Disney's Cinderella...

[shadowkat]

Is a very oddly told tale. And an incredibly beautiful piece of animation - considering no computers and all the cells were individually drawn, a feat.

But it is told mainly through the points of view of mice, birds, and the Prince's father. Cinderella and her Prince are sort of on the periphery. In fact 60% of the film is the mice trying to avoid the evil Stepmother's nasty fat cat Lucifer. The animals don't really talk though, well except for the mice.

The romance is dreamlike...told through lullaby like songs. But the main focus is on the comedic characters of the Prince's father, the King who wants grandchildren and his aide de camp, and the
Cinderella's pet mice who will do anything to help her.

It's so odd.

A clip:

An aside on Aladdin...Jonathan Freeman's voice is bit similar to Jeremy Irons in the Lion King...and Irons apparently has made a career of playing slinky voiced villains.

Comments

Re: LOL

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to sound like I think racial sensitivity is a bad thing; on the contrary, I think people should be aware of what they say in order to reflect on what they really mean by what they say.

But back in the 1960s it was simpler in that you were either for or against integration. And hiring African American performers on TV shows or movies was just better than never hiring them and pretending they don't exist. I think (I could be wrong) that Disney felt that Song of the South was celebrating African American history and culture... at least that is how my parents took it, back in the day.

Times and attitudes change, but I would never throw away the art even if it reflects a more prejudiced time... Just as I don't reject poetry/opera/painting etc done by artists who were themselves prejudiced/faulty people.

Re: LOL

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, you didn't. I was mainly trying to couch my own response so that any lurkers out there would not misread. ;-)

I think so much is based on the context of the time period. In the 1960s and 1970s...colorblind casting was sort of rare. If persons of color were cast - their race was constantly referred to.

Song of the South...could be read more than one way, depending on your point of view - much like Huckleberry Finn. At the time...it was actually fairly progressive. Now, it comes across as racist as it may well have to various people back then.

The story was about an old man, Uncle Remus, who told morality tales to a bunch of children black and white. It wasn't until I read social criticism of it years later that I saw the racial undertones. As a six-seven year old child, I merely saw an old man telling morality stories or parables about animals. It's not all that different than Cinderella. I saw it as a tale about a bunch of animals who help a poor girl obtain her dreams, by working together - it wasn't until years later that I saw the other message - my focus was on the mice defeating Lucifier the cat - when I saw it as a child.

I think people forget that they bring their own perception to the work.
We interact with it.

Gone with the Wind - same deal, it is quite racist actually. But as a child I just saw a romance. As an adult I saw the racism.