The Disney movie Frozen is the fifth highest grossing movie of all time. In order to better understand this phenomenon and to hypothesize as to why the movie resonated so strongly with audiences, we have interpreted the movie using psychodynamic theory. We pay particular attention to the themes of puberty, adolescence and sibling relationships and discuss examples of ego defenses that are employed by the lead character in relation to these concepts.

Introduction -- Tales of dominion -- The plow and the gun -- Picturing the West, 1883-1893 -- American idol, 1898 -- The end of nature -- African romance -- The dark continent -- When cowboys go to heaven -- Transplanting Africa -- Of ape-men, sex, and cannibal kings -- Adventures in monkeyland -- Nature, the film -- The world scrubbed clean.

Disney’s animated villains have recently changed to show less conventionally villainous traits: They look and express themselves more like sympathetic characters, and they are usually only outed as villains late in the plot. This shift has prompted much academic com­mentary on the psychological and cultural significance of Disney’s new villains. We add to the existing literature on Disney’s new villains in two ways. First, we analyze shifts in the vocalizations of villains between the 1990s and 2010s. Second, (...) we integrate this analysis in a biocultural account of Disney’s shifting overall representations of villains. We argue that while Disney has long employed evolutionarily explicable cues to villainy, such as a foreign accent and an unappealing exterior, the company is now reacting to challenges to norms of social representation that proscribe the linking of such overt traits with immorality. Con­sequently, recent Disney films do not employ socially stigmatizing cues. However, Disney continues to employ nonstigmatizing cues, such as evil laughter and abiding anger, because these cues foster antipathy in audiences at no sociomoral risk. (shrink)

Expecting Saving Mr. Banks to be a jolly jaunt about the creative development of the movie Mary Poppins (1964), I found myself waiting endlessly for the “jolliness” to begin—it never did. In fact, rather than joy, there was an ever-present sensation of tension as I watched the film. Having moved house myself in recent days (during a Queensland heat wave), the scenes of the Goff family leaving their home and trekking across hot, dusty Queensland were very emotional. However, seeing the (...) family patriarch Travers Goff (played by Colin Farrell) swig from an alcohol flask in a desperate manner told me that his was no “routine” family move. And, certainly, arriving at their destination—a dilapidated ranch home—shed even more light on the Goff family’s predicament: alcoholism and the cycle of employment and unemployment. Further, it is the downstream consequences of the family predicament that fuel the identity and behaviour of Mary Poppins—a fictional character created by Travers’ daughter, a. (shrink)

A presence for decades in individuals’ everyday life practices and identity formation, the Walt Disney Company has more recently also become an influential element within the "big" curriculum of public and private spaces outside of yet in proximity to formal educational institutions. _Disney, Culture, and Curriculum_ explores the myriad ways that Disney’s curricula and pedagogies manifest in public consciousness, cultural discourses, and the education system. Examining Disney’s historical development and contemporary manifestations, this book critiques and deconstructs its (...) products and perspectives while providing insight into Disney’s operations within popular culture and everyday life in the United States and beyond. The contributors engage with Disney’s curricula and pedagogies in a variety of ways, through critical analysis of Disney films, theme parks, and planned communities, how Disney has been taught and resisted both in and beyond schools, ways in which fans and consumers develop and negotiate their identities with their engagement with Disney, and how race, class, gender, sexuality, and consumerism are constructed through Disney content. Incisive, comprehensive, and highly interdisciplinary, _Disney, Culture, and Curriculum_ extends the discussion of popular culture as curriculum and pedagogy into new avenues by focusing on the affective and ontological aspects of identity development as well as the commodification of social and cultural identities, experiences, and subjectivities. (shrink)

Inside Out takes people on a journey into terrain not often explored in animated films – the inner workings of the developing 11‐year‐old self. Inside Out takes a girl's emotional development as important, primary, and worthy of attention. Along the way, audiences come to appreciate that even though emotions often feel singular, solitary, and intense, some aspects of emotions are universal and cut across age, gender, and culture. The movie also highlights the social dimension of emotional expressiveness. The directors (...) were originally going to include many more emotions than the five core emotions they depict: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear. The choice to focus on five primary emotions allows people to better appreciate how emotions are central to selfhood and how one's emotions influence his/her memories and self‐understanding. (shrink)

Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan _Deconstructing Disney_ London: Pluto Press, 1999 ISBN 0 7453 1456 2 (hbk) 209 pp.

