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ashkirynHere's to Netflix, which finally offers some Disney movies on Instant! Not a lot, granted, but some is more than there was before, so yay for effort! It's got a few more, some of which that I personally don't have (as if I would ever stoop to owning James and the Giant Peach. *shudders*), so it's a definite help! And who knows, they may eventually add to their line up. :)
So anyway, I watched Dumbo tonight (as you can obviously tell from the title of this post), which I haven't seen in...God, over ten years, but a little less than 15? Like, seriously, I barely remembered this movie at all, and the little amount of scenes that I did recall were ones that I'd seen from, like, commercials, or on reviews discussing the fuckery that is "Pink Elephants on Parade" or the heartbreaking-ness of "Baby Mine".
Honestly, it may be a bit sad, but the Dumbo ride at Disneyland has more significance to me than the actual movie does. *sheepish smile* (For the record, my mom maintained in my childhood that a trip to Disneyland was not complete without going on that ride. She was absolute on this point.)
So, my reactions this time around are below the cut. Um...just a bit of a warning, but my inner feminist was stirred into life by this movie, and surprisingly deep thinky thoughts went through my mind while watching it. Believe me, I was taken aback as well. I actually have something to say this time around, wtf. :P
First things first. And let's be real here.
You know those moments, where you go back and watch Disney movies that you haven't seen since you're childhood, and then you are forced to come to unpleasant revelations? Like, holy shit, Frollo's singing about raping Esmeralda! MUFASA DIES, WHAT. Snow White's Prince Charming is really really creepy and breaks into her fucking property, and Grandmother Willow is incredibly pervy? Those kinds of things?
You guys.
YOU. GUYS.
Show of hands. How many people realized that that fucking train is goddamned sentient?????
No, seriously. As in, it TALKS, and MOVES, and not in a "oh it's a train start the engine it's moving" kind of way. No. No, as in, "we're fucking treating this train like a horse, and after we're done loading the animals up we tap its sides with our spurs and say 'Giddy up' and it GOES and it gets physically exhausted going up a mountain and then has, like, a cold in the rain or something" and it sings a bit and WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY GOD DO YOU DO THIS TO ME.
SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS. The train fucking talks. Through its smokestack.
Like, really Disney. Isn't it bad enough that later on you had to animate the utter nightmare that is "Pink Elephants on Parade" (and this is why you don't drink, children! If you do, HORRIBLE PINK ELDRITCH ABOMINATION ELEPHANTS WILL BASICALLY KILL YOU!!!!)? Did you HAVE to have a creeptastic talking train as well???????
This genuinely disturbs my soul almost more than the Internet and TV gods from American Gods. Jesus, if I had realized about that train when I last saw this movie when I was a kid, I may have been scarred for life and never gone near a train again. That's how fucking cruel and horrible this talking train is to me.
*shudders* The adorably cute baby elephant almost wasn't enough to outweigh that horror.
Other notes of interest:
-storks are delivering babies, wut
-that....map of Florida-thing. It's quite beautiful. I wish maps really were that pretty and accurate.
-It honestly looked to me like they had, apart from the elephants, only black people setting everything up for the circus. So...yay realism? I guess?
Okay, and now to get into my deeper thoughts.
Here's the thing that I couldn't help but notice. The majority of the female characters that, you know, were actually characters (the only exception being Dumbo's mother, Jumbo), were not only elephants---they were also huge bitches. Like, some of the worst stereotypes of women ever. Incredibly judgmental, horrible, hurtful gossipers and rumor-mongers, holier-than-thou, "oh I'm too great of a person to stoop to judging you so of course I'm not, except that I totally am", look down our (long) noses at you snobs. That's what the female characters were in this movie.
And who is set as a counter to said bitchy women elephants? A male mouse.
I find this to be an interesting choice. Narratively, it makes obvious sense to make this character (whose name I don't actually recall hearing) be Dumbo's advocate and stand-in parental guide. At least, it makes sense to make it be a mouse. But why did it have to be a male mouse? And so this combined with the fact that it's a mouse is what interests me.
