“Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess”
Stover, Cassandra (2013) “Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess,” LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 29.
Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/lux/vol2/iss1/29
This article looks at the relationship between Disney’s representation of women and post-feminist ideology, as well as exploring the change in the films popularity over the years. This is closely linked to the relationship between Disney’s representation and the current women’s movement of the time. The article also examines the anti-feminist criticism of the films.
In her writing Stover draws on scholarship from cultural studies, gender theory, as well ideological analysis of disney films, so her writing is supported by a range of background knowledge across many fields. Stover also references articles that i’ve also come across in my research which indicates her writing is relevant to our topic.
Stover’s article creates a concise timeline of Disney princess films in relation to womens social standing of the time the films were released. This is very helpful to contextualise the films and gain a more in-depth understanding of why women are represented how they are in each specific film. Unlike other articles I have read, this one contains some praise for the films which is intriguing as it broadens the perspective on the films. The article manages to do this while also raising concerns I haven’t read about before such as the negative role of father figures in the films.
“The Princess and the Frog”
Charania, M. and Simonds, W., 2010. the Princess and the Frog. Contexts, 9(3), pp.69-71.
This article suggests that “The Princess and the Frog” (2009) despite the progressive image disney has tried to project with this film, showcases disney’s difficulties in handling ‘class, race and gender intersectionalities’. A few of the issues raised in the article include the way Disney attempts to erase social issues such as racism, sexism and classism by presenting a ‘fantasy colour-blind, merit based society’.
The article is well written and easy to understand, which suggests it may aim to reach the wider public, not just academics. As there are minimal facts and statistics, the article appears to border on an opinion piece. However, as both authors are students of sociology specialising in feminist studies their work on this topic has some credibility.
This article is relevant to our research as it highlights the problems of representation in the Princess and the Frog which is generally credited by the public as Disney’s most progressive film to date. In comparing this movie with “Snow White” we can see there is still a long way to go in terms of Disney’s representation of Women. Further, the article mentions that the fact suggestions these films should be exempt from criticism because they are children’s media are absurd, which is a point we would like to make in our essays.
If you’re interested in reading this article, which I highly recommend you do, you can find the whole thing here.
Fandom
My main exposure the “fandoms” in their purest sense is on a little website called tumblr.com. Like most social media platforms, Tumblr works as a meeting place for fans to meet, discuss their idolised product/person/media and even generate their own content. It’s become very common for fandoms to have specific name usually derivative of what they’re a fan of, e.g. ‘Directioners’ are fans of One Direction, ‘Fleuremingos’ are fans of Laurina from ‘The Bachelor” Season 2 (better known as ‘dirty street pie’). I identify as a part of both of these fandoms. By having a name for the fandom, it elevates the level of involvement people experience. They’re no longer just a fan of something, they’re part of an organised group of people – a community even.
I don’t think being a fan of something has the same meaning now as it did say, fifteen years ago. Rather than just go along to concerts and purchase merchandise, fans now take their dedication to another level by generating their own content. From ‘fan art’ to ‘fan fiction’, fans actively immerse themselves in their dedication and in doing so create their own culture. After coming third on their season of ‘The X Factor UK’ it looked as though One Direction’s career was over. However fans of the band spread awareness of them internationally through social media platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr and FaceBook. Through this unpaid advertising, the band became the global phenomenon they are today. As Harry Styles so eloquently put it, “we owe our career to electricity”.
Narrative and Mystery Road
Bordwell and Thompson consider a narrative to be a chain of events in a cause and effect relationship occurring in time and space. That is, each event in the story will lead to another until it reaches a conclusion to progress the narrative. Characters act as agents in this cause and effect relationship, without characters interacting or moving around the films universe the story could not progress. Narrative films will always contain a plot and a story, these two differ from one another as the plot is what is explicitly presented to the audience in the film where as the story also included inferred events taking place before or after the film takes place.
Ivan Sven’s “Mystery Road” The film takes place in chronological order, the duration of the plot spans over the course of a week where as the duration of the story is much longer as it includes the backstory of Julie and her murder, the film duration is 118 minutes. The film uses a causal relationship between its events to progress the narrative. This can be observed even in the opening scene of the film. There appears to be a problem with the truck a man is driving which causes him to pull over, because of this he hears what he thinks is a dog barking in the distance, this causes him to investigate the sound which causes him to find the corpse of a young girl, establishing the main plot of the film.
Tangerine
Although ‘Tangerine’ came out last year, it wasn’t until starting my cinema studies class earlier this year that I heard about it. IMDB’s premise for the film ‘A working girl tears through Tinseltown on Christmas Eve searching for the pimp who broke her heart.’ hardly summarises this remarkable film.
The entire film was shot on three iPhone 5s’s, which is only one of the ways it challenges our accepted notion of what film is and how it should be made. The use of footage from a mobile phone makes the film seem a lot more realistic and intimate, you feel more connected to the character through the use of this personal device to capture them. While the visual quality of the film obviously isn’t as high definition as it would be using a typical camera, the film offers some truly stunning visuals. The title ‘tangerine’ was inspired by the colour of the LA sky that the crew captured during filming. Seeing this film reminded me of my experience during project brief two when I used my phone, an iPhone 6s,to film my footage. Although my phone has a better camera, there is no doubt ‘Tangerine’ has more impressive visuals which suggests to me that sometimes it doesn’t matter what you’re filming with as long as you know how to use it well.
Another thing that, sadly in 2016, stood out to me was how good it was to see trans women playing trans characters. I say sadly in 2016 as this really shouldn’t be a remarkable casting choice, it should be a given, but unfortunately that’s not the reality we live in.
