentally abuses Rapunzel, which made it a really spectacular conflict between them
I think newer Disney is way better at creating cool characters and telling stories, but old Disney is just beautiful. I mean, as freaky as that scene in pinnochio was as a kid, you gotta admit that it looked fantastic. So I guess it just comes down to whether you prefer artistry of if you prefer story. I personally prefer new Disney but I can understand if someone likes old Disney better.
I say all the Disney movies are great!
Pretty much hit a lot of things on the head there.
I never, ever felt like any Disney movies were "bad", really. Weak, sure, but not horrible. It's really all in the context and style that each was in. I always enjoy a lot of the older movies because, as you mentioned, while the main character gets some impactful moments but really little development, all of the secondary characters are, in their own sense, rounded and actually enjoyable. I kinda wish we started trying to find a happy medium where all the villians, protags, and seconds start feeling like actual people, I feel like we've still got a ways to go before we fina a truly perfect happy medium.
As far as the whole rascism thing, for me, is...I actually like the characters for who they were. Even Song of the South. Idk if it's just me never truly giving a fuck, or if I'm unknowingly some racist asshole, but I actually love a lot of the non-caucasian roles. Hell, I'll giggle at their appearance because of how over the top stereotypical they are. But, they were also some of the best or favorite moments for me, with a lot of them, aside from the siamese cats, really being, at their core, friendly and helpful to the protagonists. Best examples ARE Dumbo and Song of the South. Literally the only scenes I could ever remember as a kid for Dumbo was the Pink Elephants scene and the crows. I loved those damn crows. Still do. Love their dialogue, love their design, love the fact that they're really ruffians and vagrants, but after finding out about Dumbo's own struggles, they LITERIALLY GIVE HIM THE POWER TO FLY. Same thing with Song of the South. Sure, it's very dated and the direction is bad, but I loved the older gentlmen who told the kid all of those stories and things. The kid had no qualms learning important life lessons from the wise old man, and even developed a, even if sort of felt like cheesy or tacked on, father/grandfather and son relationship because his owm dad was out trying to help the world be more progressive and he couldn't learn shit from him. I feel like these older videos should take the high road and put a warning up front. They, for the modern progressive climate, are not pc, at all. They're but a product of their time. But really, censoring them will just keep them from showing what good these characters can still be despite how dated their charactures and viewpoints could be. People need to accept and embrace the bad, but also try to find the good in them, too.
It is a shame how far opposite the villians have gone, though, but like I said, hopefully we can start finding a more happy medium to give all people enough roundess to make them memorable, but to be able to spread it out amongst the cast.
Never felt like ANY Disney movies were bad? Chicken Little, Mars Needs Moms, Inspector Gadget: The Movie, I could go on.
Critica 77y Again, to me, they have weaknesses and some good strengths. And all of that is more story and character flaws. The animation and art is still really good
Every film is without sin. Every film is without strength.
..except Emoji Movie.
Fuck that movie
Just because they have strengths doesn't mean they're not bad movies. The Emoji Movie's animation actually looks like it was made by professionals, but that doesn't change the fact that it sucks.
The only movie made in-house at Walt Disney Animation Studios that I honestly think was "bad", is Chicken Little. The others are weak at worst.
As for films that were only *distributed* by Disney and *weren't* made in-house (such as Mars Needs Moms, those cheesy Disney Channel movies, the Direct-to-Video Cheapquels, among others) that's a whole other story... I could go *all day* about how many "bad" films there are from that bunch...
Just get rid of villains all together. I hate that we as a society has been conditioned to have villains in are stories.
Amazing video! I really like the point you made about the earlier films, that some scenes (or even whole movies) could explore animation and not always/necessarily story. It makes me wonder if there will be anything like that in future movies.
Your editing always blows me away and/or manages to leave me in tears.
I recently watched Bambi, and the thing that really struck me was how little dialogue there was in the film. It was almost all visuals and music.
To me, "racial representation" isn't a problem. I don't care if a character is white, black, red, or blue. I literally don't care. I'm Mexican myself, and I don't get all pissed off because a movie didn't have a Mexican or POC in it. All I care about is the fact if the movie/show is well done with what they were trying to achieve.
