Disney’s Unpardonable Sin

I hate to break it to all of you nostalgic die-hards, but The Walt Disney company, like all other companies, is fraught with less-than-scrupulous behavior. I have absolutely no documented proof of this, as I’m sure the PR people at Disney do a great job of keeping that stuff out of the public eye. Still, the fact of the matter is you cannot have that huge of a corporation without their being some dirty laundry tucked away in some well-concealed corner. And yes, it is a corporation, with the amassing of assets and company value being priority number one – and what a corporation it is. Most people don’t recognize this, but The Walt Disney Corporation is a media conglomerate with a lot of smaller companies under its wing. I was originally going to list a few of them, but I think this might give you a better idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Disney

But, you know what? I’m okay with this. I can accept the money-making drive behind The Happiest Place on Earth and still sing “Zippidy-Doo-Dah” on Splash Mountain. What I cannot forgive Disney for is the lengths it goes to try and hide behind a facade of being the saints of the modern world: it’s almost like they’re trying to convince the families of America and elsewhere that the films and media are produced by children themselves, and not adults who have all gone through puberty and were once irresponsible college students. The culmination of this hypocrisy, for me, came from the studio in 1996 with its 34th animated feature. Yes, we’re going to talk about The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

If you own or have access to a copy of this film, I invite you to take a trip down memory lane for the first 7 or so minutes of the film. I’d post a Youtube clip, but unfortunately I couldn’t find one that goes as far as the point I’m trying to make. So either use your incredible memory recall skills, or go find a copy and watch up to where the tiny bird flies away out of Quasimodo’s hand.

I mean now.

Okay, got it? How beautiful is this opening scene? First of all, the musical motif of Hunchback  established by the song “Bells of Notre Dame” is one of the best of all their animated films. From the beginning, the animation is on par with the greats like Beauty and the Beast  and The Lion King. As if these two technical aspects alone were enough, let’s talk subject matter shall we? Within five minutes we’re being presented with themes like religious tyranny, racism, ethnic bigotry, faith vs. fear, and of course, the definition of a monster.

Even beyond this, the film contains what I believe to be one of the darkest, if not the darkest moment in a Disney film. A lot of people point to Scar’s murder/Mufasa’s death in The Lion King as the pinnacle of Disney’s descent into the underworld of humanity, but I contend this one beats it out. In Lion King, we never actually see Mufasa die, and he’s killed by a jealous brother who is clearly in the wrong. In Hunchback, not only do we see Quasimodo’s mother die (complete with bloodstain on the stone steps) but Frollo then proceeds to attempt to drown an infant in a well…all in the name of God and justice. The difference between Scar and Frollo is their concept of morality. Scar is somewhat a sociopath; he has no conception of the moral principles of right and wrong, and even if he does, he doesn’t care. Whereas Frollo is constantly struggling to define what right and wrong mean, much like Javert in Les Miserables (Victor Hugo was particularly skilled at these kinds of characters). Frollo is therefore more like a normal human being, and thus his actions cannot be as easily dismissed as something a normal person wouldn’t do, hence his actions are far more frightening.

So we have this horribly dark moment, cap-stoned by the major dramatic question of the entire narrative – “who is the monster and who is the man?” –  followed by what might be the most beautiful note I’ve ever heard sung by a male voice…yeah, that one, right as the title screen appears in front of the ringing bells (I’m telling you, just watch this opening again). The animation continues to be spectacular, with the CGI-rendered bells blending seamlessly with the hand-drawn Quasimodo. Then, the story tellers proceed to establish Quaismodo as the most amazing human being on the face of the planet. I give major kudos to the casting of Tom Hulce as the hunchback; seriously, if by the end of that scene of him talking to the bird about trying to fly you are not completely smitten by Quasimodo’s humility and sweetness, then you do not have a human heart.

Then it goes to hell.

