#they came onto this subject by saying that the barbie movie is all about womens rights and they all groaned and said

[svperbitch]

Listening to knit and natterers chat some of the worst homophobia and transphobia (and ooh they're onto racism now, original) I've heard out in the wild in a long time. This hurts actually :))

[neo-shitty]

before the new year begins — tag game

happy new year, everyone! i've been doing a lot of journaling lately and i came across the written version of this tag from @madamescarlette on the dash and thought i'd give it a try just because i've been practicing more reflection these past few days.

tagging: @petrichor-han, @mosviqu, @straykats, and anyone who'd like to look back on 2024 🤍

share your favorite memory of this year.

off the top of my head, my favorite thing to recall was when i confronted this girl who spearheaded making rumors and talking shit about me and my friend group (mind you, we're college seniors). singlehandedly, one of my most empowering moments. other pleasant memories include campfires and hangouts by the sea across various friend groups, leaping together in joy when we passed our integrated subjects, trying our best not to laugh too loud in the office, and of course, graduating.

2. what was the highlight of your year?

finally getting my degree in accountancy. tough course :') would not recommend :') walked out with two mental illnesses, banger degree ender!

3. list the top five books you read this year.

sit down, this will be a long one. right off the bat, read last january, there is no antimemetics division by sam hughes (qntm), which put me in a crazy mental loop that just made me more immersed into the story than i already was. pet sematary by stephen king, my first step into horror and definitely not my last. there's genuinely nothing i like more than cosmic/domestic horror. this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone, which has everything i truly want in a book—good writing, gays, pining, and time travel. hollow city and library of souls by ransom riggs, which are the 2nd and 3rd books of the miss peregrine's home for peculiar children series. truly, the only books that mattered. the whole thing could've been a banger trilogy bc of them idc idc. i wish i read more than i did this year, but i did my best given how busy i was.

4. list the top five movies you watched this year.

i watched chicago because of the trendy 'we both reached for the gun audio' but i ended up enjoying it far more than i anticipated. a uniquely formatted film musical, banger plot (with social commentary undertones) and banger songs. then i headed into wicked blindly and cried my eyes out with a friend at the cinema. beautiful story between two friends, banger cast and banger songs as well, and just the visuals of the movie were just stunning! all quiet on the western front, a devastating depiction of just how brutal war is. almost a 5/5, if it weren't for the shock factor ending. barbie because it wasn't what i expected a barbie live adaptation to be. it got across what a barbie cartoon movie would normally get across to kids to us adults in the real world. banger monologue, cried my eyes out in my room. cruella, though i watched it too early in the year to recall its impact fully. she was fabulous! i support women's rights and women's wrongs!

5. list the top five tv series you binged this year.

none. sorry, my attention span was just nowhere this year.

6. what is the one new thing you discovered this year (could be a place/hobby/song etc)?

hmm, i discovered that, though it shouldn't come as a surprise, i actually do like journaling and it really does help me in ways i thought it didn't before. i was always so pressured by the aesthetic standards around journaling that it just deterred me from utilizing it for what it was originally meant to be. now i just throw up words onto paper and pray for relief afterwards (which normally happens now!)

7. top three albums that you played this year?

preacher's daughter by ethel cain, the tortured poets department: anthology by taylor swift, and golden age by ethel cain. ethel taking 2 of the 3 spots in justified. i never did shut up about her and i just put her albums on loop in the background for hours while i was playing.

8. your spotify wrapped #1 song

it says good luck babe by chappell roan but i beg to differ. it doesn't say so on other sites like receiptify/volt.fm nor do i feel like i played it enough for it to land first this year. good song tho!

9. your spotify wrapped top artist

i think it was taylor swift? on another site, i have ethel cain which is honestly more accurate.

10. your personal song of the year.

a house in nebraska by ethel cain *sad pole dancing*

11. what is an achievement that you are proud of this year?

again, graduating. it's such a huge milestone in my life that i just can't undermine it. it means so much to me and reaching it lifted a lot of weight off my chest.

12. what are your goals for the next year?

to focus on the other aspects in my life that i neglected in the past few years such as family relationships, mental and physical health, self-improvement outside of academics, etc.

13. any three book releases you are excited for next year.

i'm not really one to look forward to releases but maybe the new hunger games book if its coming out this year. haymitch's story?

14. any three upcoming movies/tv series that you are excited for next year.

again, not one to look forward to movies. i literally had to look these up just to recall but: wicked 2, of course, and the minecraft movie for the hell of it. that's about it.

15. if you could change one thing about the past year what would it be?

i wish i took on more opportunities instead of letting them pass me by.

16. did you manage to stick to your new year's resolutions this year?

my life was too much of a whirlwind for me to even have a new year's resolution at the time. i was anxious and probably depressed and i just kept telling myself, "just one more year and it'll all be over".

17. do you have any new year's resolutions for the next year?

my new year's resolution is to just practice putting myself first and alleviating the pressure i've been unknowingly putting on myself since day one very many years ago.