I think trying to shove "equal representation"down people's throats is a annoying and bothersome. Sometimes it's to a point where it just ruins the movie/show for me because all they care about is looking morally superior and/or correct.
If there's a certain culture being portrayed, like Mexican culture, then I understand all the diversity and what not (The Book of Life, Coco). I generally enjoyed The Book of Life a lot because holy shit the visuals and story telling was excellent, and the representation of Mexican culture was really, really cool.
I'm not saying I don't want diversity in movies or whatever, I just don't want it to be shoved down our throats while the company is saying "Look! A strong POC lead who is also female! Look how progressive we are!"
I think you did a great job with handling this video, however. Although I might differ slightly in my view on this, I think this was an amazing and well thought out video.
I agree that calling attention to the diversity can seem self-righteous and two-faced. I think that casting is at times dependent on whose available at the time and if they agree to be in the feature. There's still white privilege in US society but I won't condemn every media piece that doesn't have a rainbow palette of characters.
Ahhhhh you can always watch Mexican Media which is quite good... Also I noticed Coco was lacking in Catholicism...
+BigBossMan538 "White Privilege"? Generation Films on TH-cam pretty much explained what the actual reason for having mostly whites in films is because movie makers want the characters to reflect the audience(IDK why, I guess it makes more of a profit that way somehow). That's why Star Wars has more Asian characters nowadays, and they're more numerous than black despite being some 5% of the population - because a third of their market is China. :P Granted, it didn't work out very well, because the Chinese care more about the actor being handsome than them being Asian.
tyjo hey!!! I get where your coming from, but at the same time it doesn't hurt to have the amount of representation we do now! One of the main reasons a lot of studios claim to not make movies with diverse leads is that it won't make money. But Black Panther is an excellent example of a Black led movie that made a shit ton of money. It's incredibly important to be able to represent every group of people. Love Simon is out and I really love what it's doing for the LGBT community. Coco was great for Latinos. It's just nice to be able to relate to characters on a deeper level u know?
Well, to be fair, women aren't actually a minority, so it isn't fair to lump them and POCs together like that. There's *nothing* progressive about a female protagonist, because women are just normal.
The great irony is new Disney films are not that different from the old ones.
"Wow ! This Disney princess film has her want to be independent and she isnt rescued by a man!"
Wow great, theyve done that in every film since Beauty and the Beast.
Lol
Well, Belle did have to be saved by the Beast when she was being chased by wolves and she had to be saved by Chip when Gaston locked her in her father's basement.
@@jonnyboy4289 So?
@@KotoCrash Belle did have to be saved by a man, twice (The wolves and being locked in the basement)
@@jonnyboy4289 and how could anyone not to be saved by other humans when encountering wolves in a forest or locked in a basement?
When I was younger and saw the drunken elephant scene in Dumbo I wasn’t scared, I was bored. That scene was like 5-7 minutes long and the same thing, elephants doing weird things.
How harmful are characters like the crows from Dumbo really? Sure, they are caricatures, but they aren't unlikable. In fact, I straight-up love 'em!
I love how they talk, I love how they sing, I love how they dance, I love how fun-loving and carefree they are, I love that they're not just there to make fun of Dumbo, they actually help him after they have a change of heart. They're the ones who actually get Dumbo to fly.
Now, I didn't live in the 40s, so I have no idea how real black folks talked or acted back then but if the crows are anything to go by, then I would've loved to hang out with people like them back in the day.
I guess what I'm trying to say is not every stereotype is a negative stereotype.
If they had JUST been assholes and nothing else, then I could understand the outrage, but like this? Not really.
ShyGuyXXL While I also find the crows enjoyable characters, stereotypes make assumptions on how a person behaves based solely on a label, like race, sex, religion, etc. Even if the label isn’t directly harmful (like the cheerful attitude of the crows or Asians being good at math), it indirectly builds expectations that some people of that label can’t achieve. I had an Chinese friend who was terrible at math. His math skills were below average and because of that, he had to deal with people thinking he was good at math solely because he was Chinese. Again, as enjoyable as I find the crows (they’re probably the most likable characters in Dumbo), stereotyping in of itself can be very dangerous, even if the stereotype isn’t something immediately negative.