See, some people operate under this kind of sexist assumption that men and women are basically different species---you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, that kind of crap. And basically, it follows along the assumption that as being a "different species" means that men and women are inherently incapable of understanding each other----and therefore, why bother trying to? For the record, this is stupid, because the brains of men and women are not that alien to each other, and we are in fact the same species and human beings. But this whole idea is one that's basically been around forever---that men and women are somehow extremely fundamentally different and opposite rom each other, and it shows in this movie.
I find it interesting that in what I'd define as the crucial scene---when the mouse stands up for Dumbo and scares all the other elephants, before going out to try to become his friend----we're given a man vs. women theme. There are two animals which are stereotyped as being opposite in almost every way that it is possible to be:
1. elephants are big; mice are small
2. elephants essentially marry life partners and are big on emotions (for animals); mice are basically sex-obsessed and breed like crazy (Do I need to hammer in this anvil? Elephants = women, mice = men)
3. elephants carry (so the stereotype goes) an instinctual, deep, and basically illogical, fear of mice
It's interesting that the women, who are horrible bitches, and literally huge and mighty, are beaten and essentially taught their place by the ill-respected, small man. It's interesting that these specific animals---elephants that are scared of mice---are used, and that they're assigned the specific genders that they are. It's interesting to me that all the women, save the one, come off as being fickle and two-faced, while any male characters that make fun of Dumbo (the crows, basically) appear to genuinely have changes of hearts and really be quite nice guys who were just having a laugh in all good fun.
And when I say "interesting", what I mean is that "it slightly bothers me".
Like, hello there totally casual sexism, how are you doing today?
I'm not trying to be a Nazi-feminist here. I'm just trying to examine certain things through a critical lens, and wonder what it says about the subconscious of our society, then and now, that all the speaking female characters were horrible and terrified into their place by a morally superior male character. And Jumbo, the mom? Is locked up by men and labelled as "mad" for, essentially, stepping out of her place, no matter her reasons.
It's just something to think about, yeah?
So anyway, I watched Dumbo tonight (as you can obviously tell from the title of this post), which I haven't seen in...God, over ten years, but a little less than 15? Like, seriously, I barely remembered this movie at all, and the little amount of scenes that I did recall were ones that I'd seen from, like, commercials, or on reviews discussing the fuckery that is "Pink Elephants on Parade" or the heartbreaking-ness of "Baby Mine".
Honestly, it may be a bit sad, but the Dumbo ride at Disneyland has more significance to me than the actual movie does. *sheepish smile* (For the record, my mom maintained in my childhood that a trip to Disneyland was not complete without going on that ride. She was absolute on this point.)
So, my reactions this time around are below the cut. Um...just a bit of a warning, but my inner feminist was stirred into life by this movie, and surprisingly deep thinky thoughts went through my mind while watching it. Believe me, I was taken aback as well. I actually have something to say this time around, wtf. :P
First things first. And let's be real here.
You know those moments, where you go back and watch Disney movies that you haven't seen since you're childhood, and then you are forced to come to unpleasant revelations? Like, holy shit, Frollo's singing about raping Esmeralda! MUFASA DIES, WHAT. Snow White's Prince Charming is really really creepy and breaks into her fucking property, and Grandmother Willow is incredibly pervy? Those kinds of things?
You guys.
YOU. GUYS.
Show of hands. How many people realized that that fucking train is goddamned sentient?????
No, seriously. As in, it TALKS, and MOVES, and not in a "oh it's a train start the engine it's moving" kind of way. No. No, as in, "we're fucking treating this train like a horse, and after we're done loading the animals up we tap its sides with our spurs and say 'Giddy up' and it GOES and it gets physically exhausted going up a mountain and then has, like, a cold in the rain or something" and it sings a bit and WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY GOD DO YOU DO THIS TO ME.
SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS. The train fucking talks. Through its smokestack.
Like, really Disney. Isn't it bad enough that later on you had to animate the utter nightmare that is "Pink Elephants on Parade" (and this is why you don't drink, children! If you do, HORRIBLE PINK ELDRITCH ABOMINATION ELEPHANTS WILL BASICALLY KILL YOU!!!!)? Did you HAVE to have a creeptastic talking train as well???????
This genuinely disturbs my soul almost more than the Internet and TV gods from American Gods. Jesus, if I had realized about that train when I last saw this movie when I was a kid, I may have been scarred for life and never gone near a train again. That's how fucking cruel and horrible this talking train is to me.
*shudders* The adorably cute baby elephant almost wasn't enough to outweigh that horror.
Other notes of interest:
-storks are delivering babies, wut
-that....map of Florida-thing. It's quite beautiful. I wish maps really were that pretty and accurate.
-It honestly looked to me like they had, apart from the elephants, only black people setting everything up for the circus. So...yay realism? I guess?
Okay, and now to get into my deeper thoughts.
Here's the thing that I couldn't help but notice. The majority of the female characters that, you know, were actually characters (the only exception being Dumbo's mother, Jumbo), were not only elephants---they were also huge bitches. Like, some of the worst stereotypes of women ever. Incredibly judgmental, horrible, hurtful gossipers and rumor-mongers, holier-than-thou, "oh I'm too great of a person to stoop to judging you so of course I'm not, except that I totally am", look down our (long) noses at you snobs. That's what the female characters were in this movie.
And who is set as a counter to said bitchy women elephants? A male mouse.
I find this to be an interesting choice. Narratively, it makes obvious sense to make this character (whose name I don't actually recall hearing) be Dumbo's advocate and stand-in parental guide. At least, it makes sense to make it be a mouse. But why did it have to be a male mouse? And so this combined with the fact that it's a mouse is what interests me.
See, some people operate under this kind of sexist assumption that men and women are basically different species---you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, that kind of crap. And basically, it follows along the assumption that as being a "different species" means that men and women are inherently incapable of understanding each other----and therefore, why bother trying to? For the record, this is stupid, because the brains of men and women are not that alien to each other, and we are in fact the same species and human beings. But this whole idea is one that's basically been around forever---that men and women are somehow extremely fundamentally different and opposite rom each other, and it shows in this movie.
I find it interesting that in what I'd define as the crucial scene---when the mouse stands up for Dumbo and scares all the other elephants, before going out to try to become his friend----we're given a man vs. women theme. There are two animals which are stereotyped as being opposite in almost every way that it is possible to be:
1. elephants are big; mice are small
2. elephants essentially marry life partners and are big on emotions (for animals); mice are basically sex-obsessed and breed like crazy (Do I need to hammer in this anvil? Elephants = women, mice = men)
3. elephants carry (so the stereotype goes) an instinctual, deep, and basically illogical, fear of mice
It's interesting that the women, who are horrible bitches, and literally huge and mighty, are beaten and essentially taught their place by the ill-respected, small man. It's interesting that these specific animals---elephants that are scared of mice---are used, and that they're assigned the specific genders that they are. It's interesting to me that all the women, save the one, come off as being fickle and two-faced, while any male characters that make fun of Dumbo (the crows, basically) appear to genuinely have changes of hearts and really be quite nice guys who were just having a laugh in all good fun.
And when I say "interesting", what I mean is that "it slightly bothers me".
Like, hello there totally casual sexism, how are you doing today?
I'm not trying to be a Nazi-feminist here. I'm just trying to examine certain things through a critical lens, and wonder what it says about the subconscious of our society, then and now, that all the speaking female characters were horrible and terrified into their place by a morally superior male character. And Jumbo, the mom? Is locked up by men and labelled as "mad" for, essentially, stepping out of her place, no matter her reasons.
It's just something to think about, yeah?
