The Hunchback of Notre Dame: music video

In the song "Hellfire" in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, many strategies are used to emphasize the adolescent male's pornographic dream. Frollo sees the image of Esmeralda dancing in the flames within his fireplace. But it is not her clear image. It is more of her silhouette , curving out of the flames. He face is shadowed but her breasts are prominent. She dances seductively in front of the camera, emphasizing that women are sexual objects for men. She runs her hands down her body, stroking herself for the pleasure of the judge watching her. This sequence is very different from the majority of the Disney movies. However, she could still be considered a "femme fatale" despite the fact that she is actually one of the protagonists.
Hellfire

The Boner that Burned Down Paris

Most people are familiar with the Disney's version of the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is the only movie that has overtly sexualized scenes. This is also the only movie the has expressly religious ties, which makes this song even more dirty. In the Song “Beata Maria/Hellfire” the judge Claude Frollo sings into a fire out of frustration of the desire and temptation that he feels for the gypsy Esmeralda. . During this song, Disney is explaining that women are to blame for male temptations, especially those of male figures of authority. Not coincidentally, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” came out in 1996, the same year that Lewinsky scandal involving Bill Clinton happened.  Disney is siding with the former president, that as a man in power he was constantly tempted by women, that it was the woman’s fault. In the movie, Frollo desires Esmeralda and after she escapes her somewhat arrest within the cathedral, Frollo decides to burn down Paris trying to find her. He was not necessarily looking for her to arrest her for criminal charges, but to try and get her to sleep with him.

The Voice Actors of Disney

Today, I found out that the man who does the voice of Scar in the Lion King is also Rodrigo Borgia in the Showtime show, The Borgias. It got me thinking about how different the voice actors in Disney movies are from the innocence that Disney so frequently portrays. For example, have you ever listened to the stand up performed by Robin Williams? It's outrageously dirty, incredibly sexual. And yet, Robin Williams plays the voice of the Genie in Aladdin in 2 out of the 3 movies. 
And if you haven't seen The Borgias, I highly suggest it. Rodrigo (Jeremy Irons) becomes the pope and he frequently breaks his vow of chastity, not to mention indulges in murder, cheating, lying ect. That is not quite so different from Scar, but I'm sure that's not the kind of things that Disney is trying to promote. 
Another example, one of my favorites actually, is that Cheech Marin does the voice of Tito in the movie Oliver and Company as well as the voice of Banzai in The Lion King. For those that are unfamiliar with his work, Cheech is part of the duo Cheech and Chong who have made numerous movies about the use of Marijuana. 
So what kind of message is Disney really trying to send?
 A mixed message for sure, but how strict are their conservative beliefs if they still continue to use these kind of actors to voice characters in their movies?

Disney Mediums

Most people remember watching Disney movies as a child. How did we watch those movies? On VHS. Those who remember watching Disney on VHS remember the giant cases, bordered in white with the removable cover. As most of you know, I remade a VHS cover for my Detournment project. After collecting as many of the Disney movies as I could on VHS, the DVD was introduced. And thanks to the most wonderful Disney scam, The Disney Vault, amassing my new Disney DVD collection became substantially difficult. And now, thanks to Blu-Ray, the DVD collection that I’ve created is now obsolete. Not to mention the ridiculous expense of trying to make a Disney Blu-Ray collection. But the real question: Is it worth it? Are the sharper images and special features worth the nostalgia quality that watching VHS brings? Not that I haven’t tried to add Disney’s DVDs to my collection, but I still find myself going to Movie Trading Company and digging around in their old VHS bins to try and find the Disney movies that I’m missing or that have been broken over the years. And about the special features conundrum, I remember getting the special extended edition of Peter Pan that included an extra feature about the making of the movie. This happens to be where I learned quite a bit of information about the movie that I included in my presentation. Disney VHS still hold nostalgia value for me. It’s almost like going to the movies, watching the previews for the new Disney movies that are going to come out, laughing about how old some of the movies are, trying to remember what I was like when those movies came out. And yet, the question remains: Should you upgrade you collection and lose the nostalgia value, or continue to watch the old video tapes, and at least for a time, remember the innocence of childhood?

Dreamworld 3

            In the film, Dreamworld 3, the filmmaker uses a number of strategies to highlight the negative gender issues that are present in music videos.

The strategy that I wish to highlight is the filmmaker’s juxtaposition of the fantasy women in the pornographic fantasy world next to the depictions of women in the real world. One of the most jarring examples of this is when the filmmaker shows the fantasy women draping themselves around the male artists. After showing this fantasy idea that a woman’s only desire in life is to please the male artist, the filmmaker show how often male artists degrade women by throwing lunch meat on their naked bodies. However, this scene does not really show how the real women feel about this experience. There was one woman who made a face and asked when she was going to get her backstage pass for enduring this humiliating experience. 

Later the filmmaker does show how real women feel when they are treated like the fantasy women of the music videos. In those videos, the filmmaker shows that women often have their clothing torn and water and alcohol thrown on them. After showing these video scenes, the filmmaker shows images of women being attacked during parades and outdoor parties like Marti Gras. In these scenes, these women are often seen crying and trying to get away from these men. The filmmaker shows that real women do not enjoy being abused by men. It also shows that because music videos portray women as objects of men, the men that watch these videos get ideas from them that treating women this way is socially acceptable. These videos make men believe that women like to be treated in such demeaning ways which promotes domestic and date violence.