I didn't even know they were supposed to "represent black people" until the internet told me
+Stephen Brown
Of course, assuming something about someone because of a stereotype is dumb. But not everyone thinks that way. I know that stereotypes are just stereotypes and so do most people. But some people are just ignorant. But I don't know if we should never use stereotypes (regardless of what they are) because of that. I mean, if someone is ignorant enough to believe all asians are good at math, I think that will be the least of their problems. I've never met a reasonable person who assumed a stereotype was true about someone they didn't know.
But the thing is, thinking a stereotype MAY be true is a different matter.
Stereotypes don't come out of nowhere. The stereotype that asians are good at math exists because they are good at it *on average.* At least compared to other parts of the world.
So acknowledging that this stereotype is more likely than not going to be accurate is not the same as thinking it's accurate every single time.
I know what it's like to be the butt of the joke, when it comes to stereotypes. I'm a fat guy, and I'm not a fan of fat guy stereotypes either, but...
...I still think they should have a place. They should be allowed to exist in our media.
Some may be in bad taste, some may be all in good fun, but that should be up to the writers. We can say we like it or don't like it, but we shouldn't go like "This shouldn't even exist!"
Instead, I think we should encourage characters that break away from the stereotypes who can exist alongside the stereotypes. We shouldn't create a media world where no stereotypes are ever true, instead we should create one where sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Just like in real life.
After all, the people you mentioned who assumed your friend was good at math, now that they've met an asian who isn't good at it, they may think twice next time they meet another asian.
I don't like that almost every fat guy on TV or in videogames is either stupid, gross, lazy, or all three, but instead of removing them, we should create and celebrate characters who are fat and smart, dilligent, pleasant, or all three. ^^ Positive fat characters in general.
For example, one of my favourite videogame characters growing up was Wario, since he wasn't just a stereotype. He was a badass treasure hunter who got shit done with pure force. Sadly, in recent years he has become more and more of a stereotype, to the point where he's even known for farting a lot, even though that was never meant to be part of his character. -_-
So this bothers me not because another stereotype was born, but rather because a stereotype subversion was lost. U_U
But I digress.
+Charlie Odinoco
There's nothing that indicates it besides their voices. So if you're watching a dub from a different country then you would never know.
ShyGuyXXL Of course there’s a time and place for stereotypes to be used. As harmful as they can be, there certainly are times where they can be used. But they’re very difficult to use effectively since for the most part, they’re used quite lazily.
Aside from the more well known classics, there are definitely older Disney movies that hold up even to this day, some of which are hidden gems in my opinion. While films like Fantasia, Make Mine Music, and Melody Time may be "package films," you can easily tell how much passion was put into the animation, music, and everything else going on in each segment, and viewing each is quite a nice experience (especially with Fantasia)! Of course, there are a couple of older Disney movies that are dull and interesting, namely "Saludos Amigos (1942)" and "The Three Caballeros (1944)," with the former it's just a few shorts that the Disney animation staff put together after visiting Brazil which may have a few interesting visuals, but doesn't have much else to offer other than that. In both films, we hear some narration by Fred Shields (the voice of The Great Prince of the Forest from Bambi), and I think he did better as a voice actor than a narrator (though he was at least a decent narrator), and the only segment of The Three Caballeros that's a little interesting is the "Cold-Blooded Penguin" segment narrated by Sterling Holloway. There isn't much of a story to the latter either, though it is a little bit better than Saludos Amigos. There are also others worth checking out IMO such as "Fun and Fancy Free (1947)," "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)," "The Black Cauldron (1985)," and "The Great Mouse Detective (1986)."
I have a feeling that the twist villian plots were made because people have become too smart and aware of creepy people nowadays.
It's a shame that I found the man/woman platonic team-ups A LOT more romantic than the actual romantic couples. Why is that?
