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.