The article proposes a re-examination of the role and position of the so-called “Disney villains” within the narrative framework of animated films and popular culture as a whole. In the first part, the historical evolution in the representation of these villains will be explored according to the practice of “queer coding,” which involves attributing stereotypically queer traits to them without explicitly stating their gender and sexual identity. It will be observed how their non-conforming gender and sexuality, used to (...) mark their moral deviance, challenge and defy dominant gender and narrative norms. It is precisely through their queer performance and camp aesthetic that “evil stepmothers,” “sissy-villains,” and “drag-queen-like” sea witches can emancipate themselves from their traditional roles as antagonists (narrative level) and as social outcasts (discursive level) to seize the spotlight through the screen (manifest surface). This study combines tools of Greimasian text analysis, including the canonical narrative schema and the generative trajectory of meaning, with Lotman’s theory and notion of “semiosphere,” to investigate the centrality and criticality of these “quillains” within the heteronormative narrative framework and the broader cultural context. To capture (or being captured by) the queer aspect of these characters and their stories, the invitation is to look at their visage not as a coded symbol of an underlying identity and truth, but as an image that exceeds any defined meaning thanks to its iconic power. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Realm Without Angels: MENCs Partnerships with Disney and Other Major Corporations Julia EkIund Koza University of Wisconsin-Madison My interest in partnerships between the MENC: The National Association for Music Educators and major corporations such as Disney dates back to 1996 when I was invited to attend a free premiere screening of the movie Mr. Holland 's Opus.1 Never one to turn down anything free, in January (...) of that year I joined more than twenty-fivethousandmusiceducators, administrators, and friends ofthe arts, who gathered at fiftyone locations across the nation to watch the movie. Sponsored and promoted by theNational Coalition for Music Education, ofwhich MENC is a member, in cooperation with the National AcademyofRecordingArts and Sciences Foundation, the American Music Conference, and Hollywood Pictures (a Disney subsidiary), the promotional screening was the result of an education/business partnership. I did not like the film much even though I agreed with its message that public schools and public school music should be adequately funded, and I was sorry that MENC had entered into a partnership to promote it. Part ofthe problem may have been timing. I had recentlyreturned froma parental leave during whichIhad sufferedseriouspostpartumcomplications and had struggled fornearly a yearwithpoor health. January 1996 found me trying to figure out how I would manage a full-blown academic career, my still fragile health, and a lively child. Ibristledatthevisionsofprofessionalismfostered by Mr. Holland's Opus, recognizing that I would never again have the luxury he did of indulging myselfuninterruptedly in my career; I knew that I might never again be seen as a "real professional " even though I was more exhausted and working harder than I ever had. From my perspective the film's images of teachers, teaching, andprofessionalismwereprofoundlymasculinist; I also knew that a popular film can play a powerful role in shapingpublic imaginaries. Who tends tobenefit fromtheperpetuationoftheseimagesof teachers, teaching, and professionalism, I wondered? Who tends to be harmed? So my first step on this journey was to write a critique of Mr. Holland's Opus. I soon discovered that the film itselfwas but one small part of a much larger story about MENCs deepening involvement in education /business partnerships. One of the main themes of Mr. Holland's Opus is that budget cuts can have devastating effects on music programs. The education/business partnership forged to promote Opus and the manner in which the film was promoted suggested that the corporate world is socially responsible and genuinely concerned both aboutthe quality ofAmerican education and the demise of music education. In no way did they intimate that corporate practices may be at least partially responsible for any declines in the quality ofpublic schooling. I was also aware, however, of a corpus of scholarship suggesting that recent trends toward corporate partnerships and philanthropy are window-dressing at a time when corporations are sneaking out the back door carrying everything else in the store. Critics contend that on the one hand, corporationsengageinmuchpublicizedacts of gift-giving or school partnership, which cost the corporations relatively little (or in the case of Opus, result in considerable financial profit for the corporation), while on the other hand, they chisel away at the financial infrastructure of©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall, 2002): 72-79. Julia Eklund Koza 73 schools with unrelenting demands for special corporate tax cuts, breaks, and incentives. This practice is especially detrimental to the arts because, relegated to the feminized status of "frill," they may be among the first subjects to suffer. Tax breaks are but one example of what critics term "corporate welfare." John Hood, in Policy Review, provides a list ofincentives states use to attract and keep corporations. In addition to tax abatements and tax credits, Hood mentions land giveaways, releases from infrastructure costs, the issuanceoftax-exemptdevelopmentbonds, offers to promote products, and job training packages. These deals are unfair to existing businesses, Hood argues, especially small ones that can never hope to receive such treatment, and he concludes that there is no clear-cut evidence these forms of corporate welfare benefit state economies.2 Accordingto JayTaylor, school-business partnerships have become increasingly popular; they quadrupled between 1982 and 1992 as financially strappeddistricts found themselves "dredgingfor dollars."3 Taylor explains that "school officials... (shrink)