And how did the Disney animators manage to take such an amazing opening, highlighted by both a disturbingly dark moment juxatoposed with such a lovable protagonist, and destroy it? One word:

Gargoyles.

The instant the gargoyle Hugo spits out the bird’s nest and Jason Alexander’s nasal voice starts making noise, the film’s impact is shot dead to the ground…it’s incredible how fast it happened. And thus we see the problem with Hunchback. For whatever reason, Disney seemed determined to make an adult film and a kid film at the same time. Do not misunderstand, this isn’t the same as Pixar making an adult film (Up, WALL-E)  with enough kids stuff thrown in to make it marketable. Nor is it a kids film (How to Train Your Dragon) given a dash of adult sensibility and themes. Hunchback is two movies at war with each other. Best example? How about after Frollo sings a song about needing to kill Esmeralda because if he doesn’t he’ll be consumed by his sexual lust for her and fears his immortal soul because of it (remember this lyric? “It’s not my fault, if in God’s plan, he made the devil so much stronger than a man”), we get to hear the annoying gargoyles sing to Quasimodo about how Esmeralda would totally go for for a guy like him (“When she wants oo-la-la, then she wants you-la-la”…yes, that’s in the song).

The gargoyles are not the only problem, but they’re probably the best example to tack on the almost bipolar nature of this film. Why did we need talking inanimate objects? We were having great interactions with the non-verbal bird! Couldn’t we have just pulled a Sleeping Beauty and had Quasimodo interact with the birds and rats that certainly inhabit the bell tower of Notre Dame without them speaking? Hence, my problem with Disney. It’s evident they wanted to make a darker, more mature film, but chickened out, most likely from fear that an animated Disney film with too much innuendo or dark material wouldn’t attract enough audiences.

My response to that?

GREAT! Show the American people that animation isn’t always juvenile! Catch up with Japan and the rest of civilization! Forget about how you’re going to use this film in the next Disney World parade and take a risk on something that could potentially be awesome!

Alas, such is not the case, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame remains, as it probably always will for me, the most disappointing entry in the Disney filmography, if only because it had such great potential and squandered it.

I do not forgive you, Disney, for you have sinned.

-Blake

“On Every Visage” a Snorkel

Today’s post is going to be somewhat short, but poignant I hope. About a week ago, my roommates and I were in a heated game of Quelf. For those of you who are not savvy, may I suggest you find a friend who owns this most splendiforous game and let the randomness ensue. We happened to be playing on a Sunday afternoon, and had to interrupt our quest for victory to attend another church meeting at six o’clock. In the course of the game, one of my roommates was challenged to take items from around the house to create a snorkel (I told you this game was random). Being the imaginative and artistically gifted person he is, this is what he came up with:

Now, this roommate of mine, being the type who really doesn’t give a damn about the opinions of others all that much, decided to go to this church meeting, usually attended in formal wear, with this homemade snorkel attached to his face.

Ironically enough, the speakers at this church meeting were a married couple who had worked for many years moderating a pornography addiction group. Now you may ask why exactly this was ironic. Well, one of the points they addressed is that many people suffer from addictions or problems of some kind, and, quite often, very few people actually know about it. Moreover, sometimes, when people are aware of the problems or habits others may have, people shy away from them, looking upon their difficulties as some sort of disease or plague that they need to stay away from. The snorkel became ironic after the meeting, when many stared and pointed at this roommate of mine, clearly intrigued and curious about why his head was thus decorated, but unwilling to actually approach him and ask. Some even went as far to ask me in a hushed tone why he had that on his face, and I, seeing the opportunity to foster a more healthy approach, would call over my roommate so they could ask him personally.

The experience reminded me of a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil.” In the story, a minister appears before the townspeople of his village wearing a black veil on his face. No one understands why he wears the veil, and few have the courage to ask him why he wears it. Many ask him to remove it, and almost the whole town speculates amongst each other his whole life what the minister is hiding behind the veil. Finally, at his death-bed, another clergyman attempts to remove the veil, and with his dying strength, the minister declares that it will never be removed. The clergyman asks what terrible secret the minister hides behind the veil, to which the minister replies:

“Why do you tremble at me alone?” cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. “Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crepe so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!”

