#pirates past noon fanart

[boba21521]

this is DEFINITELY too niche but pirates past noon Junior fanart 😭🙏

[scrawnydutchman]

Disney and Feminism

*MINOR DISNEY MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD*

Disney has undeniably been striking a massive chord with audiences of every generation since the early 20th century and for good reason. Their movies are touching, easily accessible, identifiable, masterfully handcrafted fun for all ages. Even the worst Disney films (that aren’t straight to DVD sequels) have a sense of raw concentrated enchantment that has been keeping the company afloat since it’s inception. But recently I’ve noticed that more so than any other demographic, Disney movies, ESPECIALLY of the Disney princess variety, have been striking a chord with the third wave feminist movement. It should really come to no surprise; Disney essentially built it’s empire off of making enchanting entertainment for little girls especially. The first animated feature ever made is Snow White for crying out loud. But usually the appeal of Disney films among feminists goes one of two ways: they either praise the ever loving hell out of these films and constantly produce fanart of classic Disney characters wearing urban apparel . . . or they despise these movies because they see sinister undertones beneath all the enchantment. I once dated a girl who hated all Disney princess films because in her mind they were always about entitled girls wanting more out of their luxury ridden life than what they’ve been given, directly cause conflict and then get what they want in the end. While I don’t believe it’s nearly as cut and dry as that . . . I do think she has a point.

In response to these critiques of old Disney movie cliches, the Disney films of recent years have been making noticeable shifts in their theming to accommodate for their most profitable demographic besides children and these changes have been pretty successful in terms of winning over the affection of their fans. Frozen is now the highest grossing animated film of all time, beating the long raining champ The Lion King. Zootopia received huge critical praise for it’s underlying commentary on prejudice in modern society. In fact, the whole reason I started up this article was because a couple of days ago when I was in a doodling club talking about Disney movies a member of the club said her favorite Disney film was Moana because it was the “most feminist”.

But while I think all of these films are certainly enjoyable, I have to ask . . . are they really as empowering towards women as they are given credit for? Moana especially troubles me for this reason. At first glance it seems like a great Disney movie where an ambitious wide eyed young woman goes on this adventure to discover her true destiny and save her island, and ultimately saves the day by showing compassion to the antagonist of the film. That’s all well and good, except for two major problems . . . 

1. She didn’t really choose to do any of this of her own volition.

Yes I know, you could argue there’s a whole subplot of her wanting to explore in spite of her father, but really the only justification she gets to finally do it is that she has to fulfill a destiny. The plot doesn’t involve her because she insists that she must be involved, the plot involves her via “chosen one” narrative, where the water chooses Moana to resolve the issues Maui caused. And then from there she’s essentially strung along the ride because she doesn’t know any better by herself in order to make things happen of her own volition. She doesn’t know how to sail or where to go or what to do unless somebody tells her. Grandmother says go see Maui, Maui says go to the monster world to find his hook, Moana is on the verge of giving up until grandma comes in for a pep talk. The only reason she does anything in this story is because other people said so. There are only 3 exceptions to this rule: the part where she tricks Tomatoa (which only happened because she followed Maui’s plan and she would have died sooner if Maui didn’t intervene, more on that later). Second is when she and Maui fight the little coconut pirates (which really I have no qualms with: she was pretty badass there). The last part is the finale, which honestly never needed to happen because there was absolutely nothing stopping the water from bringing the stone to Te Fiti itself. Speaking of . . 

2. Moana gets her ass saved all the time, ESPECIALLY by the water.

*tangent: the water in this movie is effing gorgeous*

When you really think about it, what was stopping the water from just taking the heart back to Te Fiti itself? Maui points this out in the movie and Moana doesn’t even have an argument for it. The water doesn’t need Moana; if anything, Moana was just a hindrance to the plan. She couldn’t get to Maui’s island by herself; the ocean had to drift her unconscious body there. She couldn’t convince Maui to come with her; the ocean had to make it impossible for him to refuse. Had the ocean not been there, Maui would have totally gotten away with her boat. She’s been protected from certain death by incoming projectiles by both Maui AND the ocean a number of times throughout the movie. She was on the verge of giving up until her Grandma showed up and her Grandma outright admitted that maybe she was asking too much of her. Moana’s only real stake in this besides her island dying is that she wants to reunite her people with their voyager heritage which . . . why does the ocean give a shit? She doesn’t even convince Maui to come back after their little fight; he just decides to come back off screen and it’s never really specified what convinced him to do so. Matter of fact his Jiminy Cricket tattoo does more to convince him to act morally than Moana does.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Moana almost never makes shit happen in this movie; 90% of it is just shit happening with Moana in the crossfire. If not for powerful forces favoring her she would have never even made it to Maui’s Island. Is that really empowering? Is this a protagonist little girls can really look up to?

Other Disney movies of recent years have either had similar problems or the same problem to a lesser extent. Frozen is often praised for breaking women stereotypes in fiction but honestly I think it rides it’s success by pandering to said stereotypes harder than any Disney film of it’s era.

Zootopia is a movie all about a woman-allegory bunny cop Judy Hopps proving she can solve the biggest mystery plaguing the city and the whole film takes you on this “whodunnit” plotline that completely defeats the purpose of a mystery when the answer to the problem just magically lands on Judy’s lap and essentially just rewards her for giving up.

Granted a lot of these problems have happened to male Disney protagonists in the past as well, but if the point is to create more empowered women in media than I have to ask; why is it any solution to have these main characters that are essentially strung along by major contrivances that ruin the point that the movie was trying to prove?

You know what would be great? A movie about a female protagonist who tries to adhere to cultural sensibilities at first, fails because it’s just not who she is, actively decides to do something about her conflict through noone’s volition but her own and for the sake of somebody close to her rather than herself, even goes as far as exposes the bullshit expectation towards the OTHER gender and resolves whatever crisis is going on shearly by her own wit and through being herself? Yeah, I can’t wait for a Disney movie like that. Oh, wait . . . I don’t need to. It exists and it’s fucking called MULAN!!!!

This movie is so often glanced over and dismissed when it comes to the Disney movie-feminism discussion and I honestly don’t get why. I consider this the PERFECT feminist Disney movie. This film is in my top 3 favorite Disney films of all time (the other two being Emperor’s New Groove and Hunchback of Notre Dame). Mulan is not only the best female protagonist Disney has ever had, but is arguably the best they’ve ever had period. She has NONE of the problems I listed above. Rather than try to prove a point about womens strength, she only cares about protecting who she loves and quickly puts her own woes aside because that’s how unselfish she is. She’s not a “chosen one”, she doesn’t go out to fulfill any kind of destiny. She goes on her adventure because she is determined to do what it takes to protect what she loves, even if she has to die for it. She doesn’t save the day via deus ex machina: BOTH times she defeats Shan Yu it’s a result of her own cunning and cleverness in how she uses the things around her that she’s had the whole time (side note: her cleverness as well as other positive qualities is demonstrated in the first song of the movie when she passes a checkers game on her way to her inspection). She is a no nonsense, determined, motivated badass who gets stronger by her own determination and ends up saving all of China by being herself. She also helps her guy friends get more in touch with their feminine side by the end of the movie and proves her strength in spite of all the dudes who see women as inferior. She technically has a guide character in Mushu, but . . . let’s be honest, Mushu is more of a hindrance than a help up until the climax. 

Mulan gets shit done and she PROVES her worth. She isn’t told what to do. She isn’t helped unless she proves her qualities as a leader. She doesn’t survive through contrivance and she isn’t strung along her own story. SHE decides where it goes.

That’s what I call a feminist Disney movie!