I try not to just instigate fights around here ;-).
Interesting side note, my little sister kept asking me about Flight of The Conchords. Apparently the crab actor is from that show which meant she couldn’t stop laughing every time he talked. I have never seen the show myself.
The end credit scene was… cute but probably not worth the wait; I always wait.
As the father of a 3 year old boy (and, very soon, a daughter) I too spend far too much time thinking about the Disney Princess line.
Because it is all still relevant. I remember the perceptions and opinions of my youth, how the princess stuff was handled and presented to me. How, for a long time, I had an antagonistic relationship to them.As a kid I was, subtly, taught that they were things I shouldn’t like, that they were girly, boring, things I shouldn’t have an interest in. Don’t watch Beauty and the Beast because I want to, watch it because that is what we are watching for my sister. When Cinderella comes on you can go do something else, you don’t need to watch this girly film.
So I pay attention, I pay attention to not teach my son those lessons. Which is why I gave some subtle (to the kids) comments to my brother in law when our boys wanted to go get Sophia’s autograph at Disney. “But that’s a princ…” I just gave him the death stare.
My brother made the comment that he hates Frozen, and doesn’t want t watch it. He didn’t want to get the Blu Ray (his wife liked it) because they have a son that doesn’t need to watch those girly movies.
We got her it for Christmas last year anyway.
So my son watches Sophia, or Elanor, on the Disney Channel sometimes. He’ll watch the Disney ‘princess’ movies with my wife and I. Because I don’t want him growing up thinking that ‘girly’ stuff is inherently inferior, or stuff he can’t enjoy. Which is why I have been largely thrilled that Disney has been consciously cultivating things that fall outside of the traditional ‘princess’ oeuvre.
So I am hopeful that this signals a trend, a new commitment. Because it would be good for our kids, sons and daughters alike, to not have the traditional princess depiction be the dominant, or only, one they get. It would be a shame for Moana to be a blip.
When was the last time that Disney (Pixar or otherwise) made a traditional princess movie? For that matter, what IS a “traditional princess movie”? (<-- Wikipedia’s curation of the official Disney list)
As a guy who grew up in the heyday of whitebread Disney Princesses (Little Mermaid came out when I was in college), I appreciate the urge to hold Disney’s feet to the fire for the crime of inflicting the trope of helpless women who need a man to protect them. But let’s be honest - they haven’t actually done that shtick since 1959.
Likewise, I can appreciate their being held accountable for inflicting WASPy heroines on us for many years, but going by the list above, only four of the eight “princesses” Disney’s created have been Caucasian since the Nixon Administration. As Nesrie points out there is plenty to criticize in Disney making them mass-market generic (Frog’s “white woman hair”) or missing the ethnic mark by a mile (Pocahontas), but at some point you have to admit that Disney has foisted exactly ONE “generically white” heroine on us after Belle from Beast… two dozen years ago.
It’s pretty hilarious and worth checking out, IMHO.
Yeah, unfortunately I think my earlier comments weren’t super clear. There’s no danger of Disney “backsliding” to the days of all white ladies in frilly dresses. Those days are well and dead, if for no other reason than that Disney is a global brand and needs to sell merch in China and India (I’m legit excited for when they’re brave enough to attempt an Indian princess because the film will be beautiful).
One of the major problems with Frozen as a movie qua movie is that it’s a deliberate and at times ham handed refutation of the classic Disney princess storyline. The entire Hans portion of the movie is meta-commentary on the Princess genre tacked onto the side of Anna and Elsa’s story (and for my money, although the trappings are very different, Hans doesn’t do much more than Gaston did 20 years ago). In the abstract, it means Frozen is a worse, less timeless story than, say, Brave, which had its own story to tell and wasn’t beholden to genre context. But it was a very deliberate choice. It was saying “We know, and we’re sorry. We aren’t telling those stories any more”.
