Fuck No, Disney Corporation!

Shocker: Disney Teams up with Barneys to Create Super-Skinny Minnie; Suddenly Markets Their Newest Princess as Latina

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:13:51 +0100

Shocker: Disney Teams up with Barneys to Create Super-Skinny Minnie; Suddenly Markets Their Newest Princess as Latina:

Disney screwed up this week. Big Time. Twice. Retailer Barneys has announced a holiday display featuring the Disney character Minnie Mouse, who has a disturbingly disproportionate and unhealthy body at 5’11” and a size 0. Wow. But wait, there’s more!

…

This week Disney also ann ounced their newest princess Sofia is Latina, but only after a blogger asked executive producer Jamie Mitchell at a press conference why Sofia’s mother has darker skin than any of the other characters. When Disney first announced their new show Sofia the First, there was no mention of her race.

(via FeministDisney)

cafiffle: ahahahahahhahahhahahha HAHAHAHA oh my god look at...

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:27:14 +0100

cafiffle:

ahahahahahhahahhahahha

HAHAHAHA oh my god look at this load of bullshit propaganda

Walt Disney had to be taught how to draw Mickey Mouse by one of his animators (and how to write the famous Disney signature before every film).

I don’t want to shit on anyone for loving Disney films, since I grew up with them too and although I find them problematic in some ways, I don’t condemn them as a whole because here’s the thing

they were created by a team of writers, animators, painters, merchanisers, etc (and still are, though now there’s a lot of 3D jargon involved as well)

Walt Disney was kind of a horrible human being. He was a crazy, frightening, micromanaging boss, incredibly racist, sexist, anti-semitic, and when the employees who made his company the awesome thing it was went on strike for higher pay, he sold out the leaders to McCarthy as Communist and ruined their careers.

He was not a nice person, or a sweet little dreamer who had a mouse character that ended up getting famous; he was a businessman, and he and his brother Roy ran a successful business. And they’ve done some amazing things, they’ve created some technically and thematically beautiful work, but HE PERSONALLY was not responsible for 99% of what we love about it.

so basically this commercial is horseshit is all I’m saying

If Disney movies made up a lot of your childhood as they did mine, I don’t see anything wrong with feeling sentimental towards them, as long as you also acknowledge the reality behind them— which is that the company they’re from is of questionable social values and loves nothing more than to manipulate its viewers to garner more money from them, and that the actual works of art you’re seeing are made by teams of talented people and not one (late) jerk who refuses to let any of them take credit when they win awards.

Disney's Princess and the Frog Can't Escape the Ghetto

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:47:09 +0100

Disney's Princess and the Frog Can't Escape the Ghetto:

Six decades after unleashing persistent NAACP bugaboo Song of the South (1946), and two after firmly suppressing it, that peculiar cultural institution known as the Walt Disney Company has made a symbolic reparation by creating its first African-American princess—and plunking her down in the middle of Jim Crow–era Louisiana! A patronizing fantasia of plantation life in post–Civil War Georgia, Song could at least be understood—if hardly excused—as a product of its time (18 years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act). But is Disney’s latest, The Princess and the Frog, the Obama-era fairy tale that anyone other than the “birther” crowd has been waiting for?

Folks, Disney is not less racist than before because it tacked on a Black princess

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 21:03:18 +0100

Folks, Disney is not less racist than before because it tacked on a Black princess:

The Princess and the Frog again: white folks that I know come to me in confessional and tell me they think the film was racist and they know it but like/saw it anyway and let their kids watch it. They still take their kids to Disney World at least once a year. Disney can’t get it right, so when are we going stop wanting and feeling like we need to be included in Disney’s fantastical, wonderful world? And when are our so-called allies going to join our staunch allies and just say NO?

Why does it have to be “I love Disney, but….”? You could just as easily flip that sentence around and say “Disney is racist, classist, and sexist but I still love it”. Those statements are alarmingly similar if you ask me.

Continuing with our analytical look at The Princess and The Frog, an insightful two part response to the film from Black feminist blogger Ms Queenly, deconstructing aspects of Tiana’s image and asking why reviewers consider “not entirely racist” to be an acceptable media standard.

Read Part One and Part Two

Hello! I just wanted to thank you for creating this blog. To be honest, it took me some courage to click the follow button, because for the past sixteen years of my life, I've been adoring Disney and its movies. I've known for a while that the Disney Corp. is definitely not as perfect as everyone makes it out to be, but I've always turned a blind eye to it. I'm ready to change that now—so I'm going to be reading every post and digesting the words. Thank you.