This article investigates artificial life image-making in relation to and as constituent of the moving image, specifically artificial life visualized in three-dimensional computer-generated space . Of particular interest in this examination is the view or `window', from the virtual camera, into the artificial life computational model or `world' , and how it organizes a dense field of expectations. Analogous to looking through a telescope or microscope, the view into the artificial life world is monocular and often fixed in the world; (...) in this regime we look `at' computer models, which are often referred to as agents, `creatures', `organisms' or `cyberbeasts'. This tactic of looking through the instrumentality of science, the arts of reality, is parallel to looking through André Bazin's `long take' in cinema and documentary film-making in which we look `at' an unmediated view of reality; in other words, in looking `at' an image of artificial life we look `through' a non-intrinsic regime of seeing. This investigation into the interpretative regime provides only a partial account of the intercultural traffic between artificial life and the moving image. I further this discussion by arguing that artificial life screen-based works are a contemporary extension and reworking of the nature film in that they provide accounts of the `natural' world that are familiar and similar to those of their filmic and cinematic predecessors. I contend that artificial life visualizations and the stories that often accompany the images are the latest manifestation of this photographic and filmic tradition. To illustrate my point I discuss the scientific project Daisyworld, the associated narrative that frames the research, and the researchers' attempt to mathematically model an `imaginary planet [with] a very simple biosphere'. This sets the scene to explore artificial life in relation to Disney wilderness and nature films. (shrink)

In the nearly 800 pages that comprise the three volumes of his Graphology Poems 1995–2015, John Kinsella demonstrates an exemplary moral anger registering iterations of colonial “omni-speak” as unethical. This paper reads Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer by way of apprehending the rhetorical substrata underpinning discourses of Australia as not just determining a sovereign colonial space; in a place where “history is absurdity […] history is overlay”, Kinsella shows how indigenous and non-colonial others are consistently cast as extra-juridical and merely sub-human. (...) These Graphology Poems not only anathemise and hex historical falsehoods of nation: Kinsella dares sound out the bullshit, and his iconoclastic language games refuse outright to acquiesce to the epistemically violent nullifications of antipodean identity. (shrink)

John Kinsella remains Australia’s most militant, morally cognizant naysayer, and his oeuvre is an archive of precepts running counter to master narratives of place. This essay re-reads Benjamin’s notion of the artist as cultural producer against the grain of Esposito’s etymological excavations of “community,” and frames Kinsella’s steady output of co-authored books as not only a mode of nomadic munificence but no less than a kind of formative guerrilla poetics. Pairing with poets, rock stars, others to extend his anti-capitalist project, (...) Kinsella’s co-authored works perform a suite of interventions, gifting readers a means by which we too might fathom the generative effects of banding together in a munus speaking its own laws to reconfigure notions of co-empowerment, equity, and indeed comradeship. Each of Kinsella’s co-authored books constitutes an intentional community of two and, as if dwelling in compositional possibilities, each text remains steadfastly optimistic. Refusing to be locked into despair by regressively instrumentalist political non-visionaries, from within an Antipodean milieu Kinsella and his many co-authors materialize gestures demonstrating how we might struggle for control of who gets to produce ideas, by which decentralized means, and to which generative ends. (shrink)

The cholinergic system is a good candidate for the role of determining the relative weight given in cortical information processing to new sensory information versus prior knowledge. We discuss the physiological data supporting this, and suggest that this Bayesian perspective can easily be reconciled with the dynamical framework proposed by Behrendt & Young.

