#nathalia holt

[loveislanduk]

I have exactly one thing to add!

bianca majolie brought the nutcracker to america! no one gave a shit about tchaikovsky until this little five foot nothing italian immigrant brought it to disney! isn't that crazy? and she was a big part of the genius behind pinnochio, cinderella, bambi, and dumbo among others!!!! you go bianca you rock!

in other news im only like 50% done with this book and its probably going to be my favorite book of the year its genuinely that good so far tens across the board.

I just finished a book called The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt, about women animators at the Walt Disney Studio. I cannot believe the shit I found out.

(Hopefully I got this all correct, I was listening to an audiobook instead of reading a hard copy, so I can't consult it for name spellings and the like. I'm relying on Google, and well, we know how that goes sometimes.)

Some things I learned from this book. -Walt Disney became a personal champion of women in the animation department, arguing not just that they were as talented as men but that they could bring something to storytelling that men could not. After his death, the number of women in the animation and story departments plummeted, along with the animation department itself. -But he also paid women way less. (Except Mary Blair.)

Not just women, but many animators had a hard time getting on-screen credit for their work. This was one of the issues that led to a massive strike in 1941 that tore the department in two, temporarily shut down the studio, and resulted in a lot of people, both union and non-union, losing their jobs when it finally reopened.

On the rare occasion women did get credit, they were sometimes ignored by reviewers.

The second woman to be hired to the animation department, Grace Huntington, was a pilot who held multiple speed and altitude records. She eventually quit the studio with the hopes of getting a full time aviation job, but died young of TB before her career could take off.

Traditional animation is apparently a terrible way to make money. Only a handful of the early animated feature-length films made more at the box office than it took to make them.

Women animators were drawing things for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast as early as the 1930s.

Men thought drawing fairies was unmanly, so the fairy sequence set to Nutcracker music in Fantasia was drawn and directed entirely by women.

While the women animators were doing that, the men drew super gross racist and sexist centaurs to Beethoven music, and the reviewers all hated it. (Essentially they were like HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO BEETHOVEN.) - Generally, male animators tended to like slapstick comedy in their cartoons, while women tended to be more about storytelling and character development.

Obviously there were exceptions to that rule, like Walt Disney and Mark Davis.

Disney hired an LSU professor to write Song of the South. When everyone pointed out to him this was a terrible idea, he hired a Communist Jew from New York as co-writer for "balance."

This went about as well as you'd expect.

When the LSU professor demanded his co-writer get taken off the script, Disney replaced him with another "progressive" white guy.

Apparently he never considered hiring an African-American writer.

Literally everyone, including the studio's legal team, told him not to make this movie, much less hire a white guy from Baton Rouge to write it.

The lead actor James Baskett, who won an Honorary Academy Award for the role, couldn't go to the premiere because it was held in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the Communist got put on Cinderella. He interpreted the story as a worker rising up against her oppressors.

This is also known as the correct way to interpret Cinderella.

Apparently the writer (so sorry, I'm forgetting his name) included a "violent" scene in which Cinderella goes after her stepmother and stepsisters.

I have no more details than that, but apparently the other animators made him take it out.

I'm now just picturing Cinderella stalking around her house with a raised butcher knife in her hand like in "Psycho."

Artist Mary Blair was art director for many of the classic Disney movies, including Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Disney loved her work so much that when she had to move to Long Island for her husband's job, Disney let her work remotely and fly back and forth from New York to Los Angeles.

She was responsible for the rich colors and design choices in the princess movies. She resigned part way through "Sleeping Beauty" but the art director after her used her designs for Maleficent.

Her husband, Lee Blair, was also an animator for the studio before he left to fight in World War II. He was apparently extremely jealous of Mary's artistic talent, and when he returned from Europe, he moved the family to Long Island, became an alcoholic, and started abusing her and later their children. Mary didn't feel she could go to Walt, or any of her other friends at the studio like Retta Scott and Mark and Alice Davis, because domestic violence and divorce were so taboo back then.