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:17:22 +0100

You are so welcome. This is a wonderful message to receive, because it captures exactly what I’ve always hoped this blog would be. I hope you continue to read, to question, to learn and to grow - and I hope FNDC plays a part in that for a long time to come. Thank you so much for this note.

The Princess and the Frog and the Critical Gaze

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:34:33 +0100

The Princess and the Frog and the Critical Gaze:

What’s especially unfair about those who condemn blacks who criticize The Princess and the Frog is that whites, as a race, are not condemned as ungrateful or otherwise for critiquing the numerous white Disney princesses (or society at large.) Whites have taken Disney to task over white princesses’ independence, agency, body size, beauty, and intelligence among other things. There are academics and writers who have built a discipline out of critiquing Disney – particularly its princesses. While some whites now paint Disney as a desperate corporation scrambling to alter Tiana and assuage the endless demands of blacks, they fail to note how Ariel was the headstrong response to white complaints about obedient Cinderella and Belle was the feminist response to white criticism about willing-to-give-up-her-voice-for-a-man Ariel. Whites have made countless demands about their heroines, and Disney has altered their creations in response to those demands. Yet whites also know that if any given princess isn’t pleasing, in a few years another will be created. This is the first and most likely last black Disney princess.

Since the Disney’s Dolls article was a little out of date, here are some thoughtful points on race, expectation and entitlement that were written in response to the trailer for The Princess and the Frog. Over the next few days I’ll post some bits and pieces of the conversations which arose from that movie, and from Disney’s overall handling of their ~~first~~ only black princess.

My friend worked at Disney for awhile. One of the rules for appearance she had to follow included no leg stubble whatsoever. She had to shave her legs everyday.

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 06:57:31 +0100

Wow, and I thought the designated length for fingernails was a little extreme!

im sorry but why is the disney employee appearance code on your fuck no disney blog? when i worked at hollister, we actually had the exact same rules for men and women. and now i work at jimmy johns, a sub shop, and its the exact same rules, except girls can wear any color nail polish they want. its not a carefully controlled image, its called having a job and following dress code. and guess what, at most jobs where you directly deal with people, chewing gum and using a cell phone is bad.

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:50:00 +0100

Because one of the issues which many people have with Disney is the way that they code particular appearances as acceptable and others as deviant. There is nothing intrinsically bad about a business operating a dress code, or about being clean shaven as opposed to having a beard. However, a dress code is designed to send messages to the consumer about the type of business they are dealing with. When that business trades on notions of morality, wholesomeness, escapism and magic, and has the vast reach of somewhere like Disneyland, it is worth questioning those messages.

Why is it unacceptable for men to have long hair? What message does that send which Disney feels is inappropriate to their brand? Why are ‘conservative’ and ‘classic’ used repeatedly in reference to the styling of women’s appearances? What is that implied to mean? Why did it take until this year for beards to be permitted? Can you think of any ethnic or religious groups who would have difficulty meeting these standards? Can you think of any who would find it easy?

I generally try not to post closed statements, condemnations or ‘answers’ on this blog (except where it’s really cut and dry, like that centaur clip). Often what I’m trying to do is to draw attention to things about Disney’s business practise which otherwise go unnoticed, and ask people to question the company’s policies for themselves. In any case, I’m always glad to hear and publish people’s responses.

Get the 'Disney Look'

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:05:09 +0100

Get the 'Disney Look':

Disneyland recently updated their employee dress code to allow men to sport beards for the first time in company history. Prior to the change, only neatly trimmed moustaches were permitted (they became allowable in 2000, in case you were wondering).

The dress code is an arcane and fascinating look into the rigid conservatism that informs Disney’s carefully controlled image. Among the provisions are:

Male:

Hair must be neatly cut on the back and sides, forming a smooth, symmetrical appearance so that it does not extend beyond or cover any part of the ears or the shirt collar. The overall style must be neat, natural and balanced proportionally.

All facial hair must be fully grown in, neatly groomed and well maintained at no longer than a quarter of an inch in length. Mustaches may extend below the corners of the mouth to meet with the facial beard.

Shaping the mustache or beard to a particular style is not permitted. Mustaches (without lower facial hair) must not extend onto or over the upper lip and must extend to the corners of the mouth, but not beyond or below the corners.

Cast Members without a mustache, beard, or goatee are expected to be clean-shaven every day.

Female:

Hair should be neatly combed and arranged in a classic, easy-to-maintain style. Extreme styles are not permitted

Conservative braided hairstyles without beads or ornamentation are permitted.