Farah Ahmad probably because there allow to breath and just be casual with each other withouth the lovey dowey nonsense nor the forcefulness of trying to hook them up
My guess would the that it's because the Actual Romantic Couples (TM) are shown doing things that, while nice to do, aren't really a good foundation for a relationship. But because the writers of movies with platonic team-ups aren't trying to portray "look, they're romantic", they end up showing a far more healthy relationship over all, that could be applied to a romantic coupling just as easily.
Cinderella gets too much flack imo. ScreenPrism did a good bit about her and why I feel she gets too much crap from feminists.
I think you made a lot of good points, but I also think maybe parents who want to show their kids the older movies should explain to them why the female lead is strong if that's the issue they take, or not show it at all. Or tell them what she did that wasn't right. Maybe people ought to consider how it's not Aurora's fault she's bland, but the fact that Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather weren't the best people to raise Aurora. They sheltered her from the world, kept her away from everything harmful, forbade her from interacting with other people, didn't tell her anything about her true identity, lied to her for 16 years, and then dumped everything on her at once, didn't give her much time to process everything, took her from the only home she's ever known, forbade her from ever seeing the only other human she's seen and thus formed a strong attachment to, and then left her completely alone to stew in all this new information while knowing she was at risk.
I love your comment about how the trend of twist villains these days is both bad and good: Bad, because they don't get built up and remain 1-dimensional, but also good because they aren't mustache-twirling cloak-wearing fiends (which I have a strong issue with, blame soap operas), they're just like us and they're liars and manipulators.
We should keep the movies of the past in mind so we can learn how to improve, and also learn from the movies of this era, so that we can prevent mistakes when the next era comes around.
Not saying the 3D ones are bad or anything, but one thing I miss from the 2D era is not only the villains from the past, but that the background for each movie had it style, like old movies only looking at a background you know what movie it was, nowadays the background are beautiful and breath taking sometimes, but don't have this charm anymore.
And for me the only time when they subverted trope and worked really well was on Enchanted, the new ones seen too forced and isn't funny, on Enchanted at least the dude that complain about the songs didn't sing and was confused as hell on the musical scene.
Representation is a two edge sword, but yeah I agree I prefer not so good representation than none, like Zé Carioca I can hate it's character and what he represents, but thanks to him, in the comics at least, we now have other brazilian characters that are much better, even that some are just knockoffs from Monica's Gang.
Bud Buddie That’s not true actually. You can easily look at the background stuff for Tangled and know it’s Tangled. Or look at Zootopia and know that’s what you’re watching.
@@RM-cn8pw It's not the objects in the background that differentiates them, it's the art style. E.g, if you looked at several CG movie scenes of a field you wouldn't be able to tell which movie they're from. But if you looked at, say, a field from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty you'd easily tell bc their styles are so different.
Aurora You basically summed up my point but still found a way to disagree with what I said.
That’s what I was saying, that the art styles differentiate the movies. You can differentiate Moana from Tangled, or Big Hero 6 from Zootopia, etc. based on their different art styles.
Bud Buddie So, you “miss” something that never went away.
“Like old movies only looking at a background you know what movie it was” Just like the new ones.
THANK YOU for summing up everything I think about this topic ! I love you !!
Disney fan of 28 years of age here and been one since i can think.
When i grew up, i was raised on the disney renaissance movies like Beauty and the beast, aladdin and the lion king. But i also loved movies from the walt era like Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Pinocchio. While i am still more of a fan of traditional animated movies, i admit that i also enjoy todays movies, with Moana being the most recent example.
You can do so much with the medium of animation and it really dosen't matter if we have empowering women or damsels in distress in it, as long as the movie is good all around, i am happy.
the older disney movies may not be strong in the story department, but they have different great things in it. Fantasia is still one of the greatest achievements in animation history for it's artistic value. The Jungle Book, while having a simple story, has some of the greatest cast of characters and songs i have seen in a disney movie. Sure, not everyone will love every disney movie, but over the last 8 decades, the movies have been great for different reasons.
I am still watching the classics and will still go to the theatre for the next disney animated movie. :)
You know, I think that most of Disney's movies are great both old and new. There's only 12 out of the 56 movies that I would want to skip.
What would those 12 movies be?