Christ figures and holy fools are familiar religious symbols often repeated and adapted in film making. They have historically most often been depicted as male, and among the slowly growing body of female filmic christ figures, they are usually depicted as adult White women. In this article, I consider two films, Niki Caro’s Whale Rider and Disney’s Moana, in which young Indigenous girls are depicted within this trope. I engage in close reading of the films, in relation (...) to Anton Karl Kozlovic’s theoretical framework for structural characteristics of the filmic christ figure, as I focus my discussion here on the christological symbolism of the two female child figures in these films, while also folding this back to the long-standing religious and literary tradition of the holy fool. The aim of this article is to contribute to the growing body of critical and theoretical work about the representation and reading of women and religion in film. (shrink)

Zen advocates returning to a childlike state of mind, unburdened by the conceptual baggage that marks what people typically call “adult” and “mature” thinking – baggage that includes concepts of the self, of the future, and of hoarding worldly goods so one's future self will live comfortably. This chapter begins with a Zen master whose own life story is worthy of a Disney movie. His name is Dogen Kigen. Dogen chose the monastic path because he wanted the opposite of (...) escape: liberation. If the three marks of existence are the problem, the solution is not to flee them. Rather, it is to make peace with them. Rather, it is to make peace with them. If one can do that, maybe he/she can even reach a deeper level of insight: they were never the problem in the first place. (shrink)

Death and morality connect in interesting ways in Disney movies. In some Disney films, heroes are defined partly by their willingness to take risks that might result in death, as long as these risks are to protect or obtain good things that make human life worth living. A related ethical issue that Disney films address with regard to death is appropriate grief. Disney films, on balance, show an awareness and respect for the cycle (...) of human life. Perhaps that is why Disney reserves some of its worst deaths for evil characters who refuse to accept the fact of their own mortality. In all of the examples, Disney illustrates the connection many philosophers maintain between courage, cowardice, and death. Disney and Pixar films are so rich and popular that people should use them to engage in difficult conversations about death and other subjects. (shrink)

Disney's computer‐animated musical film, Moana tells the tale of Moana, the daughter of Tui, the chief of a Polynesian island, Motunui. Bound by the legendary tradition of her ancestors, Moana is expected to follow her lineage and take over as chief when she grows up. As the authors dig beneath the surface level of the story, they find a metaphorical and philosophical level to Moana's journey. The story of Moana has layers. First, it is literally a tale of Moana's (...) voyage outside beyond the reef so that she can restore the heart of Te Fiti and save the people of Motunui. She closes this tale with a happy ending as she simultaneously lives the life that she freely chooses, becomes the leader of her people (by saving them) as her parents wanted, and honors her tradition insofar as she restores her ancestors' tradition of wayfinding. (shrink)

The Lion King is a Disney version of Shakespeare's most famous play, Hamlet. It was going to be the first Disney animated feature film based on an original concept – no source material. Hamlet's famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy rings with existential absurdity, and his morbid brooding reflects a sense of meaninglessness. The existential question of being permeates both play and film. The Lion King transfers Hamlet's contemplative question about life and death to not one (...) but two delightful characters, perfect for manufacture and distribution as stuffed animals, plastic action figures, plates, cups, stickers, one names it. After he leaves the Pride Lands, Simba runs into Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog who offer him an answer to Hamlet's question. The Lion King ends with song and the celebration of Simba's own son – the circle of life continues. (shrink)

This chapter talks about the love story that defines Anna and Elsa's relationship in Frozen. At its core, the story of Frozen is about two sisters who love one another but cannot be together. As children, then as adults, a heavy door keeps Anna and Elsa apart. In her willingness to speak despite their separation, Anna reveals a hint of the true love that will later save both Elsa's life and her own. Anna turns away from Kristoff to protect Elsa (...) from Hans. As Hans swings his sword, which condenses all of the masculine‐defined tropes in anger, to kill Elsa. When Anna shatters Han's sword, people finally realize the power of true love. Anna overcomes fear and puts her sister's safety before her own. The act of true love that saves Anna is her own loving act for her sister. (shrink)

Goofy is one of the most beloved and enduring members of the Disney family. In the course of A Goofy Movie, Goofy passes on to his son, Max, a fishing pole that is “been handed down from Goof to Goof to Goof.” Obviously, this pole is one of Goofy's prized possessions and he takes great pride in gifting it to Max. Unfortunately, in doing so, he violates Kant's categorical imperative, since the handing on of this pole is not something (...) that Goofy could mandate be done by everyone. He would not want Pete handing this rod to his son, PJ, since it is a Goof family heirloom. In considering why ordinary men and women start to wonder about ethical living, the authors used Goofy's example of humble but accident‐prone dedication to examine what constitutes success in moral decision‐making. (shrink)