That’s one of the reasons Moana is so interesting. It’s the first post-Princess princess movie. Which is to say it isn’t a princess movie at all: it’s a hero’s journey, starring a chieftans’s daughter (which isn’t even much of a distinction: eligibility to lead / lost or known royal heritage is pretty common, though not required, in Hero’s Journeys).
But what does that mean for its marketing? Does it get perennial refreshes via princess branding? Or is it a one-and-done adventure like most boys movies are like, say, Jungle Book, or Big Hero 6 (admittedly misleading, since Disney’s boy brands are all Star Wars/Marvel now, and have their own perennial marketing buckets). See also, for instance, Lilo and Stitch, which is arguably a non-princess girls’ brand, and has relatively little merch (modulo Japan, where they fucking love Stitch because he’s basically a Pokemon).
MOST of the time when I say “Princess”, I’m referring to the official Disney Princess Brand, not just characters who are narratively princesses. Disney Princess power rankings put Cinderella at the top in god-tier, followed by Aurora, Ariel and Belle in A-tier, with everybody else scattered at B or C-tier. (Pocahontas is alone in D-tier. Nobody wants to be Pocahontas).
That being said, it’s sometimes useful to look at not just the “traditional princess movies”, but the related girl-centric marketing in general since we don’t get legit Princess movies that often. Sofia the First is generically white, and all the live action adaptations they’re working on (Cinderella, upcoming Beauty and the Beast) are the white girls. (There’s some reasoning behind this to lag behind the animated Princess marketing by 5-10 years, as the target market for the cartoon franchises ages up to the live action market, but I digress). I admit that I don’t really know what to do with Elena of Avalor, I’m pretty sure she’s a Hispanic proxy(?), but she’s also TV only and relatively new.
Also to be clear, my interest is primarily selfish. I want Moana specifically to be a long term success because it’s an ethnicity and culture that feels familiar to me. (I’m half-white, half-chinese, but grew up in S.E. Asia. I’m not ethnically Polynesian, but Polynesian culture feels like home in a lot of ways, and we aren’t getting a Peranakan princess in my daughters’ lifetimes).
@CraigM - Ugh. Don’t even get me started on the gendering of children’s entertainment. I use boy-brands and girl-brands as shorthand, but I agree, the distinction is super gross. I don’t want to bring my favorite buzzword (*cough* toxic masculinity *cough*) into the conversation, but it’s kind of inevitable. I will say that it’s really tragic that there’s no such thing as a boy’s franchise that’s about dressing nicely and being a cool, fancy guy. Girls get pretty dresses AND action heroes now. It would be nice for boys to have the same diversity.
Stepping back from heavy stuff for a minute, I re-listened to a bunch of the songs, and they really are pretty good. Personally, I really like the opening number (“Where you are”), but that won’t be one of the primary radio-play types.
The songs are great (well, all except for the auto-tuned pop-redux of “How Far I’ll Go” over the credits).
I wish the orchestral stuff was influenced more by the culture. If felt a bit by-the-numbers action cues.
I’m told by parents of young boy and girls and a lady with nephews herself who only sees the movies, I’m told these TV characters are pretty darn popular. Sofia and Elena. I haven’t seen what they’re doing for thee boys outside of Mickey, but Mickey seems pretty notable again. I feel like for a time he was losing out pretty bad to other brands.
I enjoyed How I’ll Go and We Know the Way, but for some of the soundtracks of the animated features, like How to Train your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda and Frozen (not all Disney I know) the orchestral stuff sticks out… better which is why I own them. By stick out i mean it’s beautiful and the tracks trigger my memory for specific scenes. I’m not getting that with Moana.
Well, aside from Mickey, they also have the Jake the Pirate as one of their major tentpoles on Disney Junior. It takes place in the Peter Pan setting, with Hook and Smee being the main foils. The Lion Guard is their other new series, along with Elanor, and my son loves that too. There is also Chuggington, Miles from Tomorrowland, and Octonauts.