Here’s my 12
12.frozen
11.frozen
10.frozen
9.frozen
8.frozen
7.frozen
6.frozen
5.frozen
4.frozen
3.frozen
2.frozen
Aaand nuber one
Frozen
Can you tell I don’t like frozen
@@BestiaIustitia yet chicken little gets a pass?
@@BestiaIustitia I love frozen
It’s just been over saturated as fuck
I've never had issues with the old disney films, what or how they portrayed with certain themes, characters and stories. Even as an adult I can enjoy both the old and new films all together. I'd like a return of interesting villains though
The new bad guys change personality near the end because of plot (cough cough Hans). Mother Gothel was a manipulative villain done right.
like frollo.
they actually don’t change because of plot. At all.
I loved Mother Gothel because I thought it was refreshing to have a villain for the first time in years whose goal wasn't to "take over the kingdom" (Ursula, Jafar, Scar, Hades, Shan Yu, Dr. Faciliar). Gothel kidnapped the heir to a neighboring kingdom not to conquer, but for their magical qualities that's keeping her young and beautiful. Mother Gothel seemed to also be a throwback to Disney villains that were drven by vanity like the Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine, or Cruella DeVil.
The other thing about villains is that pixar likes to write stories where there isn't specifically any villain. Sure, toy story always had a villain, or rather, the conflict wasn't specifically to fight that villain. Like in Finding Nemo, if I had to choose a villain, I guess you'd go with darla, but really? There isn't really a villain, it's more man vs. situation. Cars, again technically the green car (forgetting the name) could be the villain but it's more about McQueen learning humility and the connection between two very different American cultures. Brave is about family connection, Walle is about environmental health. But the most recent movies literally have no villain. Finding Dory, Inside Out, and Monsters University have no villain. There just isn't one. Pixar likes to go a lot deeper and have their conflicts and storylines teach about greater issues, which often mean the world or situation is the conflict.
Chick Hicks.
Honestly, while I know Cinderella's dress being torn was more meaningful, than say Ariel's stuff getting blown up because didn't change her, I think people relate to Ariel more because many people have those kinda parents. The parent that constantly crushes on their children's dreams about something or doesn't approve of the lover for whatever reason (such as being gay, trans, of a difference race/class, ect). Cinderella's step mom does this but because the step mom treats her as a maid than a child, people grasp more with Ariel because the relationship with her father is a parent and child relationship. A really unstable parent and child relationship.
Even though I don't relate to her in that way, I always find myself tearing up at Ariel's scene than Cinderella's, because I feel closer to Ariel in terms of passion of being into something and getting crushed by something. It doesn't change the situation of her status, true, but when it's someone that claims to love you and you are suppose to trust hurts you like that, it's a much more deeper pain. The step mother never ever said or shown love to Cinderella as said she's treated like a maid. Cinderella did trust her but it feels unrealistic because well she shouldn't have realized that before when she realized her step sisters are spoiled and she gets diddly squat? Anyway sorry for the rant! XD I love the Little Mermaid, it literally fights the top spot with Lion King in my favor, so I'm a little protective of it.
True, I felt Cindy´s pain, but as you said, she never received any love fron her step-family, so you could kind of pre imagina what´s going to happen. With Ariel I felt totally heartbroken becaus I could easily relate with her, for the same things you said. And because her own dad, whom she loves, does it to her, makes it worse.
Sorry this is late, just a quick FYI Cinderella's dress was her mom's, so...while Ariel's scene was sad in terms of who was destroying it, Cinderella's was more sad in the what was destroyed.
Both have their own sadness def though!
I'll take Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty over Little Mermaid or Pocahontas any day. Then movies like Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia are just masterpieces anyways.
As for villains, I do agree that we've been in a bit of a slump, but I think Callaghan gets way too much shit. I mean, he's incredibly terrifying! He's perfectly willing in killing his own students, people who look up to him as an inspiration, and he's even the cause of one of his students death (even more so if he started the fire). He perfectly personifies that idea of evil perfectly blending in to the background to seem normal, and you can sort of sympathize with why he's doing what he's doing. I mean, I wouldn't say he's the best of the plot twist villains, that'd be King Candy, since they actually foreshadow it, and rewatching the movie gives you even more hints, but Callaghan is good too.
