Category Archives: film

Culture War Correspondence: Disney Movies and Gender Roles

KAT: Hello there ladies and gentlemen, princesses and princes, woodland creatures and dwarfs and all those who fall somewhere in between. Today, if you haven’t already guessed, Evan and I will be discussing Disney films and gender roles.

EVAN: I’ve been reading blogger extraordinaire the Unshaved Mouse review each installment in the Disney animated canon beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and believe you me there is a lot for us to go through-

KAT: Speaking of Snow White, I also unexpectedly came across the Disney film in my literary theory class. In their essay “The Madwoman in the Attic” Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar use Snow White as an example of the angel/ monster dichotomy imposed on women. Snow White is quite literally the personification of purity, meanwhile the only powerful woman in the film (the Queen) is purely evil.

That being said, I feel like gender roles in Disney films have evolved considerably since then.

What kind of gender issues was the Unshaved Mouse bringing up on his blog post about the character? Continue reading

Frozen: The Power of a Pretty Dress

I’ve been reading a lot about Frozen lately, and not even intentionally. I mean I watched it intentionally, but it was when I was having a slumber party with my niece. Okay, fine. You caught me. My niece is now a teenager and we were watching it in spite of not being the age demographic they were aiming for. Seriously though guys, why are Disney movies so appealing? There are so many things I can hate on in this movie. Like how it features ANOTHER typical white, skinny heroine whose eyes are bigger than her wrists.

Okay fine, I see you Jasmine… and Mulan.. and Pocahontas… and Tiana, but they’re still all skinny!

Or how the head of Frozen‘s animation shared about how difficult it is to animate female characters because you have to keep them pretty all the time.

Man that is tricky. I mean, they’re just all such unique characters.

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Internet Asks Why The Human Torch Is Black, I Ask Why His Sister Isn’t

As many of you probably already know the cast for the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot was officially announced yesterday. Now as you might expect I have more than a few thoughts on the actors chosen [first in my mind was how the slender, British Jamie Bell was supposed to portray Ben Grimm, tough-as-nails physically imposing fighter pilot raised on the Lower East Side], but what I’m going to be focusing on is the conversation that’s been reignited upon seeing Michael B. Jordan confirmed as Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch.

flameonmichael

See, the actor had signed on to portray the character as far back in October of last year. The internet reacted then as it does now, with many diehard fans inflamed at the idea that a superhero created in 1961 would appear in a movie as a person of a different skin colour. To be honest I was extremely ambivalent about the whole matter, torn between wanting to see more minorities in big roles as well as wanting comic book movies to stay true to their source material.

Now, however, I’m fine with Jordan. I acknowledge that he’s a good fit for Johnny Storm [his enthusiasm and fun-loving nature in Chronicle is evidence of this] and has acting chops to boot [I have not read or heard a single negative thing about Fruitvale Station]. No, what I want to discuss is why he’s the only one who’s Black.

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Culture War Correspondence: Censorship

GORDON: Welcome readers to another exciting installment of [redacted], where we’ll be discussing [censored] and the [undisclosed] surrounding it.
(The topic for today is censorship, for anyone baffled by my oh-so-subtle clues…)

While this topic did originate out of Evan’s and my discussion of TV (how we’d deal with rating systems, more specifically) we HAVE touched on this topic before, with our previous discussion of the UK’s automatic porn-block for British ISPs.

KAT: You guys actually included a poll in your discussion on television, too. And while there weren’t an awful lot of votes, it seems like more readers agreed with censoring daytime TV to some degree.

Censorship is such a big topic, but before we go much further, let me get an idea of how you feel about it. Is censorship ever okay? If so when? And by who?

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Shame Day: The Portrayal of Christians in Popular Media

I’ve ragged on Christians and Christianity alike, both in practice and doctrine, and I’ve never felt unjustified in doing so.  Nevertheless, and for all its issues, it really can’t be denied that in the past 20 to 30 years the religion’s really gotten the short end of the stick. In the interest of equity to all, we’re going to spend some time hashing out some of the more popular portrayals of Christians and explaining why they’re unfair, inaccurate, or even just plain spiteful.

I. Christians as One Group

Evan’s already covered the topic of how we’re drifting further and further away from a common cultural understanding- especially when it comes to religion. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it is starting to have some negative effects.

There was an episode of Weeds (gah- there’s hours of my life I’ll never get back) depicting the creation of this megachurch in the suburb that the show was (at first, anyways) largely centered on satirizing. And that’s fair; these things do exist, and usually in the wealthier, WASPier neighborhoods of this nation. And that was all fine and well until the episode where the zealous church-goers started speaking in tongues.

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What Happened To MusclesGlasses?

musclesglassesmilkA lot, and I’m telling you, a lot of people want to know what happened to MusclesGlasses of Epic Meal Time fame. For a while it was all you’d see in the comments sections of their YouTube videos, and a good number have found this blog by googling the character’s real name, “Alex Perrault”.

According to an article on New Media Rockstars Muscles stopped appearing as early as January 2013, which meant that for an entire year EMT has been without one of its strongest presences [besides that of Harley “The Sauce Boss” Morenstein himself, creator of the show]. For 365 days and change the show has been missing its most voracious eater,

bordering-on-problematic drinker,

and rap battle champion-

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