Now, granted, most of these aren’t strictly ‘boy’ shows. Just like Elanor isn’t a normal ‘princess’ show. From being in Disney their major series seem to be the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins, Princess Sophia, Lion Guard, and Jake the Pirate.
So there is definitely a mix, which makes sense. Dividing shows/ toys into strict boys/ girls was always a terrible idea. So they have a show that fits the traditional ‘princess’ line, but mix it up with shows like Elanor that defy princess conventions (plus have crossovers with Sofia). And even this most traditional show breaks quite a bit in some subtle, and not subtle, ways. Give more agency to the princess, adventures and strength of her own, have frequent and deliberate mixing of with kingdoms outside the typical northern European (frequently showing Middle Eastern, Chinese, even Indian kingdoms). So even this show which hews most closely to that old formula, and has cameos by almost every single major of the princess line, seems intended not to tread the same grounds.
That’s awesome to hear. When I am around my youngest nephew, it’s Mickey Mouse Fun House or nothing. I’m glad to hear Disney is mixing things up though. I don’t pay for cable so Disney shows hasn’t been on in my house for some time, but three days of vacation listening to Mickey Mouse Fun House was enough to make a pencil through the ear sound pleasant, but I’m sure the other shows are better.
By lots. Elanor is downright decent (of the handful I’ve seen), the others mostly innocuous. Clubhouse is… I try not to think too hard on it as my son loves it, but I dislike the art style, and it only gets worse from there.
The current incarnation of Mickey Mouse is an aesthetic nightmare in general, but if you ever see him with his shoes off, his creepy human-feet are straight terrifying.
While I’m not a huge fan of the Cartoon Network/SpongeBob house style, I’ll take that over the abomination that is CG Mickey any day.
I thought the film was very decent but I walked out of Frozen convinced Disney had a massive hit just from the quality of songs. I don’t think that Moana measures up to that.
I’d love Disney to discover the ability to showcase the action heroines and Disney princesses together as equals.I’m no sure they can sell enough crap from the action heroine perspective.
I’m a father with a daughter (now 16) who went through a big Princess phase despite a strong ‘bleeding heart liberal, where’s Engineer Barbie?’ parental direction. I’ve sat next to her at Cinderalla’s Breakfast in the Magic Kingdom fully princessed up and on the same trip struggled to find anything worthwhile merchandising Kim Possible when it was at it’s height (but thanks to Disney for a red head action heroine).
It’s far easier to do colour coded, dress, shoes, tiara, handbag, etc, etc than actually put too much though in…
I like the main How Far I’ll Go song from Moana far better than any of the Frozen songs. My daughters also seem to really like it. They’ve asked repeatedly to hear it since we saw the movie. Unlike with Frozen, I don’t want to claw my ears off when I oblige them.
“The Way We’ll Go” and the accompanying ship imagery was pretty potent for me, and I think I mentioned my friend whose father spent years on the Marshall Islands with the natives there saw the movie with me. Her dad recently saw it as well and started to tear up at that point, as he’d been in fleets of outriggers like that. Really cool!
The crab’s song was also fabulous, and pretty much my entire circle of friends is constantly humming “Consider the Coconut” to the point that we all might be starting to hate it a little ;-)
Little piece of trivia: if Lin-Manuel Miranda wins an Oscar for any of the (fantastic) songs in this, he’ll become only the third person ever to complete a PEGOT (Pulitzer / Emmy / Grammy / Oscar / Tony).
Finally saw it with some friends. Moana was great. Felt less calculated/cynical than recent Pixar or Disney movies.
I love this song, and for the record Alessia Cara does not use auto tune since she has an amazing singing voice honed through much practice. Just check any her many, many raw covers on YouTube out. I recommend starting with Sweater Weather and her celebrity singing impressions. I get that you didn’t like it, but throwing out auto tune accusations when they’re unwarranted just seems petty.
Damn, I forgot all about this one and have to put it in my Netflix Old Timey Blu-ray Disc queue.