As for the worst of the plot twist villains, Bellweather is my least favorite. Her twist and the way she gets foiled is pretty much a rip off of Waternoose from Monster's Inc.
Honestly at first, in big hero 6, I thought the villain was going to be the brother. Man what a twist that would have been
Dude, I would have loved it if Tadashi was the villain. That would've blown me away.
anyone noticed the one second tribute to fantasia in "nutcracker and the four realms"?
when I saw it in the trailer, it made me feel so good
3:10
Mulan is freaking amazing in every way.
Also on Cinderella's dress: not only did her friends risk a lot to update it, it was her late mother's dress, and probably one of the only things she had left of her
I just had to cackle at the fanart comment, especially as it lined up with the Zootopia clip...
On to the topic at hand however.
Honestly I'd say a lot of the the old Disney films hold up well through a lens of nostalgia. If you're looking at it through the lens of modern social values some of them are... less than appropriate. And there are some films which were excellent in my opinion, but for some reason or other didn't pan out.
For example, Treasure Planet, which was well received by critics, but Disney put no effort into promoting the film, what few trailers they released spoiled the plot of the entire thing, and the released it against one of the most anticipated family/kid films of all time, namely Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone(Its the proper title of the first book/film. Fight me.)
In the end, it's a real shame it failed for a number of reasons:
1) It was a labor of love. The minds behind it had wanted to do it for years.
2) It was a much improved story over the original, expanding Jim's and Silver's characterization a great deal.
3) It was beautifully animated, and for its time, unique, a combination of traditional animation, CG animation, and Deep Canvas, which is somewhere between the two.(I only learned this recently, but Silver was traditionally animated, except for his mechanical parts, which were CG animated)
**deep breath**
Eheh.. Sorry for the rant.
Treasure Planet is in my top 10 Fave Animated Disney movies of all time. I even had a plush of Morph from a Happy Meal I got at the time lol! They showed us the movie while we were on a school camp. It was awesome. And I totally agree with your assessment.
Also, in terms of "subverting old Disney tropes"... uhhh.... I KIND of have to say that Frozen to me was sort of the "Disney Drinking Game" with only ONE real major trope subverted in my opinion, that being who's love actually undoes that whole "Freezing heart" thing.
I mean, you have the parents dying, the little rolly polly troll guys showing up but not really doing anything, goofy-cute animal buddy... I hear SO MANY PEOPLE talking about Frozen subverting old Disney tropes when in MY opinion, they're all THERE. Its just that one of them is subverted, and another (the whole "love at first sight" thing) is heavily mocked and self aware of itself.
Also if you want to get into the whole princess aspect, Jasmin from Aladdin was sort of a subverting of everything Disney had did before in terms of princess characters. And I TOTALLY love your thing about the focus on making the characters "Strong" but not interesting. That whole "Feminist icons" thing is only subjected to the eye of the beholder, if you will. I mean, I have a character I'm currently afraid of getting flack for over the fact that she's essentially a hot shot type but I make her a slapstick magnet to counter that.
This video was beautiful and I feel like it's something I've needed to hear from somebody else for SUCH a long time.
**sees title**
**gets ready to defend Mulan with my life**
One thing I find can and should be mentioned is terms of Disneys past with animation vs. fleshed out characters is that you can see it as the same amount of overall artistic effort put in: take for example, Snow White: the dwarves are essentially just a set of emotions as characters. We don't need to establish anything for the audience cause they know them at a glance, so that leads to more experimenting with what you could do with them: a ton more animated "goofing off" if you will that doesn't take away from the rest of things. Now on the opposite end, Zootopia: where they actually pretty much scrapped a whole 'nother movie by shifting the focus from Nick to Judy when they realized that HIS story arch was pretty much established as soon as he decided to resolve himself to his fate of being what everyone assumed him to be, while Judy's was still unwilling to let that be the end of it: in fact, Nick practically rattles off the TL;DR version of THAT movie's setup during his whole "You got nothing on me" talk with Judy soon as she realizes hes a con artist.