Disney's animated film canon offers two contrasting visions of marriage and parenthood, which correspond to two rival portrayals of family life. The first vision of the family is what people can call the Irrational Matriarchy and Patriarchy (IMP) model. The second is what they can call the Family Unity Model. Disney's IMP families often recapitulate an old debate in political philosophy – that between Robert Filmer and John Locke. According to Locke, the most promising argument for the patriarchist (...) position is that parents give their children life and therefore have a power over their lives. In contrast with the Lockean vision of marriage, the author considers the marriage vows between Pongo and Perdita. In the Family Unity Model, having and rearing children is not to be feared as a threat to one's liberty, success, and happiness. Indeed, The Incredibles turns Beauvoir's critique of the family on its head in several ways. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Save The Music”?Toward Culturally Relevant, Joyful, and Sustainable School MusicJulia Eklund KozaIf historical sources are reliable indicators, music educators have never felt confident that music's place in the U.S. public school curriculum is secure. Proponents have been developing exhaustive rationales for the existence of school music from the moment that the subject was introduced into the public schools, attempting to convince an apparently skeptical public of the merits of (...) school music, and trying to pull endangered programs—usually their own—out of the fire. Today, as has been the case in the past, rescue and salvation discourses and initiatives abound. Moving music to a more secure place in the curriculum was cited as a rationale for the development of national music standards in 1994.1 In recent years saving the music has become a favorite project of major corporations, especially as privatization of public schooling has gained momentum. For example, in 1998 one of the National Association for Music Education's (MENC) corporate partners credited the school/partnership that promoted the Disney movie, Mr. Holland's Opus, with saving school music.2 The corporate-sponsored initiative "VH1 Save the Music" claims not only to help flailing school music programs but also, through the donation of musical instruments to schools, to rescue children as well—more than 250,0000 of them since 1997.3 [End Page 23]Because music outside of school seems to be thriving and probably will never be in need of rescue—although specific styles, genres, and practices may be in their twilight—"the music" to which "VH1 Save the Music" refers presumably is school music. As a music educator who perennially is called upon to "save the music," I will take a brief look at the object of salvation, the salvific discourses that surround it, and some of the systems of reasoning that construct it. I propose modifications in these systems of reasoning, which may lead to more culturally relevant, joyful, and sustainable school music.School Music: An Alchemized Constellation of Systems of Reasoning and PracticesTo conceptualize school music as an entity is both problematic and useful. On the one hand, doing so assumes the existence of an exteriority from which it can be clearly differentiated, that is, outside-of-school music, and yet these culturally constructed categories are leaky. The fact that the American Federation of Musicians joined forces with MENC to establish guidelines, which attempt to prevent school performing groups from encroaching on the turf of unionized professional musicians, indicates that the line of distinction between school music and its exteriority sometimes has been blurred.4Furthermore, when VH1 refers to it as "the music," school music seems to be not only clearly defined but also static and monolithic. I argue, however, that it consists of a whole constellation of systems of reasoning as well as the varied practices resulting from these systems. Differences between the various elements in this constellation may be as numerous as commonalities. School music in the U.S. is diverse in the sense that it encompasses a variety of sub-categories or sub-cultures (for example, elementary general music, secondary instrumental music, and so on), each with somewhat distinct systems of reasoning and practices. When suggesting that school music should be saved, we are faced with the complex question of whether all of these sub-categories, their systems of reasoning, and their consequent practices are to be objects of salvation.In addition to having to address the variety within school music, any mapping of relationships between school music and it exteriority should take into account the variety and dynamism of the musical world outside of school. This exteriority consists of a multiplicity of sub-cultures, each with a set of governing practices that may or may not be shared.On the other hand, astonishing within-category similarity exists, which supports the view that school music is an entity. In addition, some commonalities may not only unite all of the sub-categories but also may be shared with non-music school subjects, as well. One such commonality is the inescapable influence of a process of change educational theorist Thomas Popkewitz calls [End Page 24] "alchemy... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain system (...) can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain system (...) can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Save The Music”?Toward Culturally Relevant, Joyful, and Sustainable School MusicJulia Eklund KozaIf historical sources are reliable indicators, music educators have never felt confident that music's place in the U.S. public school curriculum is secure. Proponents have been developing exhaustive rationales for the existence of school music from the moment that the subject was introduced into the public schools, attempting to convince an apparently skeptical public of the merits of (...) school music, and trying to pull endangered programs—usually their own—out of the fire. Today, as has been the case in the past, rescue and salvation discourses and initiatives abound. Moving music to a more secure place in the curriculum was cited as a rationale for the development of national music standards in 1994.1 In recent years saving the music has become a favorite project of major corporations, especially as privatization of public schooling has gained momentum. For example, in 1998 one of the National Association for Music Education's (MENC) corporate partners credited the school/partnership that promoted the Disney movie, Mr. Holland's Opus, with saving school music.2 The corporate-sponsored initiative "VH1 Save the Music" claims not only to help flailing school music programs but also, through the donation of musical instruments to schools, to rescue children as well—more than 250,0000 of them since 1997.3 [End Page 23]Because music outside of school seems to be thriving and probably will never be in need of rescue—although specific styles, genres, and practices may be in their twilight—"the music" to which "VH1 Save the Music" refers presumably is school music. As a music educator who perennially is called upon to "save the music," I will take a brief look at the object of salvation, the salvific discourses that surround it, and some of the systems of reasoning that construct it. I propose modifications in these systems of reasoning, which may lead to more culturally relevant, joyful, and sustainable school music.School Music: An Alchemized Constellation of Systems of Reasoning and PracticesTo conceptualize school music as an entity is both problematic and useful. On the one hand, doing so assumes the existence of an exteriority from which it can be clearly differentiated, that is, outside-of-school music, and yet these culturally constructed categories are leaky. The fact that the American Federation of Musicians joined forces with MENC to establish guidelines, which attempt to prevent school performing groups from encroaching on the turf of unionized professional musicians, indicates that the line of distinction between school music and its exteriority sometimes has been blurred.4Furthermore, when VH1 refers to it as "the music," school music seems to be not only clearly defined but also static and monolithic. I argue, however, that it consists of a whole constellation of systems of reasoning as well as the varied practices resulting from these systems. Differences between the various elements in this constellation may be as numerous as commonalities. School music in the U.S. is diverse in the sense that it encompasses a variety of sub-categories or sub-cultures (for example, elementary general music, secondary instrumental music, and so on), each with somewhat distinct systems of reasoning and practices. When suggesting that school music should be saved, we are faced with the complex question of whether all of these sub-categories, their systems of reasoning, and their consequent practices are to be objects of salvation.In addition to having to address the variety within school music, any mapping of relationships between school music and it exteriority should take into account the variety and dynamism of the musical world outside of school. This exteriority consists of a multiplicity of sub-cultures, each with a set of governing practices that may or may not be shared.On the other hand, astonishing within-category similarity exists, which supports the view that school music is an entity. In addition, some commonalities may not only unite all of the sub-categories but also may be shared with non-music school subjects, as well. One such commonality is the inescapable influence of a process of change educational theorist Thomas Popkewitz calls [End Page 24] "alchemy... (shrink)