The Disney Look does not permit extremes in dyeing, bleaching or coloring. If the hair color is changed, it must be natural looking and well-maintained. Subtle highlighting or frosting is permitted, as long as it creates a uniform look over the whole head and meets all of the previously listed guidelines.

Fingernails should be clean. If polish is used, it should be an appropriate, neutral color. This includes deeper, richer shades of polish. Polishes that are not permitted include: black, gold, silver, multicolored or neon. Charms or decals on fingernails are not permitted. Fingernails should not exceed one-fourth of an inch (approximately 6 mm) beyond the fingertip.

And of course, lest we forget:

Often it’s the seemingly little things that detract from our guests’ enjoyment – chewing gum, having poor posture, using a cellular phone or frowning.

Disney's Dolls

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:56:56 +0100

Disney's Dolls:

The skin colour of the female characters in Disney’s recent animated films
may be different and the marketing more sophisticated.

But Kathi Maio argues that underneath all the buckskin and the scales
they’re still happy homemakers looking for a man.

It is more than a little ironic that the Walt Disney Company’s current animated feature, Mulan, retells an age-old legend about the Chinese successfully fighting off a foreign invasion. The American media giant chose to make this particular story into its 36th animated feature precisely because it was the perfect vehicle for a strategic incursion into the Chinese film market.

The legendary woman warrior, Hua Mu-Lan, who bravely fought off alien onslaughts has now herself become an agent of a US conglomerate’s ambition to dominate the culture of Asia – and the entire globe.

It’s a heavy burden for one young, doe-eyed heroine to bear. But so it is for all of the young women Disney has co-opted for the screen. They aren’t simply cartoons. They are symbols of the times – and one company’s measurement of how their target audiences want to see women.

An excellent (if rather old) article about Disney’s heroines - the negative messages in their stories, and how little they’ve really changed. I would certainly say that these problematic themes have carried over into more recent films. Disney still require every heroine to settle down with a man, still try to placate critics with token ‘independent woman’ traits (look, she has an ambition, she’s a feminist now), still capitalise on the perceived exoticism of non-white characters, and still present idyllic, whitewashed accounts of history.

What does everyone else think?

Disney sued for discrimination by former employee over Muslim hijab

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:17:40 +0100

Disney sued for discrimination by former employee over Muslim hijab:

Boudlal asked her supervisors for permission to wear her hijab when she worked at the Storyteller’s Cafe. Her request was denied and she was told that wearing the hijab would “negatively affect patrons’ experiences at the Storytellers Cafe.”

The 28-year-old also claims coworkers and supervisors accosted her with anti-Muslim and anti-Arab slurs, calling her “terrorist”, “camel” and “Kunta Kinte,” in reference to the slave from Alex Haley’s famous book Roots. Boudlal said colleagues also told her Arabs are terrorists, that she spoke a terrorist language and was trained to make bombs.

After Announcing Record Earnings, Disney CEO Claims Corporate Taxes Are Hurting U.S. Companies

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 03:50:02 +0100

After Announcing Record Earnings, Disney CEO Claims Corporate Taxes Are Hurting U.S. Companies:

Further to the recent post about Disney’s dodgy links to corrupt politicians:

The Walt Disney Corporation today announced its highest quarterly earnings ever today, due to higher prices at its theme parks and the success of several cable channels it owns, including ESPN. This comes after the company made $7.3 billion in profits last year.

But Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, still appeared on Fox Business today to bemoan the U.S. corporate tax rate, which he said is undermining U.S. competitiveness. Iger falsely called the U.S. “among the highest in the world, if not the highest” and said that America’s corporate tax rate is causing “a loss of jobs.”

Disney Bankroll TV Ads for Pro-Corporation GOP Candidate

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:28:17 +0100

Disney Bankroll TV Ads for Pro-Corporation GOP Candidate:

Money from Walt Disney World appears to be bankrolling TV ads for state Rep. Rachel Burgin in her bitter primary fight with past Senate President Tom Lee for a Tampa-area Senate seat, records show.

According to the new election filings, Disney wrote a $30,000 check on July 12 to Floridians for Strong Leadership, a fundraising committee controlled by state Sen. Anitere Flores, a Miami Republican.

A day later, Flores’ committee cut a $30,000 check to another organization called Accountable Florida. One week after that, Accountable Florida paid $17,633 to Orlando-based Sloane MacKenzie Public Affairs LLC to create and secure air time for a TV ad touting Burgin.

