Disney and Intersectionality

fafafixit: things were never the same for gene after that

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:35:10 -0400

things were never the same for gene after that

irresistible-revolution: feministdisney: xelamanrique: look...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:45:31 -0400

feministdisney:

xelamanrique:

look who’s finally joined!

look who got pushed to the side

reason no. 12326543742624743 why i wasn’t super outraged about the Merida redesign

For the life of me, I cannot place the mother below Lady and the Tramp in the Disney mother gifs a little while bit back. Can you tell me what movie that's from? Thank you!

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:30:41 -0400

That’s Jim’s mom from Treasure Planet! :)

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 04:27:29 -0400

bibbitybobbitywho: Tiana’s beautiful mother, Eudora, doesn’t...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:41:14 -0400

bibbitybobbitywho:

Tiana’s beautiful mother, Eudora, doesn’t get enough lovin’ from the Disney community <3

whenyouwishupondisney: I really wish they would have put this...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:01:58 -0400

whenyouwishupondisney:

I really wish they would have put this in the movie. its just a sweet moment shared between Tiana and the Queen

this blog is SO important sorry you probably get this a lot but thank u for this blog i want my queer poc princess

Thu, 16 May 2013 20:31:58 -0400

Aww its always nice to hear people react positively to the blog!

So I just heard on my dash that Disney pulled out the Merida redesign because of the backlash. Did they do the same for some of the others in the line like Pocahontas or Mulan? Or did they get stuck with being paler and the forever 21 earrings and all that? :/

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:02:08 -0400

They did fix Mulan.

But Pocahontas was left the same, sadly. Also new whiter Jasmine was left too :(

pinkrosesbluebow: What is it like out there where they glow? If...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:27:10 -0400

pinkrosesbluebow:

What is it like out there where they glow?

If Tangled were set in India….

tsu-yaa: Me as Snow White As promised the pictures from the...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:30:11 -0400

tsu-yaa:

Me as Snow White

As promised the pictures from the shooting at Schloss Puchberg - Wels (Austria) I got the pictures yesterday, so here is just a small bunch of ‘em :) hope you like it!

Pictures by Martina Pöll
Edit by me

Design by shoomlah

You can find the other pictures here - klick me -

taijavigilia: I was stuck in the car for about eight hours over...

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:52:44 -0400

taijavigilia:

I was stuck in the car for about eight hours over the weekend while going to visit the in-laws and my mind was just wandering around. Part of me ships Merida with MacGuffin but part of me is like.. ehh.. it’s more likely she married some complete outsider or no-one at all.

So in one of the alternate versions I came up with Abderrahim. The third son of an Iberian nobleman he chose the life of a scholar and was on his way back from drawing complete map of the Baltic Sea when the vessel he was traveling on capsized in an autumn storm and the few survivors floated to shore not far from Castle Dunbroch. With her father’s health starting to fail Merida took to looking after the injured and before long the adventurous duo were inseparable and Abderrahim’s despair over his lost research forgotten as Merida showed him the Highlands. Three years later at her coronation Merida announced that they were to marry. Initially the clansmen disagreed but as Merida’s influence grew and Dunbroch and neighboring clans prospered beyond everyone’s expectations with the new trade routes to south the doubters were silenced. This picture is Queen Merida and King Abderrahim on the tenth birthday of their firstborn twins, crown prince Fergus and crown princess Jamila.

Oh there was a load of other stuff as well but another (story)time.

Dear Merida Supporters,

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:15:20 -0400

irresistible-revolution:

feministdisney:

lipsredasroses:

Merida is NOT a good role model because she is not “traditionally feminine.” She IS a good role model because she learns from her mistakes, is fiercely loyal to herself and family, will do anything to protect her mother (at the end of the movie), and is free spirited. She is NOT a good role model because she doesn’t like to wear fancy dresses. She is NOT a good role model because she is “anti-femininity.” If you think she is a good role model because she only likes to spend time with Angus, shoot arrows, and go on adventures in the woods you missed the entire point of Brave and Merida’s character arch in the movie.

