Moana and The Rock

I read an interesting article by Forbes today. It spoke about how the casting of such high profile actors as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson improves sales and hype. Forbes claimed that the casting of Robin Williams as the Genie in Aladdin increased audience turnout by a lot, so doing the same with The Rock will help Moana's revenue. What an interesting thought...I guess it's a clever move for Disney from a business standpoint.

Either way, let's enjoy the newest Moana clip, a short snippet of one of the original songs in the film!

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The Third-Wave

For a lack of a better analogy for my hook, we’re going to start with some math. Imagine we start with the first-wave princesses at a value of 100, representing 100% of the films depicting traditional gender roles. Now, take that and divide it in half. You get 50. This represents an improvement in gender depiction in the second-wave princesses, but we’re only half way there. Now, divide by two again. You get 25. This represents where the third-wave princesses stand on gender—still an improvement, but not as drastic as the improvement from first to second-wave. In other words, I believe third-wave princesses—Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, and Anna—improve in some aspects compared to second-wave princesses, but not as much in others.

(Wow, wasn’t that fun? That is how a nerd, aka me, thinks)

A hallmark of the “new wave” princesses is that they are born into very restrictive circumstances, but vehemently fight against it.



They all break free, but what happens after that is what sets second-wave apart from third-wave princesses. Sadly, for the second-wave princesses, they fall back into domestic life in the end, once again imprisoned by the patriarchy. They marry their man and receive approval from their fathers in doing so.


Ariel receives a nod from Triton, the Emperor approves of Aladdin, Mulan’s father blesses her marriage to Shang… However, third-wave princesses achieve their dreams and keep them. Although Tiana gets married, she runs her own restaurant; Rapunzel gets married, but on her own accord; Merida changes tradition to remain free from being betrothed. Mind you, neither Merida nor Anna get married in their respective films. This is the third-wave princesses’ biggest improvement from second-wave princesses. Their female freedom is not compromised by the need of male approval.

Some aspects that did not change much were the characteristics of the princesses themselves, and their relationships with their mothers and other female characters. The second-wave and third-wave princesses are all curious, headstrong, and to some extent, brave. For the most part, they actively make sacrifices to get what they want. Ariel decides on her own to consult Ursula; Mulan takes her father’s place and leads the defense of the Forbidden Palace from the Huns; Belle actively refuses Gaston’s advances and stays free of his misogyny. Second-wave princesses already have these characteristics, so it is not a bad thing that the third-wave princesses do not differ much.

Rapunzel defends herself using her hair and frying pan as a weapon;

Tiana works hard to make her dream of opening a restaurant come true;

Merida acts against her mother’s will to keep from being married off to a suitor.

However, the continued exclusion of good and meaningful female relationships is an area that needs improvement. None of the second-wave princesses have female friends, or interact with “good” female characters. Pocahontas has a female friend, but she is inconsequential to the plot. Even Ariel’s undersea animal friends are male. Even though third-wave princesses have better mother-daughter relationships, there is often something off-putting about them. Tiana is very close to her mother, but her mother doesn’t play a crucial role in the film and neither does Rapunzel’s mother. In fact, in Rapunzel’s case, she even develops a toxic relationship with Mother Gothel, who is an evil stepmother of sorts. Even in Brave and Frozen, where mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships are the focus, they start out rocky and slowly mend.

With these areas of great improvement and others of little improvement, I would place third-wave princesses at a little step above second-wave princesses, but they are on an upward trend. I can’t wait to see what Moana has in store!

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News from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

News has reached my ears that Star Wars (which, again, is a part of Disney, so I can rightfully rant and rave about it here) has released who it casted as Lando Calrissian in the new Han Solo movie (!!!!), and it's a guy named Donald Glover. Mind you, I've never heard of him, but the internet is loving it, so it must have been a good choice!

So @starwars really did get Donald Glover as the new Lando! #yes #yay pic.twitter.com/K8OszvEClQ

— Ben B. Singer (@benbsinger) October 21, 2016

Here is an article about the news, featuring a side by side picture of Billy Dee Williams, who played Lando in the original trilogy, and the newly cast Donald Glover. They do look fairly alike, unlike Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo (I still can't get over how he doesn't look like Harrison Ford at all...he better have some great acting skills or I'm going to be disappointed).

I'm sure this actor will do a great job and will keep the Star Wars empire going strong. May the force be with him.
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A Tangled Mess

Ah, yes, thanks for the applause! I know that was SUCH a clever title. I’m sure you’ve NEVER heard that one before…joking of course!

But it is true. Tangled is a tangled mess of a “third-wave” princess movie. Just as we thought we made some progress in the gender and race department, we return to a variation on the trope of a white damsel in distress…or so some critics say. After watching the film, however, I agree to some extent that Rapunzel is not much better than her second-wave predecessors. Within the wide range of second-wave princesses, Rapunzel falls somewhere in the middle.

In my opinion, the second-wave princesses fall on a spectrum of feminism from Ariel on the most pseudo-feminist side to Belle on the most real feminist side. Rapunzel is in the middle, somewhere better than Ariel but worse than Belle. She is better than Ariel mostly because she can save herself when she is in immediate danger, besides the fact that she needs Flynn, a man, to ultimately save her from her greatest danger…but we’ll talk about that later. Rapunzel actively uses her resources to fend for herself, using her hair as a rope and lasso and her frying pan as a weapon, which is an improvement from Ariel, who needs Eric to defeat Ursula for her. In the end, Rapunzel also has authority over Flynn, chastising him for changing the story when he narrates the end (“Eugene!”). These actions paint a stronger, more self-reliant girl than past princesses.

