Case (
case) wrote in
fandomsecrets2012-03-23 07:01 pm
[ SECRET POST #1907 ]
⌈ Secret Post #1907 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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[Disney's Gargoyles]
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[X-Men: First Class]
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[keanu reeves]
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[keanu reeves]
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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]
11. [SPOILERS for Death Note]

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12. [SPOILERS for Kuragehime]

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13. [SPOILERS for The Walking Dead]

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14. [SPOILERS for Supernatural]

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15. [SPOILERS for Mass Effect 3]

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16. [SPOILERS for Mass Effect 3]

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17. [SPOILERS for Mass Effect 3]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]
18. [TRIGGER WARNING for sexual abuse]

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19. [TRIGGER WARNING for rape]

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20. [TRIGGER WARNING for rape]

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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #272.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - hit/ship/spiration ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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This is why I felt Disney shot themselves in the foot by setting the story in 1920s New Orleans in the first place. Tiana never had a chance to have a story free of class and racial bullshit. Disney stayed loyal to limitations they never had to set to begin with, for reasons I may never understand (to exploit jazz music for the soundtrack is my first theory, but then they could have used Harlem much better for that, and with fewer problematic stereotypes like rednecks and voodoo).
...Because Naveen did and there were two main characters?
Oh, whoops, I misinterpreted the song, my apologies.
You also don't want to have her be an unappealing character and screaming at her mother is a great way to lose her appeal and make her seem immature
She didn't need to go that far. She just needed to be slightly more visibly flawed, which could have been covered by just one scene of her work interfering with her relationships.
It could have been nice to she her relationship with her family more, but it's hard to make a believable movie where a lower class American woman could legitimately fall in love and marry a European prince, and I do think it was important to make her a real princess instead of a girl in a pretty dress.
See my first bit about Disney shooting themselves in the foot. Why couldn't Naveen have been an African prince? Hell, why couldn't Tiana have been a African princess of a fantasy kingdom based off Kush, Ashanti, Yoruba? Or Disney-fy the Greek Andromeda myth (the princess and her parents were Ethiopian)? People of black descent don't lack for a rich history of royalty and fairytales, so copypasting a black woman into a European fairytale with a European prince in modern America was just...kind of a waste of a great opportunity.
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That's what I wondered! I would have loved to see a fantasy kingdom based off of somewhere we don't get to see in movies very often (i.e., anywhere that isn't Europe).
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-24 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)Because I think it would have been worse to not show it? People would still be complaining that Disney didn't make a black princess and that it tried to side-step all the issues, etc.
She didn't need to go that far. She just needed to be slightly more visibly flawed, which could have been covered by just one scene of her work interfering with her relationships.
Well, they did have that, just not in any significant way, which I agree would have been a lot better.
Why couldn't Naveen have been an African prince? Hell, why couldn't Tiana have been a African princess of a fantasy kingdom based off Kush, Ashanti, Yoruba? Or Disney-fy the Greek Andromeda myth (the princess and her parents were Ethiopian)? People of black descent don't lack for a rich history of royalty and fairytales, so copypasting a black woman into a European fairytale with a European prince in modern America was just...kind of a waste of a great opportunity.
Personally I think that it would be avoiding the issue in a sweeping-it-under-the-rug way. People would be all about how Disney would never have a black American character, etc. Also, I have a feeling they would get some flack for having the "ethnic Barbie" thing. In western cultures only white girls are special, etc. There's also a hell of a lot of issue that they dodge by avoiding the African continent, in particular making her seem tribal or by dodging the issue and making her Egyptian which is often considered part of "Western culture" too.
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-24 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-24 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)Also, there were only maybe 4 human living male characters if you stretch it and half of them are evil.
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-26 07:08 am (UTC)(link)I like that Disney is having a lot more ethnically diverse characters, including multi-racial ones, but that may be a reflection of coming from a family where I think we have members of a lot of different races.
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Considering Disney has so few American characters of any color in the vast majority of their animated canon and that doesn't seem to bother anyone, I sincerely doubt this.
There's also a hell of a lot of issue that they dodge by avoiding the African continent, in particular making her seem tribal or by dodging the issue and making her Egyptian which is often considered part of "Western culture" too.
That so many people really do seem to feel that drawing and/or writing fantasy with African characters is a choice between Egypt and tribes in the bush makes me so sad that I could not begin to express it. What I would give for an animated movie that finally blows that erroneous perception out of the water. Maybe some are out there and I need to stop expecting Western animators to provide it. To be honest, of all animation companies, Disney is the one I'd trust least to do it right. So maybe it's for the best.
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-24 11:03 pm (UTC)(link)I thought it did, but I'm willing to concede. I just see a lot of people saying that they tried to avoid having a black character by turning Tiana into a frog for most of the movie, and while I would have liked to see her human more, I disagree with that.
That so many people really do seem to feel that drawing and/or writing fantasy with African characters is a choice between Egypt and tribes in the bush makes me so sad that I could not begin to express it.
Are there other example that you'd share of African cultures that don't fit those? I'd be very interested! I looked up Kush, but that's very similar to Egyptian in my very limited opinion.
Maybe some are out there and I need to stop expecting Western animators to provide it. To be honest, of all animation companies, Disney is the one I'd trust least to do it right. So maybe it's for the best.
I wish they would do something with the songs from the Aida musical, but wishful thinking!
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I don't think making Tiana a frog for so long was a "lol we hate black people" move, but it seemed like a really baffling and unnecessary divergence from their other princesses.
Are there other example that you'd share of African cultures that don't fit those? I'd be very interested! I looked up Kush, but that's very similar to Egyptian in my very limited opinion.
Cultures, there's too many to count. Kingdoms, the Kushite empire is my personal favorite, but if you just wanted to veer away from North Africa entirely, there's the Oyo, Benin, and Nri empires in West Africa, Kongo empire in Central Africa and the Mutapa empire in the South, among others. I've only just started researching (for a fantasy world I want to build), but there were a bunch of pre-colonial kingdoms across the continent. Wikipedia has piss-poor organization of all of them, but this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_empires) is an okay place to start.
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(Anonymous) 2012-03-26 07:12 am (UTC)(link)Thank you for your examples! I'm definitely checking them out!
While I didn't say anything above, a lot of these kingdoms seem to have their best wear with a lot of patterns/texture. That's extremely problematic for traditional animation (though would be fine with CG).
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