Even after the move, Disney let her work remotely, and she spent a lot of time flying between New York and Los Angeles. She eventually resigned hoping to work on her marriage (this didn't really work, though her husband did eventually start going to AA meetings after spending a year in jail for drunk driving) but was later rehired to help design the It's A Small World ride.

Everyone who worked on that ride hated the song btw.

The men apparently got over the idea of drawing fairies making their balls fall off or something by the time they were making Peter Pan, but one of them still asked why Tinker Bell "had to be so naughty".

101 Dalmations was the first animated film to be made using Xerox technology, which decimated the studio's female-dominated ink and paint department (their job was to trace over the animators' work). The Xerox machines could only make black and white at first, which is why so much of that movie is so colorless compared to the earlier Disney films Mary Blair worked on.

The silver lining was everyone got to play with puppies while they were making it because Disney ordered a whole bunch of them to just be there in the studio for the animators to draw.

Speaking of cute animals, the Burbank lot was home to a bunch of stray cats. Disney liked them being there because they hunted mice, so he didn't like when employees fed them.

Disney hated 101 Dalmations, because of the Xerox machines, but it made more of a profit than any of his previous films, because of the Xerox machines.

Julie Andrews originally turned down the role of Mary Poppins because she was pregnant, and Disney promised to wait on her. (Joss Whedon, take notes.)

After Walt died of lung cancer, the animation department was nearly killed and pretty much stopped hiring women. Mary Blair, who had been almost as influential to Disney's art as Walt, was edged out and by the time new animators started working on the Disney Renaissance films, they didn't even know who she was.

Many of the women who left the studio went on to work for Little Golden Books and other children's book publishing companies.

One of the few women animators at the company at this time, Heidi Guedel, who drew Tigger, left with Don Bluth when he departed to form his own company in 1979.

When The Little Mermaid was in production, there was only one woman animator--she may have been the only woman in the entire story department, I don't remember.

Disney then began hiring more women animators at the directive of then-Disney CEO Mike Eisner and head of animation Jeffrey Katzenberg.

One of the women screenwriters working on Beauty and the Beast (I think Linda Woolverton, but it may have been Brenda Chapman) wrote a scene in which Belle puts pins on a map showing where all she hopes to travel.

The animators changed the scene in the storyboards so that Belle is in the kitchen making a cake instead. When the screenwriter saw it, she apparently raged BELLE DOES NOT MAKE CAKES!

Pixar at this time had no women in its animation department.

Brenda Chapman became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Brave. During her acceptance speech, she talked about her daughter Emma.

When making Frozen, Disney held a "sister summit" of women discussing their relationships with their sisters and other women. Men at the summit were not allowed to speak.

btw Brenda Chapman also worked on The Prince of Egypt. (I did not learn this from the book, I learned it just now while looking her up on imdb.)

If I have had a very bad day, and am very tired, then the mere mention of Howard Ashman's name will make me break down in tears.

[khofiecloud]

Books I want to read during this academic year

Fiction:

The sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang

The poppy war trilogy by R.F Kuang

The gilded ones trilogy by Namina Forna

My year of rest of relaxation

The picture of Dorian gray by Oscar Wilde

The queen’s gambit by Walter Tevis

The giver by Louis Lowry

Alice in wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Just kids by Patti Smith

Little women by Louisa May Alcott

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

And then there were none by Agatha Christie

The alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Tram 83 by Fiston Nasser Mwanza Mujila

The War of Buttons by Louis Pergaud

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Nonfiction:

A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking

The art of war by Sun Tzu

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

It's a lot of books, but one of my goals this year is to is to read and finish more books. If you like this list and have any recs to share, please comment them.

[audikatia]

I'll be honest, it was a lot of rereads this year because 1) I love rereading favs and 2) so many of the new books I read this year were just eh.