So you kind of got two separate movies from two separate times, but in a way the creative and artistic effort needed to get them made and shown to veiwers is kind of mirrored between them.
Personally, Dumbo is one of my all time favorite Disney movies, and that one was one of said movies Disney himself wasn't that invested in, seeing it as more a means to an end to get back out of the red from other things like Fantasia, I believe...(another good point to mention seeing as WITHOUT competition at the time, Disney's financial history was VERY roller coastery- I'd hate to think how much Walt's headaches would be if he had competition like Disney currently has back THEN.)
OH yeah, since I bring up dumbo: for all the flack the crows get, they are the only characters beyond the mouse and his mother who are NICE to Dumbo, AND they help out Dumbo pretty much as much if not more then the mouse... Not saying the mouse was a bad friend, but through his best efforts he did end up getting Dumbo ridiculed and turned into a clown. Personally I grew up liking Bosco the talk-ink kid and I'm BLACK. And yes, that speech you did there was SO FUCKING AWESOME and I agree entirely.
I know. And the crow is named Jim Crow. And technically Dumbo's name is Jumbo Jr. and the train is named Casey Jr. But we can still call them the mouse, the crow, and the train without being formal about everything, right? :P
Sleeping Beauty is weird, being strangely progressive if you remember it's about the fairies but everyone places it in the "standard princess movie" corner.
How does that make it progressive, though? I thought we *didn't* want women to be viewed as a "minority", since they make up 51% of the population.
Maybe that why they made a remake because the show doesn't make sense or boring. Now the remake of maleficent makes sense too me. She is a fairy and she got wings.
@@ARCtheCartoonMaster They may now, but did they back in the 50s when Sleeping Beauty was released?
@@thisaccountisembarrassingi4429 But how is it fair that girls have to live with being viewed as some strange and abnormal minority group, in the same vein as blacks and LGBT people, when they're ubiquitous in our modern society? The sooner we start treating women as just normal, average people, the sooner they might actually be taken seriously as individuals, instead of existing solely to fill diversity quotas.
This was GREAT! Yes there are things from the past that are wrong and we as a culture are better off without but ignoring them is to ignore history and when we blind ourselves to the mistakes of the past we're going to repeat them or worse repackage them, trading old stereotypes for new stereotypes (ask Jail Break from the movie that mustn't be named). And yes Walt Era Disney films all had more strengths and great values than unfortunate and outdated trends. Keep on the great work CellSpex.
What’s that movie ask jailbreak
I think it's strange to harsh on Aroura for not being a 'strong female lead.' She doesn't even know there's a conflict. She's just having a Tuesday until they tell her she's a princess and whisk her off to the castle. Where she's promptly hypnotized and dropped into a coma. At what point did she have the chance to be 'strong' or any reason to do so? Sure, she could have run away when her guardians told her she couldn't see the boy they didn't know was Phillip, but it's actually normal for her to have flopped on the bed crying first. She didn't have time to get defiant against the guardians she'd never before had reason to defy. And she's probably been dreaming about having other people in her life for her entire life; she's been denied one in favor of many and that has to be a strong lure for her. Yes, the movie happens to her, but it's not a deficit to her character that it does.
Not to mention: AROURA IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST. She's a secondary character, entitling her to have less development. She seems like the protagonist because of the Disney Princess marketing strategy that she was shoehorned into, and the tiny cast of the movie. The Fairies are the joint protagonists, and their pretty awesome.
To paraphrase the future King of the Pirates, "OF COURSE THEY DO!"
Seriously! How do u not have a million subs?!?!
Good video - you bring up a lot of great points! I'd like to point out though that the pink elephant scene in Dumbo was not the result of Walt Disney's creative vision and was actually done when he was away from the studio (and he was not happy with it)
I've been saying it for years and I'll say it again, *golden era Disney princesses were GOOD ROLE MODELS!* I doubt people who shit on them have actually recently watched the movies.