Also, while you are defending Merida please do not bash the other princesses. They do have more to offer than just sitting around looking pretty waiting for Prince Charming to come and save them. They are all actors (actresses?) in their own movies. So most of the princesses couldn’t shoot an arrow but that doesn’t mean they are bad role models. So the majority of the princesses end up with a prince, that doesn’t change the fact they are all strong women. Being with a man doesn’t change the fact that these women survived abusive homes, stepped up to their responsibilities, saved their prince (Ariel, Belle, Tiana, and Rapunzel all saved their prince at least once in the movie), achieved their dreams, and dictated their future. Also, all the princesses are conventionally beautiful, including Merida. Merida is thin and white. Sure her face is more cartoonish than the other princesses but that doesn’t mean she is some ugly duckling.

All I am asking is, can we please stop bashing femininity and girls who are traditionally feminine when writing about Merida? These articles got really old a year ago.

I haven’t seen too much femininity bashing per se but I agree that I dislike a lot of the dialogue surrounding the redesign. There’s been a lot of emphasis on Merida being “the princess we were WAITING for” (which is why I haven’t published so much on the petition since the introduction focuses heavily on “we were waiting for a strong princess”) and “she saves herself rather than waiting around for a guy unlike the other princesses” which really, does not fully describe most of the other princesses. & the whole “we finally got this princess” thing ignores how much PoC princesses like Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas contributed to the whole independence/action sequence princess options.

And yeah, they all had guys and romance, but really, that wasn’t even anything in Mulan’s movie in terms of affecting how she moved through the plot. She did everything on her own, for her own reasons, and she saved everyone by herself.

I mean it’s great Merida exists but we don’t have to act like she’s groundbreaking on every level in order to disagree with the hyper-traditionally-feminine redesign which is a problem because it does not agree with her character, and assumes all princesses have to be traditionally feminine regardless even of their personal preferences and movies. And considering that Disney makes a fair amount of effort to try and define girlhood in their marketing, that is something to be concerned about.

Thank you! I signed the petition because the redesign was whack but the language it was couched in made me uncomfortable and ultimately prevented me from sharing it on my blog.

Let’s just do a quick recap of what Merida is lauded for in this petition shall we? Her love for and skill in combat, her ability to ‘save herself’, her eschewing of ‘princess’ trappings, her ‘natural’ appearance. These are all fine traits, and deserve highlighting, but the context in which Merida is celebrated is often completely ignorant of how race, femininity and gender intersect on Disney princess bodies.

Mulan was a woman who didn’t quite fit the rigid gender expectations foisted on her, who joined the army to save her father, and who ended up inspiring an army and saving her nation.

Tiana overcame all obstacles to realize her dream: owning her own business.

Jasmine openly spoke out against the customs of arranged marriage and slipped out of the palace to explore life beyond her sheltered walls.

Kida saves Atlantis and helps rebuild an empire.

All these princesses have something in common: they are princesses of color.

Why aren’t these characters lauded as ‘the princesses we’ve been waiting for? Why aren’t these women recognized as ‘breaking the princess mold’? Why aren’t they celebrated as groundbreaking feminist icons?

It’s because within white heteropatriarchy, femininity is always implicitly coded as white, and women of color are expected, and often violently forced, into situations that are considered unfeminine: fending for ourselves, fighting off oppressive fathers, saving ourselves because we’re ‘stronger’ than the white fragile, princess-type women. When strength and independence is demanded of you, it becomes just as oppressive as when weakness and dependence are ascribed to you. The struggles to assert humanity and agency are different for white women than they are for women of color, and yet this truth remains unacknowledged in these princess conversations. Merida is hailed so much because she breaks the white princess mold. Mulan and Jasmine and the other princesses of color aren’t celebrated because they’re performing what’s ‘expected’ of WOC.

Merida is a groundbreaking white princess. But let’s be real: she’s still a white princess in a pantheon that’s glaringly white. We can celebrate her story without diminishing those of Mulan and Kida, and we can love Merida while being realistic about how far Disney has to go in deconstructing racialized femininity.

shoomlah: God I love dagged sleeves. Almost as much as I love...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:38:17 -0400

shoomlah:

God I love dagged sleeves. Almost as much as I love slashed ones. I just want to dag and slash everything I can get my hands on.