“It was an ad that highlighted Rachel’s conservative actions in the House,” said Timothy Buckley, who owns Sloane MacKenzie. The spot is airing on Tampa cable stations.

Records show Accountable Florida was created less than a month ago, and the $30,000 it got from Flores’ committee is the only contribution it received through July 20. The Sloane MacKenzie ad buy was one of only two expenditures it lists, the other being a $25 wire-transfer fee.

Meanwhile Flores’ fundraising committee has raised $54,500 so far in 2012. More than half of that came from Disney’s $30,000 donation.

Burgin, R-Tampa, is in a nasty primary battle with Lee, R-Brandon, who served as Senate president from 2004 to 2006. He was best known for championing ethics reforms, including a law that forces lobbyists to disclose details about their income.

The Senate’s current leadership – including incoming-President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, and his expected successor Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando – all back Lee. But many lobbyists and corporate interests such as Disney are lining up behind Burgin.

The race has turned into one of Florida’s ugliest contests. Another third-party group recently paid for a mailer that attacks Lee by claiming he “abandoned his marriage for a gambling lobbyist” in his first Senate term. The attack drew a rare public rebuke from Republican Party of Florida chairman Lenny Curry and enraged Gaetz.

Who is Rachel Burgin, you ask? Well, you might remember her from earlier in the year, when she proposed a resolution to cut federal taxes on large corporations in the state of Florida…but forgot to reword the parts written directly to her from the corporate interest group paying her to submit the paper.

A corrupt politician, known for her incredible willingness to play bribe-operated-puppet to rich corporations in the state of Florida. What on earth could Disney want with her?

Johnny Depp As Tonto: I’m Still Not Feeling ‘Honored’

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:04:41 +0100

Johnny Depp As Tonto: I’m Still Not Feeling ‘Honored’:

“I was still holding out a shred of hope that there was some major piece of information I was missing, that maybe Johnny had actually done his research, or that maybe he had no control over the actual costuming of Tonto, and that all of this anger and blame should be placed on some wardrobe stylist on-set. But Entertainment Weekly published a blog post on Sunday that confirmed what I had been arguing all along. Johnny Depp decided to “honor” Native peoples and “reinvent” our role in Hollywood by relying on the most tired and stereotypical tropes imaginable.” - Adrienne K.

Companion image to the Disney Princesses.

Mon, 28 May 2012 16:22:23 +0100

Companion image to the Disney Princesses.

kanyewesticle: a page in my sisters diary

Sun, 27 May 2012 20:31:53 +0100

kanyewesticle:

a page in my sisters diary

Disney gender roles, and the messages they send to young...

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:35:49 +0100

Disney gender roles, and the messages they send to young children.

Askbox: Is there a middle ground?

Sat, 19 May 2012 14:23:19 +0100

dreamsofflightandnonsense asked:

I stumbled upon your blog and I just find it great. Things like Mickey Mouse Monopoly and the Bechdel Test can let people know more about Disney’s flaws, but it still seems like when it comes to criticizing Disney, a lot of people (especially the now-adults, like myself, who were raised almost completely on Disney films) seem to think that the only options we have are to love Disney blindly or to boycott it completely. What’s your opinion on this? Do you think there’s a middle ground somewhere?

Good question! This is something I’ve asked myself many times, and continue to go back and forth on the subject. I do like to think there is a middle ground - that we can appreciate the good while rejecting the bad - but where that middle ground falls, and how we deal with it as an audience, is tricky.

Clearly Disney aren’t alone in propagating the troublesome messages which appear in their films. One of the arguments I’ve often been challenged with when criticising them is that they’re a symptom of a larger problem in the media - not the root cause. Western society values stories and images of the mythical white man, and Disney just deliver what the audience wants. The individual artists, writers, actors and animators who work on each presentation probably aren’t the awful bigots that the sum total of their work implies (these days, at least), so can’t we appreciate the skill and quality of their output as something separate from the rest of the ‘bad stuff’?

Well, yes. And we can marvel at the spectacular camerawork in Birth of a Nation. I’m sure not everybody involved in that film’s production was a paid up klansman, but the KKK still used it as a recruiting tool for nigh on half a century. The point is, aside from just keeping a critical eye on our media, we have to be very careful what kind of rhetoric we associate with and what kind of storytelling we praise. Disney are particularly, uniquely important in this respect, because they produce media for very young children. As an adult, I can watch Snow White and admire its technical achievements while keeping in mind its historical context, outdated portrayal of gender roles, etc. etc. However, its target audience can’t. To a young child, the music and the dancing and the pretty painted animals and the baking apple pies and sweeping floors and being a demure princess are all part of the same package, and that’s what’s dangerous.

