Disney chose...poorly
There's a video out there critiquing Disney, which Fox in the Stars linked in her journal, and which recently came up on a message board we both frequent. It’s interesting, though, like a lot of criticism, a mixed bag. I really wish they had done a better job of dealing with the fact that most Disney movies are retellings of folk and fairy tales (or other people’s stories), so I thought I’d take a stab at it by looking at how they could have done various stories less problematically. (Yeah, shocking angle for an author to take, huh?)
I’m limiting myself to movies discussed in the video that I’m familiar with enough to discuss - both in terms of the actual Disney movie and in terms of whatever it was based on. And I’m skipping over the prevalent problem of racism because that has a really simple solution - don’t do it, dummies.
We’ll being with The Little Mermaid. Let’s see, they could have… What if… Hmm… Forget it. It’s hopeless. There have to be better mermaid tales out there, and if not, they could have made one up or chosen a different tale altogether. I mean, doing a literal fish out of water story is cute, so I can see why they chose to do it, but, gah, the story is just so full of yuck.
Moving on.
They (and I) see Mulan as pretty good, except for the fact that she goes back to her family to, presumably, be a little woman at the end. That, as far as I could discover, is how the tale ends, traditionally. So, why not change that? It’s not like Disney’s never changed the end of a story before. Why not have her accept a government job, go home and tell her family, then settle down to work. And, hey, there’s nothing wrong with her also having Li Shang’s interest. It is possible to have a man and a job, after all. And there’s nothing wrong with portraying having a relationship of equals.
The video interviews a domestic violence counselor who finds Beauty and the Beast very problematic as the message of a nice girl taming a beast feeds nicely into why people stay with abusers. I can see her point, and I think the problematic message is part of the tale, though not usually as heavily as Disney made it. Which is really bizarre as I think they were trying to say something about judging people by their appearances, considering Belle’s other suitor.
So, our Beast gets cursed because a couple of fairies have a bet over human shallowness, because his parents were beasts to their peasants, because he stood up to an evil lord who has magic on his side, because of a misunderstanding with a magical creature, take your pick. They’d result in slightly different stories, of course, but the point is that the Beast is a good person, not Disney’s jerk cursed to be as ugly outside as he was in. As for the curse being broken with true love, that can be kept, not as part of a lesson, but because either the bet’s been won/lost, because he should have a chance, or because *pft* like that’s gonna happen, depending on how he ended up a beast.
All right, now we’ve got our nice Beast living in his woodsy home with the few servants who didn’t abandon him (if he’s still gentry of some kind) or by himself or with a nice old couple who took him in or…doesn’t really matter, the point is, he’s a perfectly nice guy, but he now sounds and looks scary, so he avoids most people. Belle, hunting in the woods, traveling from point a to point b, picking herbs, looking for a lost village child, avoiding her creepy suitor, or other good reason to be out there, gets caught in bad weather and takes refuge in the Beast’s home. (I dislike the prisoner aspect so she finds the Beast not her father.)
She discovers that he’s a beast, he explains why (or doesn’t), and they have enough in common that she becomes a regular visitor to his home. They fall in love. Complications ensue because of her creepy suitor and/or that evil lord, which they face together successfully. He gets un-cursed. They live happily ever after. (Heck, you can even make the curse permanent, an even stronger statement about appearances.)
That’s a little bit different Beauty and the Beast, but it’s still recognizable and, more importantly, it won’t trip anyone’s domestic violence alert. I also suddenly have the urge to write this story. … Critique Disney and cure writers block with one stone?
I’m limiting myself to movies discussed in the video that I’m familiar with enough to discuss - both in terms of the actual Disney movie and in terms of whatever it was based on. And I’m skipping over the prevalent problem of racism because that has a really simple solution - don’t do it, dummies.
We’ll being with The Little Mermaid. Let’s see, they could have… What if… Hmm… Forget it. It’s hopeless. There have to be better mermaid tales out there, and if not, they could have made one up or chosen a different tale altogether. I mean, doing a literal fish out of water story is cute, so I can see why they chose to do it, but, gah, the story is just so full of yuck.
Moving on.
They (and I) see Mulan as pretty good, except for the fact that she goes back to her family to, presumably, be a little woman at the end. That, as far as I could discover, is how the tale ends, traditionally. So, why not change that? It’s not like Disney’s never changed the end of a story before. Why not have her accept a government job, go home and tell her family, then settle down to work. And, hey, there’s nothing wrong with her also having Li Shang’s interest. It is possible to have a man and a job, after all. And there’s nothing wrong with portraying having a relationship of equals.
The video interviews a domestic violence counselor who finds Beauty and the Beast very problematic as the message of a nice girl taming a beast feeds nicely into why people stay with abusers. I can see her point, and I think the problematic message is part of the tale, though not usually as heavily as Disney made it. Which is really bizarre as I think they were trying to say something about judging people by their appearances, considering Belle’s other suitor.
So, our Beast gets cursed because a couple of fairies have a bet over human shallowness, because his parents were beasts to their peasants, because he stood up to an evil lord who has magic on his side, because of a misunderstanding with a magical creature, take your pick. They’d result in slightly different stories, of course, but the point is that the Beast is a good person, not Disney’s jerk cursed to be as ugly outside as he was in. As for the curse being broken with true love, that can be kept, not as part of a lesson, but because either the bet’s been won/lost, because he should have a chance, or because *pft* like that’s gonna happen, depending on how he ended up a beast.
All right, now we’ve got our nice Beast living in his woodsy home with the few servants who didn’t abandon him (if he’s still gentry of some kind) or by himself or with a nice old couple who took him in or…doesn’t really matter, the point is, he’s a perfectly nice guy, but he now sounds and looks scary, so he avoids most people. Belle, hunting in the woods, traveling from point a to point b, picking herbs, looking for a lost village child, avoiding her creepy suitor, or other good reason to be out there, gets caught in bad weather and takes refuge in the Beast’s home. (I dislike the prisoner aspect so she finds the Beast not her father.)
She discovers that he’s a beast, he explains why (or doesn’t), and they have enough in common that she becomes a regular visitor to his home. They fall in love. Complications ensue because of her creepy suitor and/or that evil lord, which they face together successfully. He gets un-cursed. They live happily ever after. (Heck, you can even make the curse permanent, an even stronger statement about appearances.)
That’s a little bit different Beauty and the Beast, but it’s still recognizable and, more importantly, it won’t trip anyone’s domestic violence alert. I also suddenly have the urge to write this story. … Critique Disney and cure writers block with one stone?