18. favorite meme of the year?

i think i was too out of orbit to pick out a favorite one. i still keep on recycling all the ones i had since high school lol

19. which month was the most fun this year?

was there such a thing? my whole year was characterized by breakdowns and picking academics over the fun things in life. might've been december. i've been unwinding the whole month.

20. what color do you associate the previous year with?

maroon and/or blood red because that was a brutal year.

21. if you could tell yourself something at the beginning of this year based on what you know right now, what would it be?

apply for it. she'll understand when the time comes and she wouldn't live with the same regrets that i do.

22. favorite viral trend of the year?

i honestly have no idea. maybe the korean cheerleaders???

23. list any three new things you learned this year (could be recipes, a new skill, etc.)

memory keeping in the form of scrapbooking, relearning how to cook based on the recipes my parents have, a lot of workplace-related skills lmfao.

24. how would you describe your year in a word?

rollercoaster, every up just had to come with a down and sometimes it made me wish it just flung me off the track.

25. what color do you want to associate the upcoming year with? why?

a dull grey because this might be the year i become a corporate slave in a physically lively but emotionally dead city. tragic.

[rebel-princess-rock-blog]

Reactions to Disney Princess Films

In this post I'm going to focus on that data collected by Alexander Bruce in his interviews with college students in 2007. Once again I have to apologise as I'm not sure everyone will have access to this article.

http://www.jstor.org.ric.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/23416195.pdf

Let's rewind a little bit to 2007, two years before The Princess and The Frog came out. Alexander Bruce published a chapter in a book with data on how college students react to the princess franchise. In the piece, Bruce brings up how disney defines their princesses in a disney book titled What Is a Princess that came out in 2004. In this book, the author defines a princess as being "kind smart and caring" someone who "likes to dress up", "is polite", "loves to sing and dance", and "is brave and ready foe fun." According to the book a princess is also "a dreamer" and "always lives happily ever after." By disney's own standards, all their princesses at the time needed to find true love and adhear to these strict guidelines.

A majority of the male students that were interviewed saw the princess films as something only for girls. Some interviewers talked about the one guy who openly enjoyed disney movies being made fun of by his male friends. The only film that breaks this "princess movies are for girls" mentality was Aladdin, many of the men interviewed owned the film and praised it. The one disney princess film with a male protagonist is preferred by men, shocking, I know.

When the students were asked to "describe a princess" the males often discussed the princesses outward appearances. Some of the comments made were "I like Ariel. She's a redhead; she looks good in a bikini." "They're all pretty. They're all portrayed as very beautiful." "They look like Barbie dolls." (They are) "very thin" "very desirable." One subject said he likea Jasmine "because she's a sexy little girl." One man even stated "They're all supposedly attractive, you know mainstream attractiveness of what an American person supposedly looks like." The male subjects made very few comments on the personalities of the princesses, the two most common being that they're "caring and selfless" and "modest and quiet." The responses show that a majority of male subjects saw the princesses as prettu sexual objects rather than valuing them for their personalities.

The female subjects had more varied responses in defining the princesses. Not as many women discussed the character's appearences, but their beauty was recognized in statements such as "they were beautiful, elegant" and "they were really pretty, they had the hair, everybody wanted them." There were seven comments made by female subjects about the princesses having strong characteristics. "They all had the cause to fight for. They watched out for other people." "They have to overcome something...either like a death or a villian. They always prevail at the end." And "they have to put their foot forward and go out there. I mean they're not being like aggressive or too much, you know, but they do have to work for what they want." Some women had negative comments such as: "they always get the boy they want." "They all get in danger...the princes save them." "I know this may be a feminist thing to say but they are all kind of pathetic because they are all trying to get the man." When asked which princesses were their favorite and least favorite, the women tended to prefer the more active princesses over the passive ones. One woman commented that her favorite princess "thinks for herself" while another woman voiced her frustrations against her least favorite who "doesn't do anything."

A majority of the men and women interviewed agreed that the princess films "advocated particularly old fashioned or otherwise outdated views on women." The majority also think that the values in disney films are not relevant in the twenty first century. Despite this, when asked to picture their lives ten years in the future, more men imagined a traditional future with a housewife and kids. On the other hand most of the women imagined having "self-directed" career paths. Although many did say they eventually wanted a family, most wanted a job and their own money first.

It seems that based on these interviews, modern men were more affected by the traditional values in disney films than modern women. Most of the men only saw the princesses for their looks. They also wanted traditional family lives as head of the household with a housewife who didn't have to work. The women on the other hand focused more on the personalities and actions of the princesses. They also dreamed if more career orientated futures with a family down the line. It's interesting to see how these students react to the princess franchise as well as what's reflected in their own desires.

I placed this post after Princess and the Frog despite the film being a more modern disney tale because I feel it still holds onto some of these traditional values more than later films. Tiana ultimately needs love more than a career. She even potentially gives up her life long goal for a man. It's interesting to examine this in comparison with newer princess movies