Disney Princess - criticism, marketing, favorite

[Taleweaver]

I'm a big fan of "Mulan". Even though it's Disney, it has that special Asian charm, not just in presentation but also in spirit. That, and Mulan is one of the few female Disney heroes who actually kicks the villain's butt herself. Smell that, Belle?

[Sailor Kitty]

Has anybody seen/read the Manga?
I picked it up today!

It is incredibly short, probobably because it was meant for small kids who do not read very fast. (I could read when I was like, 3.)

The story is pretty well and is all-ages!
It is called "Kilala Princess" and was SO DARN CUTE I just had to pick it up. ^_^;
The one good thing to come from the princess line.

Mulan is in the princess line, but with a dress, not the Kick-ass war-hero.

[Qu-ko]

My favourite disney female character is Meg (Megara) from the Hercules movie, she's so strong and cynic . It's a shame she can't be a princess but I supposes she is the most fortunate one of the Disney girls because she is the only one who manages to marry almost a god (I can imagine the other princess grining ).

Though of course, it didn't actually happen that way in the Greek myth. Ah, Disney, you and your "altering facts to suit the happy endings".

Anyway, on the topic of Princesses, did you guys hear about the new princess they're coming out with?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Frog

First black princess. *gasp*

Of course, with having a black princess comes controversy to those who think Disney's being racist in one way or another. The Wiki article states that they thought that the name "Maddy" was racist, as well as her being a chambermaid originally. (This, however, has all been changed. Her name's now "Tiana", and she's not a chambermaid anymore.)

Why am I not surprised?

[mokenju1]

Hmm... If I was a black chambermaid who happened to be called Maddy I would be really pissed with Disney now XDDDD. Maybe because I don't get the bad implications of the name Maddy (Madeleine?)... It's really that offensive?

I wonder if Arabian people were disgusted with Aladdin because he was very poor and a thief. Although IIRC they were pissed because Jasmine's father was a stupid puppet and of course the people who rules them has to be always very intelligent...

It has to be very difficult to be a Disney directive because you actually have to listen to the complaints of all the people to keep the "good" reputation of the corporation and not to simply laugh at them like all the rest of producers can do. Because of that, and because you always have to change all the meaningful endings of the good stories (the little mermaid giving her own life to not kill the prince, Phoebus being a bad person who plays with Esmeralda and doesn't save her life at the end because he couldn't care less, Hercules going to the Olimpus at last because of his self-sacrifice and his marriage with Hebe, etc ).

[F.I.A]

If anything, I am waiting for Disney's version of Star Child. Sure, it is not about a princess, but so is Hunchback of Norte Dame.

Most knew that Aladdin by being a son who grieved his own father to death, and caused his brother to be chopped in cubes. Let's just say Disney cannot put those in, else we all know Zeus is Mr. Pimp of Olympus.

[Sailor Kitty]

Yeah, I was so pissed when I saw the 3-d movie "dinosaurs" and "Ice-age" because I know that those species lived diffrent time periods.

And I was pretty pissed by hercules too. Hera was the one who wanted hercules gone!

[Recca Phoenix]

And I boycott disneys peter pan. They made one of historys biggest bloopers. The swedish dubb-crew, that is.

They dubbed Wendy "Lena"
And, in Sweden, NOBODY else ever called her "Lena".

Arrrgh. I hate when dubbers change the names (i.e. Sailor Moon in english - Usagi was Bunny or Serena, Makoto was Lita, etc.). I would rather have them mispronounce the real name than give the character some other name. Or how about NOT DUBBING AT ALL!?!? Disney's dub of Spirited Away pissed me off, I hate that Lilo girl's voice..... >_<
But yeah, Disney is usually dubbed because children can't read subtitles yet, ne?
Speaking of Disney in Japan, http://disneygames.jp/castle
is the most addicting online free game EVER
Aaaanyway, what was the point here.... Oh yeah, some of the Disney movies in Japan have odd titles. Snow White (the movie title and character) is Shirayuki-hime (White Snow Princess, the usual translation of her story there), that makes sense. But "The Rescuers" is "Bianca no Daibouken" (Bianca's Adventure). An interesting one is Sleeping Beauty, it is "The Beauty of the Sleeping Forest" and Alice in Wonderland is "Alice of the Mysterious Country" (Fushigi no Kuni no Alice). 101 Dalmatians is "101 Puppies" and the live action version makes a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of "one" (wan) and "woof/bark" in Japanese (wan), it's called "Wan 0 Wan," written 101.
But I digress....
Disney Princess is marketed differently in Japan. There's not as much female empowerment, so this kind of thing doesn't come under criticism. There's a shojo manga called "Kilala Princess" (now in English under Tokyopop I think) which is a magical girl manga about a girl trying to save the princesses. Also, Disney offers a yearly "Princess academy" that is a manners, dancing, etc. school for little girls where they can get their photo taken at the end. I was never into that kind of thing and I'm thankful I didn't have to go to silly outdated "manners/dancing school" like a lot of the girls at my girls' private school when I was little. But yeah, whatever floats your boat.