Total list with ratings below:

Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage by Nathalia Holt ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Maid by Nita Prose ⭐️⭐️

Book Lovers by Emily Henry ⭐️⭐️

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Beauty, British Spy by Damien Lewis ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Pallbearer’s Club by Paul Tremblay ⭐️⭐️

Harry Potter and the Art of Spying by Lynn M. Boughey ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Golden Boys by Phil Stamper ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass ⭐️

Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Teen Titans: Robin by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bad Gays: a Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han ⭐️⭐️

It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han ⭐️⭐️

We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han ⭐️⭐️

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Seige and Storm by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rise and Ruin by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks by Patrick Raddon Keefe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Afterglow by Phil Stamper ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World by David K. Randall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Five Survive by Holly Jackson ⭐️⭐️

Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When Brooklyn was Queer by Hugh Ryan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly ⭐️⭐️

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha Allen ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Only One Left by Riley Sager ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Opal by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens ⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of Us is Back by Karen M. McManus ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Liar City by Allie Therin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Seriously, Murder? by Monica Hoopes ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Awakening by Kate Chopin ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Drift by C. J. Tudor ⭐️⭐️

Scones and Scofflaws by Jane Gorman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune ⭐️⭐️

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ten Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wolfsong by TJ Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman ⭐️⭐️

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix ⭐️⭐️

Small Favors by Erin A. Craig ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven King by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

All the King’s Men by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Christine by Stephen King ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro ⭐️⭐️

Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Nine by Maureen Johnson ⭐️⭐️

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon ⭐️⭐️

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gwen and Art are Not in Love by Lex Croucher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When Crack was King by Donovan X. Ramsey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Slippery Creatures by K. J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Sugared Game by K. J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Subtle Blood by K. J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Monsters by Claire Dederer ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Allergic by Theresa McPhail ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[eileentothestars]

Fun fact: The woman playing Tinkerbell is not an actor but Ginni Mack, a member of the Ink and Paint Department!

Fun fact source: The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt

Disney's "Peter Pan", BEHIND THE SCENES (Released on Feb 5th, 1953)

[thethirstyspittoon]

A Little Bit Of Something For Everyone: “Rise Of The Rocket Girls” ; Nathalia Holt

[blackcatfilmprod]

Hi Guys,

While at the Disney exhibition gift shop I find this book on the history on the female animators who help work on the Disney cartoons for the Disney Studio

[foreverlostinliterature]

2/16 Book Deals

Good morning, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. :) I hear some places are getting some pretty crazy weather, so if that’s you then I hope you’re safe and making it through okay!? It’s been super regular weather here, so I have no idea what extreme weather is like, haha. Also, sorry for the irregularity of my posting lately, it’s been a super busy time for me and I’m trying to pop on when I can and am hoping to become more regular again once everything has calmed down. 

Anyway, the reason we’re here is for all the awesome books on sale! Be sure to have a look if you are once again in need of some new reading materials. :) I love Melissa Caruso’s books and The Obsidian Tower is so good! There’s also some nonfiction that’s fantastic (A Long Way Gone, for one!) as well as some more fantasy, sci-fi, and general fiction. Have you read any of these books? Let me know!

I hope you all have a fantastic day--and happy reading! :)

Today’s Deals:

The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso - https://amzn.to/3jTj6q9

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry - https://amzn.to/3jSi51w

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer - https://amzn.to/3dfsenP

Severance by Ling Ma - https://amzn.to/3qsGQ6P

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison - https://amzn.to/3qrx3y2

The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher - https://amzn.to/3poOmhR

Ark (Forward Collection) by Veronica Roth - https://amzn.to/3qsF8lU

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper - https://amzn.to/37i1pLG

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien - https://amzn.to/3u0SxUC

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien - https://amzn.to/3aur9H3

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome by Adrian Keith Goldsworthy - https://amzn.to/3u4i7Ij

The Wars of the Roosevelts by Wiliam J. Mann - https://amzn.to/3auscGZ

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang - https://amzn.to/3qqja3f

Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler - https://amzn.to/3rWN3bE

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes - https://amzn.to/2N2CzJ9

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Lia Mundy - https://amzn.to/3tZnPLL

Columbine by Dave Cullen - https://amzn.to/3qsxEiT

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah - 

Real American: A Memoir by Julie Lythcott-Haims - 

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt - https://amzn.to/3tXFao6

NOTE:  I am categorizing these book deals posts under the tag #bookdeals, so if you don’t want to see them then just block that tag and you should be good. I am an Amazon affiliate in addition to a Book Depository affiliate and will receive a small (but very much needed!)  commission on any purchase made through these links.