Even female artists must objectify themselves in such a fashion that only makes it seem that their body is the only important part of a woman. Recently, after watching this film, I was watching the movie Chicago, which led me to watch LeAnn Rimes music video “Nothing Better to Do” which is similar to the movie. In the song, it talks about how a woman uses her body to commit crimes by playing on the weakness of men. I was hoping to not see the ways directors portray women negatively. Instead, I still found the artist softly touching her face and the microphone stand as well as looking at women as silhouettes. Rimes at one point, is standing partially dressed in lingerie, looking over her shoulder at the jail photographer. At least, in this video, it shows a female artist being in control of her body and using it as a weapon against men. 

Response to Ghost in the Shell

After watching Ghost in the Shell and comparing it to Carl Silvio’s arguments about the movie, I find that I have several things that I agree with, and several things that I do not agree with.

            To begin with, I agree with Silvio and Harraway’s belief that a cyborg is a “figure whose sense of identity is derived from attributes”. I think that Major Kusanagi seems to fit with that definition. The Major’s understanding of identity also fits well with these beliefs. The Major’s sense of identity confusion also fits well with Silvio’s argument about the cyborg representing cultural anxieties about the loss of subjectivity. The Major has trouble understanding who he actually is, he attributes so much more to identity than people usually think about.

            I also agree with Silvio’s claims about the theme of the organic versus the inorganic within the movie. To start with, Silvio claims that the Puppet Master “represents a truly technologized, computerized post human subject”. The Puppet Master truly represents the inorganic within the movie. There seem to be more inorganic representations than organic. However Togusa appears to be the only character in the movie that is almost wholly organic, and even he is partially machine. The ability to “reconstitute” the shell of a cyborg and reuse it continues with the inorganic imagery in the movie. By merging with the Puppet Master and creating a new individual, thus allowing the characters to “escape the control of the organizations that created them” gives the characters a way to find harmony within their inorganic existence.

            I also agree with Silvio’s claim that the movie visually objectifies the feminine characters within the movie. I agree, partially, with notion that the Major represents the archetype of “women superheroes”. However, the Major is not wholly female. While the body is female, the mind is male, so the Major is only partially a woman superhero. The major also emphasizes his masculine side when trying to rip open the tank. His muscles bulge and he exerts so much strength that he rips his arms from his sockets. So the image of the woman superhero image is diminished still. I mostly agree with Silvio’s claim that the Major and Botau represent “hyperbolic extremes of femininity and masculinity”. Botau very closely represents the extremes of masculinity but the Major only represents the extremes of femininity visually.

            However, I disagree with Silvio when he says that Botau “with mouth agape” objectifies the Major. I feel that he is constantly trying to avoid objectifying the Major’s body, whether it is out of respect for his skill or the knowledge that he is really a male. In that scene that Silvio is referring to, Botau quickly averts his eyes away from the Major’s body and he is constantly covering up the Major’s naked form. I also disagree with Silvio’s claim that the movie challenges the cyberspace hero’s paradigm, at least in part. Silvio quotes Balsamo “cyberspace heroes are usually men, whose racial identity, although rarely described, is contextually white”. While the Major may not exactly fit into this idea, I believe the Botau does. He may not be the main protagonist of the movie, but he would certainly be considered a hero of the movie.

            I really liked this movie and found both Harraway and Silvio’s arguments about cyborgs and Ghost in the Shell to be very interesting, even if I did not agree with all of the arguments.

            

A dream is a wish your heart makes...

Or something like that at least.

The first movie I ever saw in theaters was Beauty and the Beast. I was only two when it came out in theaters and walking out of that movie remains one of my earliest childhood memories. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who looks back on their childhood and remembers Disney being a part of their lives. As long as Disney animation exists, children will take away lessons from what they watch.

Disney frequently sets out to promote positive messages to children, but seems to undermine them by sending less positive messages at the same time. For example, most of the Princess stories promote some positive message about being true to yourself, however most of the girls come from broken families, most often lacking a mother. There are very few stories with happily married parents in them. Why would Disney choose to exclude a positive female role model to these girls? Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, and Pocahontas are all without mother figures in their lives, often having to support their fathers in their mother’s place. In the case of Snow White and Cinderella, their mothers are replaced with “Evil Stepmothers”. Even the men in these stories suffer from broken homes. Aladdin is abandoned by his father at a very young age and his mother dies quickly after the father’s departure. Once Aladdin and his self proclaimed “King of Thieves” father are reunited, (which doesn’t last long) his father confesses that his greed tore him away from the family. Even Hercules is stolen away from his parents and unable to return to Olympus. And if anyone is familiar with Greek mythology, the relationship between Hercules’s parents (Disney considers them to be Hera and Zeus) is constantly in turmoil because of his father’s infidelities.  

The Lion King is a tragic story of murder, exile, uncertainty, and revenge that concludes with a typical Disney style happy ending. Aside from the happy ending, any of that sound familiar? A king is murdered by his brother and usurps the crown? Sounds like Hamlet to me. Disney makes Shakespeare’s Hamlet accessible to children, making it a part of popular culture, which has been a part of at least one generation of children. (I’m sure several people have lifted pets into the air to reproduce the iconic Simba lift from the movie.) And The Lion King is only one example; Disney frequently alters classic literary stories into stories for children.

Several of Disney’s movies are taken from classic literature. The Greek myth of Hercules twelve labors are represented in montage format within the movie. Very few Greek myths were pleasant stories. The Little Mermaid was a classic tale from Hans Christian Anderson about desiring a soul and a way into Heaven. Snow White is adapted from the Grimm fairy tales which were notorious for their ability to frighten children into obedience. Each of these comes from a piece of classic, dark literature adapted by Disney into something pleasant.

Disney seems to have layers of propaganda messages for children and I’m most excited to learn more about it. Just in a quick search on the internet, I was able to find a WWII propaganda cartoon featuring Donald Duck as a Nazi. Hope you enjoyed this cartoon as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y00ygpgALi0&feature=related