Disney Analysis and Link to Disney Princess Worksheet

 You can access my Disney Princess/Encanto Worksheet by clicking this LINK.

    I have always enjoyed Disney Films throughout my life, and especially as a child and even a teenager.  I was a big fan of The Lion King and Aladdin.  My all time favorite character in a Disney film is the Genie played by Robin Williams.  I have always watched Disney movies simply for the pleasure, but have heard some critique of messaging in some of the films from some of my co-workers in the teaching field who have children.  I really did not think too seriously about this at all until it was brought up in this class.  After watching the Disney slide deck, and reading the Linda Christensen article in the textbook, I am looking at some of the Disney stories a little bit differently.  I had always known that some of the older Disney movies were blatantly racist and sexist at times.  I remember that even at the time I was a teenager I was uncomfortable with the way the crows in the movie Dumbo were depicted.  At the time I just summarized my thoughts as "things were different back then at the time the movie was made".  After studying history, and becoming a history teacher, I realized just how wrong it really was.  That movie was made during the time of the Jim Crow laws of the south, and crows were portrayed as the stereotypes of black men of that time.  I was horrified by this.  I have been very limited in my viewing of more recent Disney movies as I have gotten older, but I have not seen anything that struck me as being "so incredibly wrong" as that particular movie and characters.

    

    After watching the slides and reading the article, I have to say that it was a lot different for me watching Encanto than it was for any other Disney movie in the past.  Looking at the film critically most likely took some of the enjoyment out of it for me, even though I have to say that I enjoyed the film anyway.  I was really trying to take in what each character was doing, expressing, potentially symbolizing, and looking for what subtle potential meaning I could take away from what I was seeing and hearing.  I was looking for things that were overtly blatant as well that could rise to the level of the crows in Dumbo.  I did not see anything that was overtly obvious in this film, and I saw that the messages were mostly positive.  I took quite a few Spanish classes over the years, and I remembered that Mira means "look" in Spanish.  I was wondering if this meaning, and the fact that she wore glasses had any meaning.  I decided to look online and I discovered that the name and the glasses do have symbolism.  It has to do with "how we view the world and each other".  It was also interesting to see how the crew of the film used attributes of their own family members for the superpowers given to the different members of the Madrigal family.  The link I provided gives some insight into why the writers and crew gave certain family members the gifts they received, and why Mirabel was not given a power that anyone could see on the surface, but in actuality she did have one.  

    I was intrigued that this movie did not have a villain in the classical sense.  It teases that Bruno might be the villain at the beginning, but that is quickly squashed when the audience sees just how fragile, heartbroken, quirky, and possibly mentally ill Bruno is.  Abuela also comes across as a villain at times in the way she treats Mirabel, and also her having pushed Bruno away.  This really is not the case either.  Abuela actually had the best intentions to keep her family strong, but her execution of these intentions actually were detrimental to keeping the family strong.  The family was essentially breaking under the weight of Abuela's expectations of the family.  This breaking is most quickly realized in the stress weighing upon the physically strongest character, Luisa.  In the link I provided it discusses how Luisa was supposed to be the "rock" of the family who conquered any troubles family members were having.  She begins to show signs that this is beginning to break her as the family trouble mounts.  It was rewarding to see that the happy ending of this movie did not result in a wedding of a prince and princess character.  It results in one actually being called off because Isabella did not want to get married to the prince-like character.  I discuss how this may potentially be LGBTQ on the worksheet as we discussed from the post movie discussion.  The ending was happy because an entire family that was on the road to ruin was saved by the character that supposedly had no powers.  The reward was a family saved, restored their powers, reunited with Bruno, and finally respecting and appreciating Mirabel as the key to family happiness.  It was definitely a fun movie to watch, and now I find myself doing Google searches about other Disney movies and what the symbolism and messaging may be about.  I am going deep down the rabbit hole....lol