Mickey Mouse Monopoly, A Reflection + Cultural Update
In the video that we watched in class called Mickey Mouse Monopoly, Henry Giroux and others discussed critically about the messages and control that Disney has over our media within society. The documentary went in depth criticizing how Disney has portrayed women in their animated films, especially in terms of race, body type, and effeminate qualities such as how nice and kind they are or their vulnerability in terms of needing a man to rescue them. To connect this documentary to a modern source, I chose to focus on a video from a popular youtuber group called The Try Guys called “Eugene Ranks Every Disney Princess”, which is a part of the Rank King series where Eugene and guests rank different things best to worst. In this video, he chose Disney princesses, and is joined by women of color- as they can share their perspectives on representation in such films. He frames his ranking on character, story, the character’s legacy or ‘power’ beyond the film. This video goes in depth pointing out the many flaws that earlier Disney princesses have, and even how more modern day princesses could have still done better in terms of inclusion and sensitivity. For example, when talking about Princess Tiana, who was revolutionary as the first black princess, they bring up how during most of the film, she is seen as a frog, rather than a black woman. And even though she is groundbreaking not only in terms of representation but for her traits of being a business owner and hard worker; she does not hold the same cultural relevancy and have the same notoriety and permeance in our culture compared to other princesses like Cinderella or Ariel. They also mentioned the arguments made in the documentary like Belle and Stockholm Syndrome but also pushed Pocahontas up the ranks due to her sense of family values. The top three were Mulan, Jasmine and Moana, which was interesting because Mulan and Jasmine were criticized in the documentary due to racism and sexuality. Their arguments were how Jasmine was against arranged marriage, good instincts, and was the first princess of color. For Mulan, they only saw how she saved an entire country, defied gender roles an even mentioned how Shang Li was not a motivator but her father and family were. Moana is one of the newest Disney princesses and was hailed for the cultural accuracies, realistic body type and her independence. The worst three were Snow White, Rapunzel and Aurora, which was interesting because Tangled is one of the most beloved recent Disney princesses. However, they discussed how she was basically a damsel in distress, which can be said of the other two which are the older princesses due to their lack of agency and participation in the story as they are dead/half asleep for most of the movie.