The World War II Disney propaganda films – the propaganda and entertainment shorts – are included in the Walt Disney in the Front Lines boxed set, which was released as part of the third wave of the Walt Disney Treasures collection in 2004. This chapter considers a neutral definition of propaganda – one that does not foreclose on the question of its moral acceptability. Each of the Disney propaganda shorts comes with a specific message, though (...) the common purpose was “intended to help the war effort, whether by encouraging thrift and sacrifice, or demoralizing the enemy.” Whether it is the pareidolic depictions of Nazi submarines in The Spirit of '43, or the caricatures of the German leaders in Der Fuehrer's Face, or the portraits of the Japanese troops in Commando Duck: the point is that these all rouse the passions in a way that purely verbal descriptions of the Axis soldiers never could. (shrink)

Walt Disney’s animation film Bambi is transparently liberal, and in the post-1968 era could even be seen as post-modern and deep-ecological. The reading offered here, however, makes three counter-moves to this prevailing interpretation: First it follows in both broad technique and ultimate conclusion Žižek’s critique of The Sound of Music wherein he unmasks a fascist ideology encoded in this ostensibly liberal musical. Second, it introduces a gender lens via Silvia Plath’s autobiographical poem, “Daddy,” and third, it employs Lacan's Mirror (...) Stage as key to this construction of a gendered identity and hierarchy. These three moves combine to show that, far from a simple coming-of-age cartoon about a cute little deer, the perennial classic Bambi can be read decidedly other-wise. (shrink)

