the disney myth

my students are SMART. i would like to attribute that to my own amazing skill and prowess, but i dont think i can take all of the credit.

we were having a discussion about the framework of the book The Outsiders, and we were discussing the idea of having two separate worlds that, when they collided, created problems. this is the case in The Outsiders with the greasers and the socs. i wanted them to think about other examples where two worlds could not cross over. romeo and juliet is the most obvious one, but one kid said Aladdin. another said Beauty and the Beast. another said WALL-E, and then Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, the list goes on and on. well, this was something that i had not really pieced together. and so my intended lesson on characterization (an awesome lesson indeed) was shelved momentarily so we could hash this out.

what else can we think of that is the same in most, if not all, Disney films? you have the main character, they have to have a sidekick/best friend. then there is a bad guy. and the bad guy has to have a sidekick. then there is often the love interest that is often complicated by the main character's sidekick. and they all end happily. seriously, math people... this is an equation. we could plug in whatever crap we want and make MILLIONS.

a friend of mine who i simply adore informed us (and by us i mean the facebook community) that she was opposed to the disney films for her daughter because they gave a false perception of what happiness is. being partial to disney films since i grew up with them and still drag my boyfriend out to see every single new one with me, it made me sad that she felt this way. but the more i thought about it, the more i found that i was being a ginormous hypocrite. disney films give the impression of "if i have this love then all is well in my life". well, uh, no. if someone told me that i would smack them upside the head and call them a dumbass.

and then my thoughts drifted to the twilight series (friend previously mentioned, this is in no way an attack on you... ok maybe a little, but i lufs you). ahhh yes. returning to my lovely students, they know better than to bring a twilight book into my room. i will rip it to shreds with my witty insults and my obnoxious readings of the gloriously atrocious, grammatically incorrect writing. it, too, focuses on the idea that "this creepy guy that stares at me all the time is all i need to live." maybe its the feminist ideas that loretto instilled in me that makes me so flipping angry about this, or maybe its because i was raised right, but i know better than to think that i am a "complete person" once i find "the one". gag me with a wooden spoon, people.

but i just cant disregard disney films. it teaches us that creepy relatives are out to kill us, that tigers make good pets, that talking silverware can potentially be your best friend, that dialogue that consists of merely "WALL-E.... EEEEVAAAAA" can lead to romance, that you can understand a monkey if you really listen, and that people living in the forest as you run away from your psycho stepmom will clean your house and mine diamonds for you. sweet.

with all of these small-budget sequels that are ruining the original disney films i grew up with, they should make a series of what happened after the film: "true life... i married a beast", or "teen mom- i was a mermaid and now im pregnant", or "help! make these 7 dudes stop following me!"

with the equation... millions, i tell you... millions.