The point the minister makes is that no one is more guilty than he of hiding some black secret from those around him, and what’s more, no one takes the time or effort to ever sincerely ask what is behind the veil every person wears.

So, I ask you, my faithful readers (and luckily I’ve amassed quite a few at this point) … what’s your snorkel? Are you hiding your snorkel behind a veil? More importantly, do you truly try to understand the snorkels you see others wearing? Do you try to get past the veil? Or are you afraid to approach those with obvious snorkels, and ask them why they wear them? Do you assume that the veil hides nothing? I realize these are pretty deep questions, considering the kind of content I usually produce. However, I think it well for all of us to stop and think for a moment about what we hide from people around us, and what they might be hiding from us. Who knows what we might learn?

So don’t be afraid of the snorkels.

-Blake

“May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor”

Yes, I’m going to be talking about that movie that was released today and that I braved a theater full of squealing teenage and tween girls to see at midnight: The Hunger Games. Before I get to the movie, however, I feel a need to address a certain negativity that often surrounds this story, be it a book or a film. Many of my fellow English majors are not the biggest fans of The Hunger Games; allow me to rephrase, some of my fellow English majors hate the series. I think the various reasons for their negative feelings can be summed up in three principal hang-ups:

1. that The Hunger Games is just one more blip in a never-ending sea of young-adult fantasy/sci-fi/romance that includes the likes of Twilight and Harry Potter.

2. that The Hunger Games is supposedly a rip-off or knock-off of other stories. On this one I have heard Battle Royale and Greek mythology referred to the most.

3. (and I tread lightly here) that many English majors are quite frankly snobbish at times in their tastes (I do it, too), convinced that anything with a popular (and perhaps at times fanatical) fan-base cannot possibly be of any merit because anything widely popular must be pulpy trash that does nothing to contribute to the study of literature.

OK, the gloves are coming off. Let’s talk about these issues. First, while it is true that lately many series of books in YA lit. have had similar genres and motifs, this tendency does not mean that each one is an exact clone of the other. Yes, The Hunger Games series features a love triangle, but I call on any one to find five major and significant similarities between The Hunger Games triangle with the Twilight triangle that are not common to all love triangles – there’s a reason we have a name for it folks…it’s called an archetype, and they all tend to share some common traits. Moreover, I contend that the romance of the story is not the major draw of most of the readers of the series. Personally, I am far more captivated by the allegorical commentary the series makes on many elements of our society: reality TV, the world of celebrity, war, Schadenfreude, class warfare, propaganda, etc. The fact that so many of these elements are quite easy to pick out and observe makes the popularity of the series even more fascinating (more on that later).

Second, that The Hunger Games is a rip-off. Okay, folks, you all need to get over your obsession with originality. Truth is, hardly anything is original anymore. If you think something is original, odds are it’s not and you’re just not aware of what previous stories and narratives it’s referencing. Now, this is not to say that I approve of outright reappropriation of an earlier story, but rarely does that ever happen. Why is originality a false hope? Every book you ever read and every film you ever see was made by people who have spent their lives reading books and viewing films. Stored up in all of the files of their brain are all the stories they’ve encountered, and when it comes time for them to write and make their own, those stories are going to influence them. I don’t mean that they set out to make a movie or write a book just like another, but at a subconscious level, at least, little bits and pieces of those stories they know and love are going to seep out into their own work. So, yes, The Hunger Games has many elements from Greek and Roman mythology. Yes, the first book of the series bears a striking resemblance to Battle Royale. You know what? A lot of other similarities could probably be found in the other books. The point is that Suzanne Collins is not any more guilty of this than many celebrated writers and filmmakers. Again, get over it.

