i don't believe it, not for a minute

when arguments break out about how disney movies are corrupting the minds of the young, about how they are creating girls who want to be princesses and sit around and do nothing all day, i am always on the side of disney. cinderella does not just sit around waiting for her prince, she sneaks out and gets him. belle sacrifices herself for her father and won't settle for the most gorgeous and desired man in her town because the beast isn't a monster, gaston is. when people claim that disney movies give children unrealistic ideas about the world, uh, fiction has been doing that since the dawn of time. if your child can't tell the difference between fiction and reality, well then, that's not disney's fault.

but there are some movies that have always made me ask, "why?" do whatever you want with movies about fairy godmothers and evil witches, but why take a historical moment and then completely warp it? at jamestown, we watched a movie about the early settlers. part of it talked about john smith, pocahontas, john rolfe and that whole story. my brother turns to me and whispers, "they got it wrong. pocahontas was never kidnapped, and she fell in love with john smith." which of course, is completely untrue.

it's common knowledge that the history they teach in grade school is about as close to what really happened as those stories that claim the elephant got its trunk because an alligator tried to eat its nose. people tend to have that moment in their first "real" history class when they find out that all the heroes they've learned about their whole lives were pretty much the biggest jerks on the planet. i don't know why they think children can't handle the truth, but they like to gloss over all the sticky areas. many people live their whole lives believing in the distorted version of american history. but while our school system is sugar-coating everything for us, they try to stick to the big facts as much as possible. while the perspective is skewed, the events actually happened.

i never understood why disney had to rewrite history with movies like pocahontas. if you don't want to say what really happened, then don't use real people. the story would be just as good if the names were changed. and that's really all they would have to change. everything else could be left exactly the same. children would be just as willing to accept that some native american they've never heard of fell in love with a settler as they are to accept pocahontas did. why mess with their heads?

i've found it true that people want to believe what they were told as children. they'll learn the truth later, but it's the lies that stick with them. they choose disney over history books and their fifth grade social studies teacher over their college professor. so why not just go ahead and let them in on the truth that not everyone was perfect from an early age? i'm sure they're smart enough to understand.

*Take It On the Run - REO Speedwagon 

tale as old as time, true as it can be

so today was an extra disneyfied day. we (me, my sisters, brothers, parents, brother-in-law, and nephew) went to see disney on ice. it was good in case you were wondering, though both my parents (actually i'm not so sure about my dad) fell asleep. total waste of tickets. my main problem was that they put princess tiana into a lot of the parts. and no, before you start to think the worst of me, i'm not racist. i'm not thrilled about the idea of adding a new disney princess (i'm not a big fan of change) and a modern day princess from new orleans thrills me even less, but whatever. but seriously, your movie hasnt even come out yet, get out of the show. they left out a lot of main disney character to put her in??

after lunch and picking up the glasses and contacts from the eye doctor, we went back home and my brother-in-law announces that he feels like watching a good disney show/movie, which i'm always up for. after going through a lengthy list of disney movies we have, we decide on beauty and the beast (the original vhs from 1991) because he had never seen it before.

sidenote: i never understand these people who have gone through their whole lives without watching some of these disney classics. have you been living under a rock your whole life?? i realize that you may not have been taken to see them as a kid, but theyre on tv all the time. watch them.

other side note: my brother insists that cogsworth is me. everything about him apparently screams me. i'm not sure how i feel about that yet.

anyways, there are a bunch of parts in the movie that you have to wonder about. how did belle get the beast on phillipe? how does gaston eat those eggs with their shells? how does she just wipe the mud off her books all the time (it doesnt work)? but we overlook these things because it is a disney movie and the whole is better than a sum of its parts. except for one thing, which has always annoyed me...

where were the prince's parents in the beginning?? we all know that the rose would bloom until his 21st birthday so we can assume by the end of the movie he's 21(which by the way means i'm older than him :/). but during the be our guest song, lumiere mentions that they'd been enchanted for ten years. that would make the prince eleven when he was turned to a beast. what kind of eleven year old lives alone and looks so old in the stained glass story?? and what kind of enchantress would do that to an eleven year old?? i mean, he's a kid for god's sake, ease up a bit.

i realize that, being a kid's movie, things like this arent supposed to be looked into, but come on disney.

i have this thing where i always find the stuff like this in every book movie or show. the parts that just dont make sense or little things actors do that shouldve been cut. my older sister used to hate it. the fact that i can still enjoy/love whatever it is even with its flaws means i'm awesome. just in case you were wondering.