I can find ways and means and qualifiers and excuses that will let adult-me put Disney movies in a mental ‘good pile’ - but having done that, how much more likely have I become to absently plop a child down in front of Snow White myself? How much easier does it become to give them a pass when the after-school club take all the kids out to see White Lion fight Brown Lion for his right to a passive harem of lionesses? Even curating this blog I’ve found myself surprised by the number of things that slipped my mind or just didn’t register since I watched these movies as a child - and they only get worse with age.

Personally, I don’t boycott Disney. For one thing, it would be almost impossible once you start to pay attention to just how much media they own. For another, I’m an aspiring artist myself, and have enormous admiration for many of the individuals who have passed through the company over the decades. It would be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I ignored their influence completely - and would ultimately make little difference to them. However, I don’t ‘buy in’ either. I don’t go to see their films in theatres, I certainly don’t watch them for pleasure, and I would rather lose a finger than buy any of their merchandise. I make a concerted effort to look beyond Disney’s movies and explore the original books, histories and folklore they ~~appropriated~~ re-imagined.

Most of all, I am explicit when the subject comes up: I don’t like Disney. They’re fighting words, and they provoke people to question me. They open up conversations, and they compel me to remember exactly what my objections are. They don’t stop me from admiring the flower dance in Fantasia, or appreciating Jeremy Irons’ voice work in The Lion King, or eliminate any of the other shades of grey in my personal feelings about the company’s output. They just remind me where my priorities lie.

Incidentally, if anybody else has thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them - send me an ask, reblog, or leave a comment. It’s a complicated topic, and I know there’s a huge diversity of opinion about it out there.

Dumbo’s ‘crows’ sequence from 1941. Much like...

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:48:21 +0100

Dumbo’s ‘crows’ sequence from 1941.

Much like the apes who ‘want to do like other men do’ in The Jungle Book, this is a scene which flies under a lot of people’s radar even today.

Notice that the lead crow’s name is Jim. Yes, Jim Crow. As in the US race segregation laws, named after a popular blackface routine. Notice also the crows’ naggingly familiar facial characteristics. Round black faces, round, simple white eyes, thick, smiling beaks.

And what about that dance they’re doing? Where have you seen that before? Well, for one thing, many of the animated steps and moves are the same as those performed by King Louie’s people in The Jungle Book. In fact, if you’ve ever watched much American cinema from the 30s-40s, you probably have encountered that big-stepping swing style over and over again. And you probably haven’t seen many white characters doing it. This is because these black caricature song-and-dance sequences were a direct product of minstrelsy.

From wikipedia:

The typical minstrel performance followed a three-act structure. The troupe first danced onto stage then exchanged wisecracks and sang songs. The second part featured a variety of entertainments, including the pun-filled stump speech. The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or a send-up of a popular play.

Yes, a wisecracking, stump-speaking, pun spinning, musical troupe of fictional black characters, conceived and written by white artists for a white target audience. This is starting to get a little uncomfortable, isn’t it?

If you’re still not convinced that Dumbo’s crows or The Jungle Book’s apes are the potted minstrel show I’m suggesting (“But they’re not really black people, they’re cartoon animals!” / “Of course they’ll pun/joke/talk funny, they’re cartoon characters!”), here’s a bit of homework:

Watch this sequence from the Marx brothers’ 1935 A Day at the Races and see how many elements of music, dance and costume you can find in common between its depiction of black performers and Dumbo’s use of the crows. Finally, ask yourself: Would you feel comfortable showing the Marx brothers clip to a small child, without explaining its social context?

Disney shuts down anti-obesity exhibit after critics decry it for being insensitive to overweight people

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:01:12 +0100

Disney shuts down anti-obesity exhibit after critics decry it for being insensitive to overweight people:

…characters, such as the “Stink Bomb,” known for its bad hygiene, and “The Fungus,” whose claim to fame is eating rotten and expired food, were all portrayed as obese whereas even skinny people can have bad body odour and eat old food, said Peggy Howell, a spokesperson for NAAFA.

“Disney World calls itself the happiest place on earth, so I guess it’s the happiest place on earth for everyone except fat kids,” she said.

On one hand, credit where it’s due to Disney for pulling the exhibit so promptly.

On the other hand, they created it in the first place.

And on a third and very pertinent hand:

“If Disney really wanted to help with the fight against childhood obesity, one of the most formative things it can do is to stop using its characters to sell fast food to children.”