[nero-neptune]

i super recommend this book for women's history month if you love animation, love female artists, love reading about behind the scenes, and/or love mary blair

[cricketnationrise]

quarantine reads part 4

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

76. The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan: book 3 of the brothers sinister romance series. you absolutely DO NOT need to read these in order. i certainly didn’t. also. its a romance novel. there is sex.

77. Joy: And 52 Other Very Short Stories by Erin McGraw: short story collection. some of these are less than a page long. ideal reading for only having like 5 mins.

78. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean: did i get this from the library because of the title? yes. is it a fantastic story? also yes. book 2 in the rules of scoundrels series. romance novel. there is sex.

79. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: magical library world at the heart of multiple universe has agents that retrieve unique works. featured universe is a sort of victorian england plus elves and werewolves and vampires and dragons and magic and this book is FANTASTIC. still need to get the others because IT IS A SERIES BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP

80. The Rogue Pirate’s Bride by Shana Galen: book 3 of the sons of the revolution series. look i like romance novels. i especially like that you don’t have to read them in order. its a romance novel. there is sex. also PIRATES and the leads saving each other’s lives.

81. The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt: non-fiction look at the history of disney animation via the women who worked there. lots of details i didn’t know. chapters are movies rather than years.

82. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett: bit of a misnomer since the guy is straight up stealing rare books with credit card fraud. he just thinks he’s being gentlemanly by amassing these books. it started off as a feature article and it shows.

83. We’re Here, We’re Here by KM Szpara: tor.com short story, 2 members of a boy band fall in love. management doesn’t like that so starts to control/manipulate the implants they put iN THEIR VOICE BOXES AHHH

84. The Night Soil Salvagers by Gregory Norman Bossert: tor.com short story, cool story telling form with in-world songs/poetry/recipes, very poetic writing

85. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt: two brothers are hitmen get hired for a job. one of the brothers is really excited, the other starts to contemplate a different life, gold rush era california/western USA, horses, violent, seriously at least one person is killed in every chapter. at one point they burn down a whole lodge. cw: harm to animals, murder, starvation

86. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin: classic piece of writing about the Black Male experience in the united states

87. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick: lonely old man goes on scavenger hunt to find the meanings behind the charms on a bracelet he finds in his dead wife’s closet. travels all around UK and paris and makes friends near and far.

88. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by HG Parry: some people can read characters out of books. i repeat. CHARACTERS CAN COME OUT OF THEIR BOOKS. theres a whole diagonalley esq space that houses characters that can’t go back. chaos and danger ensue when uriah heep refuses to go back into his book. magic!

89. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett: #11 in the discworld series, DEATH gets tired of doing all the things and decides to retire.

90. Death and What Comes Next by Terry Pratchett:  discworld short story

91. Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan: girls life is about to change when her sister is proposed to, very gifted, coming of age, crush on her teacher, endgame is her/her best friend who is a guy and has clearly been pining THE WHOLE TIME

92. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder:  i love the little house books and this was the first non-fictionalized account of her life i’ve read. the introduction by the editor was especially cool/helpful to read, lots of photos and drawings

93. Exhalation by Ted Chiang: this might be my favorite book of all quarantine. and i read a lot of books. a collection of short stories that all fucked me up, but in a good way? title story contains the sentence, “It’s no coincidence that “aspiration” means both hope and the act of breathing.” which like, how dare you sir

94. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: book 2 in the simon snow series, which is a fantasy series created by rowell in her novel Fangirl. She then proceeded to write fanfic of this already fictional series. i’m in love with the meta. 3rd book out in 2021.

95. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: set in mississippi before/during/after hurricane katrina hits, follows one family through the eyes of the daughter. tw: sexual assault, dog fighting, harm to dogs, death of dog

96. The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce: was still doing my Emelan reread. 4 protags reunite to help out Sandry as she goes to Namorn to deal with her estate and her cousin the empress. whether they will be allowed to leave is another story

97. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: book 3 in the queen’s thief series, seriously, go back and read from the beginning. political machinations of the king from a (Mostly) outside POV. the gods are always closer than you think

98. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: a very Spanish vibe fantasy novel. book 1 in a series. chosen one trope. new queen stumbles into the resistance. magic!

99. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: first book in a mystery series. a young teen girl is super into chemistry in 1950′s england countryside. someone is murdered in her garden. she tries to figure out what happened because her dad is still shell shocked. cw: kidnapping, harm to children

100. A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White: first in the salvagers trilogy. motley crew turns into found family on a space ship. in this world almost everyone has magic. older female protagonist. queer representation out the wazoo, SPACE. boots just wants to brew her beer and be left alone.

[rainysaturdayafternoon]

last song: Bela Lugosi’s Dead , Bauhaus

currently watching: erm , i finished heartstopper but i’m in the midst of going back and rewatching all the imogen scenes and tori scenes

currently reading: The Queens of Animation : The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History , by Nathalia Holt . very very good , def recommend

current obsession: morgan donner on youtube ! ! i think bernadette is either taking a posting break or doing a Big Project , so i’ve been looking at morgan’s stuff ! very very fun , rightly recommend her video about the Medieval Bed

tagging: @losticaruss @simplyabnormal @rosethevoid and open tag :]

i got tagged by @giallos

tag game ✨

9 people you’d like to know more about

last song: long live (taylor’s version) by taylor swift

currently watching: nothing

currently reading: red white and royal blue

current obsession: the little mermaid (2023) and red white and royal blue (2023)

tagging: whoever wants to do it 🤍

[universitybookstore]

New from Little Brown and historian Nathalia Holt, The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History.

[notgeorgelucas]

Just finished this book and can’t recommend it highly enough!

[greatmardini]

[kathryntheawesome]

Just finished reading this book. It's super interesting!

[flyicarus]

The Queens of Animation - REVIEW

★★★★

Note: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

“The rise of women in the workplace, no matter what side of the world it occurred on, was frightening to some men, and they approached the perceived threat much as toddlers would a monster under the bed — by crying about it.”

Nathalia Holt’s book tells the story of the women who helped shape the early days of Disney Studios and its projects. Before reading this, I only knew about Mary Blair, but was very excited to learn about other women, including Bianca Majolie, Sylvia Holland, and Retta Scott. Their stories were eye-opening, to say the least. Their contributions to Disney films such as Snow White, Bambi, Cinderella, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Peter Pan and even Saludos Amigos are criminally understated and unknown. I would go so far as to say that these works wouldn’t have existed without the talent and creativity of these women. These queens of animation had incredible hurdles to overcome, including pay inequity and their male coworkers stealing their ideas, but they persisted and helped make the studio into what it is.

Reading about the horrors of sexism and misogyny that they had to endure was especially harrowing. One incident that stood out was when Holt detailed at time that Majolie brought up one of her ideas at a storyboarding meeting, and Disney disliked the idea so much that he ripped up her sketches. The other men in the meeting began jeering at her, and Majolie ran out of the room and locked herself in her office. The men followed, eager to hurl further abuse at her, and actually broke down her wooden office door to yell at her some more. Disney reportedly said of the incident that it was one of the reasons that the studio shouldn’t hire women, as they couldn’t take ‘a little criticism.’

The Queens of Animation is an ambitious, engrossing book, covering aspects of Disney Studios history that many, including myself, would be unaware of. World and domestic politics, World War II, efforts to unionize, the shifting role of women in society and the workforce, money, segregation and racism… So much contributed to the path that Disney Studios took with its early work.

Holt also forces the reader to confront uncomfortable truths about many of those involved with Disney Studios, from artists and animators complacency in the face of racism and misogyny to Walt Disney himself. A moment that resonated with me was when Holt questions whether Mary Blair, a favorite of Disney’s, could have utilized her privilege to speak out more on the racism inherent in Song of the South, one of if not the most controversial Disney pieces. This made for compelling if tough reading, and I’m thankful for Holt bringing attention to social justice issues as well as the women who helped shape Disney Studios and its classics.

The Queens of Animation will be released on October 22, 2019.