*Beauty and the Beast - Celine Dion

the story needs some mending and a better happy ending

there is a project by dina goldstein titled fallen princesses that i have recently fallen in love with. it was a little depressing, but also genius. what she did was "imagine Disney's perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around [her], such as illness, addiction and self-image issues."

belle... tired of being "the smart one"

jasmine... the stereotypical arab

sleeping beauty (who never woke up) ans prince charming in a retirement home.

rapunzel... hairless

snow white... unhappy housewife

cinderella's not so happily ever after

*Fairytale - Sara Bareilles

buried deep as you can dig inside

i was reading a friend's blog which mentioned a bunch of the dirty things disney put in their movies. of course, most of these have been denied: the word sex in the dust in the lion king was supposedly sfx (the animation people), the priest that is thought to be... a tad too excited while wedding ursula and eric in the little mermaid supposedly just has knobby knees and the shot confuses a lot of people, the fact that aladdin's line in the first edition of the vhs sounds suspiciously like he's telling teenagers to take their clothes off is pure coincidence. of course, since they make him talk more clearly in the later editions it's makes you wonder. some of them couldnt be explained away, though, and were just removed. like the phallic tower on ariel's castle.

anyways, this brought to mind all the other easter eggs in practically everything else, books, movies, software, songs, etc. just in case you didnt know, easter eggs are intentional hidden messages, jokes, or other feature in an object. it's really common in software development and animated movies. because, really, the people who do all of the work hardly ever get really credited for it. it's always the actors, characters, or the computer company that comes to mind when the product is mentioned. plus, hiding easter eggs would make a really tedious job slightly more amusing. there are people who live or finding easter eggs in products. they do all kinds of weird stuff to find them. it's amazing some of them are even found i think. some common easter eggs include:

movies - a lot of them flash by really fast or require you to look really closely :
-the gas station andy's mom pulls into in toy story is the one that sponsors lightning mcqueen in cars
-nemo makes a cameo appearance in monsters inc.
-every pixar animated movie has the same pizza planet truck in it, which was modeled after a toyota hilux.
-the beast shows up in aladdin as one of the toys the sultan is stacking before he is interrupted by jafaar. the genie also pulls out sebastian later in the movie.
-belle makes a cameo appearance in the hunchback of notre dame
-in enchanted, robert's assistant is the actress who voiced ariel, and there is a little mermain song playing in her scene.
-there is a hidden mickey in every disney animated movie.

software - for most of them you have to do a bunch of steps that you probably wouldn't do normally:
-in excel 2000: press F5, type: x2000:2000 and press enter. hold Ctrl + Shift. click the chart wizard and you'll see the credits. there are a bunch more for excel which include flying, viewing a hall of tortured souls, the game spyhunter, and a quiz.
-in photoshop cs3, hold down ctrl while pressing help > about photoshop and you'll see a giant red pill appear on the screen.
-to see credits on firefox, type about:credits into the address bar. also try about:robots to learn about robots and about:mozilla to read a passage from "the book of mozilla"
-i dunno if any of you have had to use matlab for any classes. to make it less of a torture, type life in the command prompt to play a game. or type why to get philosophical guidance. typing shower, toilet, penny, lala, and lalala will also get results.
-type /patchou into an msn convo window to see a pic and message from the creator. or type /insult to start an insult duel with whoever your talking to.
-my professor put an easter egg in a program she made for a client who was always late paying them. if she didnt get a deposit into her bank account two weeks after she handed over the program, it would go crazy every time it was opened until she got paid. needless to say, they paid pretty fast.


*The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most - Dashboard Confessional

could somebody show me the kind of affection that you only see in the movies?

i'm a complete cynic when it comes to love. i just dont believe it exists. not the fairy tale kind at least. not what you see in disney movies. not what you read about in books. people dont share that one magical kiss and then live happily ever after. it just doesnt work that way. im not saying that people dont love each other or are never happy with each other, it's just not like a disney movie.

and i want the disney movie. i've always preferred fictional life to reality.

you know in the movie enchanted when giselle is telling patrick dempsey's character about prince edward and he's all cynical and goes on about how they've only known each other a day and thats ridiculous and stuff?? when you see it in a disney movie, it seems acceptable. why shouldnt the scullery maid marry the prince?? but under the harsh light of reality it really is ridiculous. they danced together for one night. one night. and that is enough to guaruntee a happily ever after?? i wish. i really do.

there's this line in twilight that always bugged me. every time i read the books it annoys me. i'm not gonna go search for the exact quote, but basically edward tells bella how much better and more powerful emotions - namely love - are when you experience them yourself rather than reading about them. it might just be me, but i think pure unadulterated storybook love is stronger than what exists in reality. maybe i'm just really missing out on something, but i dont think disney worthy love exists in the real world.

*Your Evil Soul - The Spill Canvas

a new fantastic point of view

for the first time in over a decade, disney is coming out with a new princess. and for the first time ever, she's a black princess. yup, Tiana from New Orleans is the princess starring in the new disney princess flick the princess and the frog. she's also the first modern disney princess.

the reason for this revolutionary decision?? michelle obama, of course.

despite the fact that i'll probly be tarred and feathered for saying this, to be perfectly honest i am very sick of the whole obama family. the parents, the kids, the dog. tv, radio, magazines, posters, clothing... you cant turn around without coming face to face with one of them.

but i digress. disney has a black princess. very cool, but i dont really see the big deal. making it a big deal kinda has the opposite effect with me than it's supposed to. why should it be a big deal?? why should it get articles in the paper?? it's the same thing that annoyed me about the presidential campaign. why does the race have to be such a big issue?? it reminds me of this scene in some italian movie we watched in a class last semester when they were all excited because a little black poodle could walk on its legs. "it's almost human" they exclaimed. it was a very unsubtle stab at racism. but that's what this extra attention to race reminds me of.

*A Whole New World - Aladdin