[Radhreni]

I wonder if Arabian people were disgusted with Aladdin because he was very poor and a thief. Although IIRC they were pissed because Jasmine's father was a stupid puppet and of course the people who rules them has to be always very intelligent...

I'd be more annoyed by the prevalence of the 'heroine's father as bumbling goofball' theme. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan...those are just the ones that come to mind immediately. (Of course, The Little Mermaid also comes to mind as a definite exception to that.)

Back in high school I also noticed that Disney heroines tended to fall into a clear pattern: they'd have strong personalities in the first act, warm up to the Hero in the second act, and become nigh to utterly helpless, awaiting rescue (or in better scenarios, sitting at the sidelines) in the final act. I'm still pretty disillusioned with Disney, and the "Princesses" line doesn't help.

I have to admit I'm a mushy-gushy romantic at times, and hero-rescuing-heroine makes the little fangirl in me squee, but...there is such a thing as too much. (And I like for the heroines to turn around and return the favor, actually. Equal-opportunity peril! Woo!)

[ciel]

I enjoyed Disney, but even when I was a kid, I hated how they butchered the classic fairy tales to fit whatever they wanted to say. I think its really sad that alot of kids (who are in high school +) don't know that the little mermaid dies. Actually alot of kids think some of these are 'written' by disney themselves although there's an original story out there.

My fav disney princess is prob Jasmine? I dunno why. ^^ haha. Oh and little mermaid. Even though they butchered Anderson's version completely (I'm a fairy tale FREAK I LuV THEM TO DEATH) i'm glad she lives in this version, i guess. ^^;;

O yeah another fact alot of people didn't know- Did you know Aladdin was chinese? (within the context of Arabian Nights-they were telling a story that 'happened' in China! I was shocked when I first figured it ou t in 1st grade or so) Alot of people don't believe me but even Wikipedia confirms it

It concerns an impoverished young ne'er-do-well named Aladdin, in a Chinese city,

Note that although it is considered an Arabic tale either because of its source, or because it was included in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, the characters in the story are neither Arabs nor Persians, but rather are from "China".

And about the first black princess- Although I'm glad they are finally creating a black princess, must they make it to fit european and white cultures? LIke I mean Mulan was in China (with japanese kimonos and make up for some reason,lol) Aladdin was in middle east area (although it should be in china too but i'll pass that by) couldn't they have made it so she could be a 'real' princess of some African/southern country? I've seen the pictures and it seems like another rags to riches story (well they took out the chambermaid part now but) but in a european setting. I dunno if you catch what i'm saying but... yeah. I wish she could have her own culture.. or something like that. o_O something like Emperor's New Groove kinda setting... uhhh. haha


They wonder why Disneys new 2d movies are failing. Duh. their character designs are horrible. I hate how the characters look all effed up. I miss the old classics with actual good drawings. I dunno that's my opinion.

[PyTom]

Hm... I don't know of a Disney 2D movie that's come out since the Pixar guys took over Walt Disney Animation. That was a big shakeup, and I think it will be for the better... So far, pretty much everything Pixar has made has been excellent, and I don't see any reason why that would change just because they're working in 2D rather than 3D.

Granted, it's not the Pixar team working on these movies... but I'd hope that having the Pixar executives in charge of the 2D department will lead to the same quality.

[Sailor Kitty]

I'm not very happy for pixar doing more 3-d. I mean, their humans are not very well made. They should stick to inanimate things, like cars and toys, or animals that can't be filmed like that, like bugs or fish.

[PyTom]

I'm not sure that's really a fair criticism of pixar, though. There's this thing called the "uncanny valley", which says that the closer to human-looking you make a character, the more annoying little imperfections appear. Pixar deals with this by coming up with very stylized human characters, which stay far away from uncanny-valley land.

They also tend to make stories with non-human protagonists.

To quote director (of the Incredibles) Brad Bird: "There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail - to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What's wonderful about the medium of animation isn't recreating reality. It's distilling it."

[Sailor Kitty]

Ok, Maybe I should re-phrase that-

The movie with pixar humans in them is not very good.

I don't like the look of Pixar humans. But that is my opinion. Proll'y cause' I'm more of a dreamworks person.

[DaFool]

To quote director (of the Incredibles) Brad Bird: "There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail - to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What's wonderful about the medium of animation isn't recreating reality. It's distilling it."

And it is just one more step in building the proof for why 2D hentai makes for viable porn. It's all in the mind, after all.

*cough* okay... the quest should be immersion rather than realism. If a stylized world were to suck you in, then shouldn't that be as good a virtual environment as a perfectly-simulated one?

Back the the thread... hmmm the black princess smells of too much political correctness, but that's just me.

[musical74]

Something tells me I'm not going to like the new princess movie....

Based on what the others have said, I agree with Dafool - it sounds more like political correctness than anything else. Overall, I like Disney but their need to have *only evil people suffer because the there can't be ANYTHING long term happen to the good guys* gets tiring real fast. I'd almost rather have a Disney movie where the main heroine doesn't NEED a hero, she's strong enough to do things without someone helping her* AND have something happen to the good guys too....but I highly highly doubt that's gonna happen.