Disney’s Frozen (2013) and Frozen 2 (2019) are among the highest-grossing films of all time (IMDb 2021) and are arguably among the most influential works of fantasy produced in the last decade in any medium. The films, based loosely on Hans Christensen Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” (Andersen 2014) focus on the adventures of the sisters Anna and Elsa as they, together with their companions, seek to safeguard their people both from external threats and (importantly) from Elsa’s inabilities (...) to control her magical abilities to summon ice and snow. While Anna’s choices drive much of the action of both films, Elsa has undoubtedly been the more influential and popular of the two characters, as indicated by measures such as merchandise sales (Ellen Byron and Paul Ziobro 2014), Google search data (Play Like Mum 2020), and even baby name choices (Wolfers 2015). -/- Despite her popularity, Elsa is in many ways a paradoxical sort of hero, as she finds her actions all but predetermined by both external and internal forces. This is particularly the case in the first film, where we meet an Elsa who has been born with a power she cannot control, and which appears more as a force of nature than as anything that “belongs” to Elsa. The film’s action is driven, in large part, precisely by Elsa’s failures to exert control over her emotions and abilities. She begins the film by accidentally injuring Anna. This, in turn, causes Elsa to become fearful and withdrawn and to isolate herself from her sister, even after their parents die on a quest to find a cure for Elsa. Elsa's fear and lack of control lead to an even more dire outcome when she inadvertently calls down winter on Arendelle and abandons her people for the mountains. It is only through Anna's devoted quest to rescue her sister, first by pursuing her to the mountains, and later by throwing herself in front of the villainous Hans’ sword attack on her sister, that Elsa (and Arendelle) are saved. Elsa's most active contribution to this is to appreciate the import of Anna's sacrifice and to discover the power of "love" to overcome her fear. -/- What then, are we to make of Elsa as a character? It is the younger sister Anna who corresponds most closely to Gerda, the unquestioned protagonist of Andersen’s original tale, and her character arc fits neatly with the well-known “Hero’s Journey” model for describing myth (Campbell 2020). It is Anna, for example, who goes on a quest, meets a group of motley companions (the human Kristoff, the reindeer Sven, and the magical snowman Olaf), accepts advice from wise elders (the trolls), undergoes a severe trial, and even gets the "reward" of romantic love at the end. All of this has led some scholars (Niemiec and Bretherton 2015; Heit 2019) to hold up Anna, rather than Elsa, as something like the hero of the story. Existing scholarship on Elsa, by contrast, has focused largely on issues related to her gender and sexuality (Law 2014; Lee 2015; Steinhoff 2017; Streiff and Dundes 2017; Dundes, Streiff, and Streiff 2018; Dundes 2020; Llompart and Brugué 2020). In what follows, I’ll be taking a closer look at Elsa’s unique status as a protagonist, and what her struggles with fate reveal about the nature of free will and ethical responsibility. I’ll argue that Elsa provides a useful model of a “Stoic hero” and that her strengths and weaknesses as a character provide valuable insight into an often-misunderstood school of philosophy. My argument will proceed in several stages. I’ll begin by describing the basic tenets of Stoic philosophy, paying special attention to the role of fate and nature. I’ll then move on to a more detailed treatment of Stoic ethics, as exemplified by Elsa’s own character development. I’ll close by considering the infamous “Lazy Argument” against. (shrink)