I’ve wanted Maleficent to be the first villain in the series for a while now, ever since I made the mental leap between Maleficent’s horns and 15th century horned hennins. The time period works out pretty well, actually, since I wanted her to look a little more dated than Aurora’s 1480’s getup- both houppelandes and horned hennins were all the rage during the early- to mid-1400’s, and they make for pretty good analogues to her official costuming. Sexy stuff.

This proves more than any of the previous pieces that these are adaptations, not improvements. I mean, look at the original Maleficent design- how does one improve on PERFECTION

-C

See the rest of the series HERE
Read the FAQ HERE
Buy prints HERE

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 02:25:47 -0400

I forgot to say

Tue, 14 May 2013 02:04:18 -0400

We hit 4,000 followers!

fuckyeahcracker: Effects Of Thinking White People Are “All Like That”: Literally nothing other than...

Tue, 14 May 2013 01:59:57 -0400

fuckyeahcracker:

Effects Of Thinking White People Are “All Like That”:

Literally nothing other than white people having their feelings hurt on the internet

I’m not joking there is no real world consequence of this

Effects Of Thinking People of Color Are “All Like That”:

Saudi student is literally surrounded by FBI for cooking rice under terrorist suspicions

White people literally can not associate positive words with Black faces because of racism

More white people use drugs but Black people are sent to jail for drugs at 10 times the rate that white people are

Black people who “sound Black” earn less money than those who don’t because of associations with stereotypes. Black people who “sound Black” are less likely to get called back for jobs

Black children grow up literally associating being Black with being bad and ugly

White people when tested shot more unarmed Black subjects than armed and unarmed white subjects

Hate crimes increase after Boston tragedy

Moroccan High School Student is linked to Boston tragedy for being Brown

Bangladeshi man is beaten by people out of racism

NYPD Commissioner wants Black and Latino men to fear him after the police targeted literally 90 percent Black and Latino men in New York and humiliating them by frisking them in public under the assumption that they had weapons. Studies found that white men were the ones who overwhelmingly had weapons while Black and Latino men didn’t

White people blaming and convicting Black men for crimes they never committed and everyone believing them because of racism

Stop and Frisk, ruled unconstitutional was practiced by New York police disproportionately and unfairly affecting 90% Black and Latino men because of racism

Universities throwing racist ‘Fiesta Party’ homogenizing culture with extreme racism

Here are some of the numbers on hate crimes against People of Color and btw, Neo Naziism is increasing!

Every 28 Hours an African American is Extrajudicially Murdered in the U.S.

Black people 3 times more likely to be arrested for Marijuana

Black people receive much harsher sentencing than white people for the same crimes do I need to go on?

But yeah, white people’s feelings :*(

What are your thoughts on the new live action Cinderella? To me it just looks whitewashed cause I've been comparing it to Brandy one.

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:16:30 -0400

I haven’t heard or read anything about it.

cosplayingwhileblack: X Character: Giselle Series: Enchanted

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:12:55 -0400

cosplayingwhileblack:

X

Character: Giselle

Series: Enchanted

Johnny Depp has also said before that he doesn't actually know what tribe he might be descended from and he won't find out because apparently it's depressing to think that he "might be the product of terrible rape". I love Johnny most of the time, but this whole thing with Tonto is just making me side-eye him pretty hard....

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:11:00 -0400

Yeah, I do not know his racial background so I don’t want to comment too much about it.

But yes Tonto is still a racist character.

I saw the Lone Ranger trailer for the first time today and the fact that Johnny Depp was playing a Native American character frustrated me to no end. BUT I've heard rumors that he is part Cherokee - do you know anything about this/have an opinion on the matter?

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:05:00 -0400

I don’t think the problem is whether or not Johnny Depp is part Cherokee or not. There’s a whole problem with Tonto being a stereotype of a ~Cowboy Western Indian~. I mean Tonto could easily existed but he could of been portrayed respectfully and not with all these racist stereotypes attached to the character.

Obviously it would of been great if a Native American actor was cast but the character would still be SUPER problematic.