Third, the English major snobbery. Unfortunately, a side-effect that comes after you start taking literature classes is a tendency to believe that no one else on Earth is as widely read or as well-read as you and your fellow English majors. A related problem is the belief that because you pour over endless volumes of high literature, those who don’t are less cultured, refined, intelligent, or even civilized. Hence, we English majors often look down upon what is popular in our culture, convinced that since we’re the ones who study literature and talk about literature and write about literature, we’re the only people on Earth qualified to make a judgment statement about what constitutes a good book (Notice what I’m doing with this blog post). So what is popular, selected by the masses who don’t read, write, and study literature, cannot possibly be of quality because we as English majors did not deem it so. It’s ego: we want the world to read only what we’ve told them to read. Hence we attack what is popular for whatever problem is possibly has. Yes, The Hunger Games‘s first-person, present tense style is at times awkward and jarring. And yes, the writing style is relatively simplistic and juvenile...it’s a freaking young adult literature book!!! Even the critically lauded YA books that win the Printz award and National Book Award do not read like James Joyce. And while I agree that some books that end up being wildly popular are absolutely awful, art ≠ obscure and complex, and popular ≠ trash.

My huge argument when it comes to popular culture, be it books, movies, music, or whatever, is that the study of what is popular is the key to understanding our current society. People are not mindless drones; what they are drawn to for their entertainment says a lot about who they are as people (which is ironically one of the main points of The Hunger Games). So rather than dismiss pop culture as unworthy for study, perhaps we could do well to spend some time thinking about why we love the things we love, because like it or not, one hundred years from now when people are studying our society, they’re going to look back and see us as the generation in love with boy wizards, sparkling vampires, and a dystopian novel about a young girl good with a bow.

And the movie? It was great. Strong acting performances by nearly everyone in the cast, faithfulness to the essence of the book without being bogged down by getting in every single detail (cough, Harry Potter 7 cough), and the appropriate backseat for the romance so the more important social commentary could take the center stage. Best of all, unlike other adaptations, The Hunger Games film was not afraid that the story wouldn’t be able to carry itself, thus it did not resort to adding a lot of Hollywood glitz or blockbuster clichés like many others do. Really, the film plays like an indie film or even an art film, simply letting the story tell itself and letting the actors do their job. The year of awesome movies has begun.

What’s In a Day?

A few of the days we as Americans choose to celebrate as festive confuse me – yes, including St. Patrick’s Day. In fact, I’m curious how many out there actually know who St. Patrick is, let alone why we have a day dedicated to the man.

Before I get to that, however, I feel it only fair to point out that other holidays equally confuse me. Top of the list? New Year’s Eve/Day. Maybe it’s just the pragmatic in me, but I honestly don’t get the point of celebrating a new year on some randomly assigned day in the winter. Nothing irks me more than when people I talk to the few days before midnight on January 1st end our conversations with: “see you next year!” No, you will not see me next year…you will see me on Tuesday. As for the resolutions, I don’t think goal-setting should be limited to a special time of year (which is why I also have issues with Lent), particularly when those goals usually are broken by January 15th. In my eyes, New Year’s is just an excuse to party and drink – fair enough, but why not just let it be that and not try to justify it with long orations about new beginnings and “auld lang syne?”

Though I guess at the end of the day that’s also the point of St. Patrick’s Day – to party and drink. About two years ago I was on the Las Vegas strip on St. Patrick’s Day…yeah, that was an interesting experience: wall-to-wall people moving down both sides of the sidewalk, every bar and club in every casino packed to the limit, particularly the Irish pub at New York, New York. I shudder to think what New Orleans is like today.

But again, do people need the excuse of some random holiday to justify their behavior? I’m not even limiting this to drinking and partying, either. Does one awesome date on Valentine’s Day justify an entire year of either dysfunctional relationships or chronic singlehood? How patriotic is it to wave flags and shoot fireworks on the 4th of July, yet to never vote or participate in civic events during the rest of the year? Or my absolute favorite – being generous with our time and money while thinking of others more than ourselves at Christmas time, but completely disregarding those efforts for the other eleven months of the year. Do holidays simply give us an excuse?