Snow White went through some tough shit, had to run away from home into woods and still tried to make the best out of her situation and create a new warm home with her new family she chose on her own. She was incredibly caring and a hard worker with a good heart that was surprisingly mature for a 14 year old. Yes, the plot "happened to her" instead of her moving the plot, but sometimes life's like that. Sometimes we don't have much choice beside withstanding all the shit thrown at us with grace, then leaving it behind and moving on. Also she didn't run away with a stranger, she knew the Prince before, it was clear at the beginning of the movie they were already at the flirting stage.
And Cinderella was VERY proactive the whole damn movie. I always wonder what version are people watching when they say Cinderella was just a damsel in distress and did nothing and it was more about the mice. She didn't have big action scenes and yea some of her screen time was taken away by her animal friends, but she did a lot in the movie. She actually decided on her own to stand up against her oppressors and have something nice in her life. She was in a terrible situation but she wasn't a pushover. It must've taken a lot of courage for her to put that dress on and tell her step mother she's going to the ball. Only after THAT did the fairy godmother give her the dress and carriage and glass slippers. And then at the end she didn't choose to be quiet and continue her miserable life, she seized the opportunity to break out of that horrible situation.
Now Aurora is a bit different story, because it's clear she is not actually the protagonist of the movie. I think she still have lots of personality, but the main focus was on Phillip and the fairies. Overall they did the most in the movies and it was their story. And that's arguably more progressive than developing Aurora would ever be.
I personally cherish these older Disney Princess movies, because they show a different kind of a strong female character. They are all very feminine and have typical feminine traits like nurturing and caring and hard working and kind, but these are all good things. I myself am a stereotypical mom friend and seeing these female leads finding strength in such typical feminine traits while not resorting to being cruel, violent or vengeful, felt very empowering.
While the newer Disney films are more focused on creating fully developed characters - which isn't just expected in Disney Films it's also expected in most movies nowadays - the original Disney films (From Snow White to I guess Sword in the Stone) while not being character driven (which is understandable considering that animation was a developing art form) they were able to harness the power of emotion.
On a storytelling aspect I understand why Disney is trying to make their main characters more developed: they want to sell role models for younger girls and I guess a few adults. If Disney tried to return to form from the days of the 40's and 50's it would come across as extremely dated. Because while elements worked for them back in those days, times and people's perceptions and tastes have changed too. It could be likely that people could be offended and more critical towards these elements. And while yes Disney tried to replicate the 90's era elements with "The Princess and the Frog" it sadly didn't do as well as Disney was hoping for it to be.
I do one day hope that we can see those memorable emotional moments once again with Disney films, but even I acknowledge that it's a fools wish at best lol.
I think one factor in The Princess And The Frig not getting more money was the release Of The Squeakquel From Fox. Those bad chipmunks caused a lot of trouble for better animated films like Fantastic Mr Fox
A very nice example of good representation in modern animation is in "The Dragon Prince". Characters are never defined by whomever they are representing, the are just people.
5:00 - 6:15 is one of the reasons I LOVE Cinderella as both a character and an overall film. Cinderella IS STRONG, despite not being a modern “active” Disney princess, and showing her strength in a traditionally feminine way. She had real stakes and real struggles and approached them with kindness, resourcefulness and positivity. Her goal isn’t to meet a prince, its to escape her oppressive situation for ONE NIGHT.
Also. In the end, the prince does NOT SAVE HER. She saves herself by her resourcefulness of keeping the other glass slipper on her (which in and of itself represents a manifestation of her internal hopes and dreams which resulted in the Fairy Godmother appearing.) Her signature song, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is not about finding a man. Its about finding strength in your dreams. (And as Cindy says, “They can’t order me to stop dreaming.” She’s actually defiant in her own way.)
It's as I always say in my videos in fiction you are never wrong. Two people can be shown the same exact product and take away a subject entirely different from the other. This pertains to old vs new ideals. If anything its kind of fascinating isn't it? To watch classic to modern disney movies could essentially be a subject of social studies and history. Cause Disney movies reflect the culture of the era of that time. In a way its watching evolution not only of Disney but of society itself how they reflect a desire for more progression, more character, and elements that not only entertain but speak to people on a level that they'll remember forever.