My favourite scene in the film is the closing one. The two main characters, Alexandra and Sin-Dee, having both had an absolutely awful, friendship threatening day, sit together in a laundromat. This really simple moment highlights the strength and importance of female friendship which is lovely to see captured so accurately on film.
Overall, I’d give ‘Tangerine’ a 9/10.
Non-Narrative
Week Seven’s reading on “non narrative” was an exert from D. Bordwell and K.Thompson, 2006, Film Art: An Introduction. As a cinema studies student I’m all too familiar with this textbook and actually had completed half this reading a few weeks ago. The reading can be broken into two parts, focusing on documentaries and experimental films respectively.
Bordwell and Thompson suggest that there are two forms of documentaries – categorical and rhetorical. Categorical form intends to convey information in a simple fashion. Categories are ways in which we group things in accordance to their similar characteristics that help us to organise and simplify information. To present information in a comprehensible way in a documentary, filmmakers will often rely on categorical form. Films with a categorical form will have a simple pattern to allow audiences to process and understand the information in the most effective manor.
Rhetorical form is common in all media, not just documentaries. Using this form the film tries to persuade viewers to form an opinion on a certain subject or event, and to even act on this opinion. There are four basic qualities of rhetoric film form: it addresses viewers openly trying to change their attitude about something, the subject of the film is not a matter of truth but a matter of opinion, if a conclusion isn’t beyond doubt then the film maker will make an appeal to their audiences emotion and lastly the film persuades viewers to make a decision that will have an effect on their everyday life.
Experimental film also may take two forms, either associational or abstract. If their is similarity between shots, in colour, shape or direction of movement to the scale that viewers can detect a pattern then the film uses abstract form. If images or shots don’t immediately appear to have a relationship to one another, but the fact that they are grouped together suggests a meaning through the connection, then the film can be thought to have associational form.
Broad City
Watching the last episode of season three of Broad City just picked up on this not so subtle use of mis en scene, sorry for the awful quality screenshot.
This season of Broad City has been really different from the previous two. The characters feel as though they have matured and a lot of episodes have dabbled into conventional sitcom territories with significant moments in the characters lives (fighting with a best friend or finding a new love) not being played for laughs. This aside, some of the funniest moments of the show have been in this season and I’m so pumped for 4,5,6. Overall 8/10 for S3.
Review
Take Your Chances from Samuel Harris on Vimeo.
Sam used found footage really effectively in his film, it was all relevant and enhanced his portrait without feeling unnatural. His interview subject was really interesting and well spoken. The editing was really impressive, especially when creating the grid of found footage. I also appreciated how he matched shots, that’s some great cinematography!
This portrait was quite visually impressive, the colours and lighting especially in the scenes shot outdoor were really lovely and with limited knowledge of the subject I would say reflective of their temperament. The found footage was used quite naturally , the editing wasn’t jolting. If I was to make one criticism it would be that the framing of some shots was a tiny bit too small and the subjects head was sliced off, other than that it was great.
I think the ‘day in the life’ format was a really great choice and worked well with the introduction to the participant at the start. In some of the interview shots at the beginning the colour goes a bit wavy, but other than that it’s very technically proficient. Using footage of the participant with a voice over other than just a sit down interview was a great way to engage the audience.
This is comes of as a very professional ‘in the studio’ interview with an artist. The music (which i think is from the band) is really well suited to the tone of the portrait. The B roll footage is really well used and impressive.
Week Four Workshop
Formal Interview:
I decided to put music underneath this interview rather than foley as I felt it more suited to a formal interview style that would take place in a studio rather than on the street.
Informal Interview:
This one didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I wasn’t responding to any questions so the dialogue sounds a bit forced.
Project Brief Three: Reflection
I consider the most successful aspect of my portrait to be the sound quality. Given my subject is a musician I think sound played quite an important part in the portrait, I originally intended to use music from her studio album but the audio I recorded turned out to be of a high quality that I could use in the portrait. While I did use the Zoom recorder, In post I found that the audio from the onboard mic was better so that’s what I ended up using in the final cut. Generally I do prefer to use the Zoom mic but when filming I was more focused on operating the camera which came at the expense of high quality audio from the microphone I think in future productions, having a person operating the microphone independently of the person operating the camera is the best way to ensure both audio and video footage are of the highest possible quality. The least successful aspect of my portrait is the quality of the video footage. Had I taken more time to learn how to adjust setting on the camera maybe this would have been remedied, but the final product looks slightly grainy and not the quality I desired. The space I was shooting in was also quite small, which provided very limited lighting options, thus contributing to the poor quality footage.
A key learning discovery I made was that the best moments in a portrait, or documentary are generally not planned. When documenting a non-fictional subject candid moments can be the best thing to capture as they are honest representations of the subject. Something I learnt the hard way during production is that while obvious questions may seem like the best way to get information from your interview subject, they’ll often prompt obvious answers which the audience could have assumed themselves. This is something that I’ll take into consideration when conducting interviews in the future.
The main thing I took out of the process is that there’s no way you can plan for everything. I ended up interviewing my third preference, which I had slightly anticipated, and even then things still went wrong on the day of shooting. The best way to avoid this is to go into the process with no optimism and expect everything to go wrong, this will at least provide more resilience, and to be as organised as possible without being able to anticipate everything that will happen during production During this process I’ve also learnt to adapt to new equipment in a more timely manner. I think this is an important skill to have as a media practitioner, as realistically I won’t always have the opportunity to use equipment I’m used to. This production was also the first time I have worked with found footage, it was a lot more time consuming than I thought to actually find what I wanted, I will know in the future to allow more time for this process.