But back to this man whose name we honor today for some inexplicable reason – St. Patrick. As far as I can tell from Wikipedia, the man was a Christian missionary who was deemed the patron saint of Ireland, mostly for the legendary (not factual) story of him banishing all the snakes from Ireland.

So, I guess if you can cite some Irish ancestry in your family tree the celebration of St. Paddy’s Day makes sense. Otherwise, why are we so focused on this one? There are other saints, you know, and probably ones for the countries your ancestors did come from. For the two years I was in Brazil, I found it rather amusing that the day for every saint, not just Patrick and Valentine, were celebrated and cause to stay home from school/work and, yes, to drink and party.

So, while I will be wearing the green today (I do have Irish ancestors), I call upon all my fellow English descendants to instate the celebration of St. George’s Day on April 23. After all, we could always use another excuse to party.

-Blake

Decisions, decisions

For quite some time now – since high school in fact – people have been asking me what I plan on doing with my life. No, they aren’t asking about my plans for marriage and family, and they’re not asking what I plan to do in my spare time; they want to know how I’m going to provide for myself and said future family that they expect me to someday have, or, in other words, what I am going to do for a living.

Now, I can’t blame them. And I should make it quite clear that I do hope and want to be married and have a family of my own someday. And yes, in Utah family is a big thing…a really big thing. In fact, some of you may remember that one quote from the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding:

“Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone… til the day we die.”

Well, if there was a male Utah/Mormon version of that, it would probably go something like this: “Nice Utah boys are supposed to do three things in life: marry nice Utah girls, gain employment that is lucrative enough that said wife does not have to work, yet employment that does not have him work long hours or travel too much so he can always earn the ‘Father of the Year’ award.” Kind of a tall order, isn’t it? Particularly when one considers the current state of the economy. Moreover, my perception is that this is what most Utah girls look for in a spouse…actually, allow me to rephrase…this is what most Utah girls seem to expect from their future spouse, hence every guy who ever asks them out (Yes, there are exceptions, please do not flood my comments with angry retorts about how you are not that girl; it’s all about perception, people).

So I totally understand the concern of those around me when they ask what it is I’m going to do with my life. I think for the most part they simply understand what’s going to make me a viable candidate for matrimony.  This also partially explains the look of concern mixed with uncertainty mixed with a drop or two of sheer panic when I tell them that I’m an English major – everyone knows that the road to financial security with a gainfully employed spouse lies only in the college of business or the occasional pre-med, if you can be that patient.

Now, back in high school when I was asked this question, I usually came up with some quasi-actual idea, as the question most likely came from some superior in the schooling system who exuded this attitude that if I wasn’t completely sure at the wise age of 17 what I wanted to do for the next fifty years of my life and wasn’t already working to earn the associate’s degree that would get me there, then I obviously wasn’t fit to graduate from high school.

As the years have progressed, however, I’ve learned to be more honest with people. Anyone who asks me now gets the honest truth: I don’t know. I honestly cannot decide what career I wish to pursue in life. Not that I haven’t had ideas – I’ve had plenty of those. The problem is they all sound great; moreover, I think I could find a certain level of happiness and success in each of them. The question is trying to decide where I’m going to be the happiest, where I’m going to find the most personal success, AND still fulfill the qualifications set forth earlier. I sincerely anyone with half a brain reading this can recognize the difficulty here, particularly when I’m consistently pinged with the feeling that I could have had a lot more direction if I hadn’t gone with an English degree.

On the upswing, though, not having any idea what one wants to do in life basically makes any possibility a good idea. For instance, I just applied for an internship at Disneyland this fall…and have already been rejected! Oh well, back to the drawing board.

-Blake