A website I follow posted an article about all the things wrong with Disney's Beauty and the Beast today and they linked to a youtube video about Beauty and the Beast's subliminal messaging. It was mostly silly, silly stuff: "look, the word 'sex' hidden in the animation a million times ifyousquintandmashittogetherabit". Firstly, do you really think that the top Disney executives sit their animators down and say "See here, fellas, you haven't fulfilled your quota of childish self-sabotaging graffiti yet - I want the word 'sex' sort-of-but-not-really scrawled at least ten times more in this film!" Really? If any of the so called 'subliminal' texts were deliberate (and it's a tenuous claim to make) I'd blame a mischievious animator or artist, not the company as a whole.
As for the other critisims? This is where it becomes interesting. I took a little time and watched a few of the youtuber's other videos and some of the points made are definitely more valid than the silly 'sex' thing: how about Disney's reinforcement of racial and gender stereotypes? How about the messages perpetuated about normality and physical appearance and sexuality? I think these are valid things to talk about - but always, always with a pinch of salt!
It's a dangerous thing to blame Disney for only portraying very beautiful people in their animated movies. We need to remember that the very nature of Disney animation means all characters are heavily stylised - and we should not be forgetting Disney heroes like Quasimodo and the Beast himself (who, it has been pointed out, is not even usually found attractive in his human form). Looking at the rest of Western media, particularly American media, it's very, very rare to find a television show or film in which even the supposedly unattractive characters are not visually pleasing. This is because film is a visual medium and people want to spend their time looking at visually pleasing images... not a crime, but it becomes hypocritical and silly very easily. To blame a single company for the perpetuation of this is foolish.
Would I (supposing I ever had any) allow my children to watch Beauty and the Beast? Yes. I think I would. Not at too young an age - I think perhaps early primary school is a good time to let children start watching Disney movies (my kids won't watch any films until they're able to hold a conversation about what they saw - I don't want to use the television as a tool of distraction rather than a medium for education and entertainment). And (as far as I can and if my husband agrees) I won't let them watch a film based on a written story until they've read the story. So no movies until the age of four or five. Wow. I wonder if I'll be able to do that?
Does that mean my kids won't be watching Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame until they're about fifteen and have bothered to wade through the depths of Victor Hugo's immense, tragic, somewhat batty novel? YES. YOU BET YOUR BOOTS THEY WON'T.
No comments:
Post a Comment