However, although Rapunzel is a better princess than Ariel, she is not as independent as Belle. First, she still dreams of being with a man. When Flynn is dying, he confesses that “you [Rapunzel] were my next dream,” and Rapunzel replies, heartbroken and with tears in her eyes, “and you were mine.” This shows how even though she dreamed of adventure and breaking out of her prison in the beginning, her dreams changed once a man was introduced into her world, eventually stripping her independence from her, much like Ariel. Furthermore, even though Rapunzel can save herself from smaller dangers with her hair and her frying pan, she cannot ultimately save herself from Mother Gothel. Flynn is the vessel by which Rapunzel leaves her tower in the first place, and in the end, Flynn is the one who cuts her hair, finally breaking her shackles and setting her free from Mother Gothel’s control.

When comparing the male characters in Beauty and the Beast and Tangled, we can also see a step back. Both films have a macho man character; Beauty and the Beast has Gaston, and Tangled has Flynn Rider. They’re both very selfish and boast to be the “ladies’ man,” but Beauty portrays that characteristic as bad because Belle rejects Gaston’s advances on him, eventually making him the bad guy, whereas Tangled portrays it as good because Rapunzel falls in love with Flynn, who becomes a good guy in the end. We can see set-backs in Tangled from Beauty and the Beast on both male and female fronts.

There are areas in which Tangled is better than second-wave princess films, such as The Little Mermaid, but there are also set backs, so overall, ideologically, Rapunzel should be considered a second-wave princess.

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Rogue One!!!

The new Rogue One trailer just came out, and let me tell you, IT LOOKS SO AMAZING!! Watch it below!

This new installment of the Star Wars story looks more like the traditional action movie and less like the fantasy of the trilogies. It's probably Lucasfilm's, which became a part of Disney as of four years ago (four years ago??? It only seems like one!), attempt at bringing in a wider audience who were put off by the romance in the trilogies. It's all about the money...
Anyway, the Internet is not only buzzing about the trailer, but also a reaction to the trailer, specifically Kylo Ren's. Hollywood Reporter wrote a short article about it, which you can read here, or you can watch the video below.

It's quite funny, especially since Kylo Ren is such an angry, angsty teen-like character. I'm looking forward to seeing Rogue One as a divergence from the trilogies while I wait for Episode VIII...
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The Beast Proposes to the Beauty

Things like this just warm my fragile little heart! Watch the video below:

Awww...so adorable!! :' )
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Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Chapter 6

Orenstein is back! This time with a new vengeance on children’s toys, the Grimm’s brothers, and Twilight…

First, Orenstein rants and raves about her personal dilemma about whether or not to buy her daughter a toy gun. She waffles on how it’s not a typical girl toy, but, oh, it might make her child violent. I say why not? It’s just a toy! There is no reason to read into its meaning that much. I can assure her that children do not think deeply into the meaning of their toys when they’re playing with them. I surely didn’t. When I was younger, I didn’t think anything of playing with lightsabers with my brother, or playing with my Barbie dolls when my friend came over. It was just play. We would imagine different scenes for our lightsaber and sword fights, make up new moves, and pretend our Barbie dolls were doing different things, which leads me to Orenstein’s next concern. Orenstein was concerned that buying specific toys would limit her child’s creativity, forcing her to only play with them in certain ways. But really, every toy you buy, no matter what it is, has a “purpose” unless you’re buying your child a plank of wood. A doll could be an inanimate friend for dress-up, a tea set for tea parties, a truck to go vroom-vroom with… So Orenstein, just buy your daughter the darn toy gun already. It matches her cowgirl hat anyway.

Orenstein also comments on Grimm’s versions of the fairy tales Disney remade. She again worries that the goriness of the Brothers’ stories will have a negative impact on her daughter. She says she would rather read Disney stories to her children, saying, “Maybe I had been hasty in dismissing fairy tales as a bastion of passive heroines and Prince Charming hype.” Here, she finally admits the paradox of her motherhood — she wants her daughter to “do and be whatever she dreams of as an adult, but [she also hopes] she will find her Prince (or Princess) Charming and make [her, Orenstein] a grandma.” Well isn’t that so contradictory to all of her previous complaints about princess culture? If she feels this way, why is she so appalled at the Disney Princesses? I think, Orenstein is finally realizing that her ideas about feminism do not match with what she actually feels as a mother. In Chapter 5, she gave an anecdote about an incident at Target, where she vehemently opposed to buying the fairy doll that her daughter wanted, but upon seeing the sad and confused look on her daughter's face, caved in and bought the toy anyway. Maybe her lapse into feeling this way is because she is so ingrained with traditional gender stereotypes from her childhood…or maybe it’s because princesses are not actually all that bad. Children need fantasy in their lives because their imaginations are so much more active than adults, and they need something to feed them. They need to play and pretend to be princesses and monsters because it’s a natural part of childhood. Nobody can take that away.

In my opinion, Orenstein takes her opposition to Disney princesses a little too far. Sometimes, you just have to let a child’s imagination run wild.

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