Walt Disney’s movie, The Pagemaster (1994) begins on a dark and stormy night, with a young boy stumbling into an immense, gothic-styled library for refuge from the rain. Once inside, he is soon carried away by a tumultuous river of coloured paints, transformed into an animated characterization of himself, and thrust into an animated world of literature, where he battles Captain Hook, flees Moby Dick, and participates in other classic tales of adventure, horror, and fantasy. -/- Adults might understand (...) the film as a fanciful description of how they feel when reading a lively book. Although they would probably not imagine themselves tagging along with the animated characters like a 4th musketeer, they might very well claim that they enter a fiction through the viewpoint of one or more of the characters, experiencing, imaginatively, mental images of the sights, sounds, smells, and movements that the character would experience. Under this description, the reader would be forming multi- modal images that would correspond directly to what the literary characters are doing, thinking, and experiencing. When a fictional hero whips out his sword and slashes a rope in half, the reader might form a visual image of the hero’s determined face, an auditory image of the sound of the whizzing sword, and a motor image of an extended arm movement. I call such an imitative participation, by use of mental images in any modality, a simulation. -/- I suggest that this imitative experiencing of a fiction through the production of multi-modal imagery - a simulation - is not the only way in which readers might engage a literary text. In this paper I explore the hypothesis that readers might use their own bodily processes - those of the somato-viscero-motor system (SVM) for a non-imitative activity that I call a reinterpretation and that the reinterpretation might make a distinctive contribution to the reading process. As an example of a simulation and a reinterpretation, take the SVM experience of the reader’s breathing. A simulation would occur if the text describes a character who is taking deep breaths of air and the reader creates a mental image representing the experience of breathing. In this case, the reader’s mental image of breathing would stand for a property of the literary work - the fictional experience of breathing. -/- By contrast to the simulation, a reinterpretation would occur if the text describes a character who is gazing at long, wispy clouds that extend outward from a horizon and the reader uses his own experience of breathing to stand for the visual sense of looking at a long, continuous expanse of filmy white: the reader’s actual breathing would stand for a property of the literary work - the fictional experience of seeing. Breathing is not the same as seeing. This should help clarify the following definition. -/- I hypothesize that a reinterpretation occurs when the reader becomes aware of some component of the SVM system and reinterprets it as a property of the literary work that is not the same as that particular SVM process. The SVM experience is projected into the literary work. (shrink)

Mary Poppins is a magical film and a story of redemption that might be placed alongside the Parable of the Prodigal Son or A Christmas Carol. Mary may be the star of the film, but George Banks is its subject. If the world ever seemed wonderful and filled with surprises for George Banks as a child, it has since been supplanted by a world that is mechanical, predictable, and subject to the demands of business and of propriety. From Jack the (...) Giant Killer people learn that when pride has grown to gigantic proportions it ought to be killed; Cinderella teaches that the humble are exalted; Beauty and the Beast demonstrates the principle that loving the unlovable may result in the transformation from the beastly to the beautiful; and Mary Poppins reminds them that “There is no greater joy than that seen through the eyes of a child,” as Walt Disney observes in Saving Mr. Banks. (shrink)

This book is the first to put forward a general theory of the manner in which different media--music, words, moving picture, and dance--work together to create multimedia. Beginning with a study of the way in which meaning is mediated in television commercials, the book concludes with in-depth readings of Disney's Fantasia, Madonna's video Material Girl, and Armide (Godard's sequence from the collaborative film Aria). Analysing Musical Multimedia not only shows how approaches deriving from music theory can contribute to the (...) understanding of multimedia, but also seeks to draw conclusions from the practice and further development of musical analysis. (shrink)

Although Ian Barbour’s model for outlining the science-religion relationship is probably the best known taxonomy, it also faces substantial criticism. I offer a qualified defence of the continuing usefulness of Barbour’s taxonomy as a starting point for exploring the science-religion relationship. To achieve this, I outline a method for illustrating Barbour’s taxonomy by using the recent Disney/Pixar film Inside Out in a reciprocal manner: as an upshot, the message of the movie can be employed for modifying some aspects of (...) the taxonomy. (shrink)

The very beginning of David Lynch's The Straight Story, the words that introduce the credits, "Walt Disney Presents - A David Lynch Film," provides what is perhaps the best resume of the ethical paradox that marks the end of century: the overlapping of the transgression with the norm. Walt Disney, the brand of the conservative family values, takes under its umbrella David Lynch, the author who epitomizes transgression, bringing to the light the obscene underworld of perverted sex and (...) violence that lurks beneath the respectable surface of our lives. Today, more and more, the cultural-economic apparatus itself, in order to reproduce itself in the market competition conditions, has not only to tolerate, but directly to incite stronger and stronger shocking effects and products. Suffice it to recall recent trends in visual arts: gone are the days when we had simple statues or enframed paintings - what we get now are expositions of frames themselves without paintings, expositions of dead cows and their excrements, videos of the inside of the human body, inclusion of smell into the exposition, etc.etc. Here, again, as in the domain of sexuality, perversion is no longer subversive: the shocking excesses are part of the system itself, the system feeds on them in order to reproduce itself. Perhaps, this is one of the possible definitions of postmodern art as opposed to modernist art: in postmodernism, the transgressive excess loses its shocking value and is fully integrated into the established artistic market. (shrink)