Tag: Disney Princesses

Guest Post, Movies

An Open Letter to the Creators of Disney’s Live Action Mulan

by ConcernedForMulan | Originally posted at Angry Asian Man

[Ed. note: In the 24 hours since this open letter was posted on AAM, Disney has released a statement that their live action adaptation of Mulan will not feature a white love interest. We are still posting the original letter because we can confirm that the spec script discussed below does indeed exist and is still indicative of how Hollywood views Asians.]

A white merchant’s business brings him to the heart of a legendary Asian conflict — he unwittingly helps save the day while winning the heart of the Asian female. Am I describing the plotline of the Netflix series Marco Polo? No. I’m describing the spec script that Disney bought for its live-action feature film, The Legend of Mulan, which is projected for release in 2018.

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Animation, Movies

Color Commentary: Disney’s Frozen

In honor of the nationwide “snow day,” Color Commentary is back and this time it is taking on Disney’s Frozen. But don’t let the weather or the movie title fool you. No chill will be found in this post.

Color Commentary is done in complete satire, intended for mature audiences, and meant for entertainment purposes. In other words, if you take any of this seriously, you are a fracking idiot.

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Animation, Movies

Get Your First Look at Disney’s Moana

Even though the movie is more than a year away, we cannot contain our excitement for Moana, the newest addition to Disney’s iconic princesses. Set for a Thanksgiving 2016 release, the movie will star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the demigod Maui and 14-year old newcomer Auli’i Cravalho has been tapped to play the titular Princess Moana. That’s right, a Disney Princess movie about Hawaii starring actual Pacific Islander actors in the roles of Pacific Islander characters. And Emma Stone is nowhere to be found!

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Toys

Nothing’s Wrong with Pink and Purple Bricks: A Defense of LEGO Friends

A few months back, an imgur post about a girl who turned her LEGO Friends juice bar Christmas present into a giant mecha went viral. And the internet cheered. Stupid gendered-girl LEGOs get turned into awesome robot, was the typical response I saw tossed around.

And while the robot was indeed awesome, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about all of the ridicule that was being hurled at the original LEGO set. You see, my own daughter also received a similar playset for Christmas. Should she be ashamed that she wanted (and actually liked) to build the “boring” girly thing instead of the “awesome” robot thing?

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Animation, Television, Toys

Will Disney’s Latina Princess Get the Same Treatment as Other Princesses of Color?

Originally posted at Childish Things

Disney’s next Disney Film Canon Princess isn’t set to arrive until 2019 Edit: 2016! [Sorry!], and she’s a princess of color — Moana, a Pacific Islander. In the meantime, they are introducing a new Latina princess to its cartoon universe. Elena of Avalor will be introduced on the already popular Disney cartoon Sofia the First, before receiving her full spin-off.

It is about time that Disney spread its diversity notches to the Latina community. While it reeks of tokenism, it is still an excellent opportunity for young Latina girls to have someone to look up to other than the aged up Dora the Explorer. I’m actually surprised Disney didn’t jump on a Latina character soon, considering Dora has been so popular for so long. I hope this princess does well and that the Disney TV Cartoon princesses can join their film counterparts in inspiring young girls of color to follow their dreams and work hard and all those other themes. It’s so frustrating that each group must wait their turn basically before they can have some representation on television in a big way like this.

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Fantasy, Movies, Sci Fi, Television

On Conflict in Brave and Orphan Black

In this week’s video, I talk about internal/external conflict and decision-making conflict vs. kill-all-the-bad-guys conflict using the BBC America science-fiction series Orphan Black and the Disney/Pixar film Brave as examples.

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Movies, Star Wars

The Disney Triple Crown: Why Ming-Na Needs to Be in Star Wars

Earlier this week, Lucasfilm announced the addition of two more actors to the cast of Star Wars Episode VII. We do not yet know who the two relatively unknown actors — Pip Anderson, who’s British, and Crystal Clarke, who’s African American — will play in the movie, but I’m guessing their roles must be substantial enough to warrant a press release about their casting. If their characters are indeed prominent, Clarke will join John Boyega and Lupita Nyong’o in making this “the blackest Star Wars ever.”

Still, every time breaking Star Wars casting news comes across my feed, there’s always one name that I hope to see in the headlines: Ming-Na Wen.

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Movies, Star Wars

Star Wars the Musical Parody Short Debuts

In late 2013, I heard that director Jeffrey Gee Chin (Lil Tokyo Reporter) and composer George Shaw (TableTop, Keye Luke, Hang Loose) were making a Star Wars musical fan film set in style to Disney musicals.

After many months of production, the short film Star Wars the Musical (Disney Parody) has now been released on YouTube and is sure to garner many views. In fact, our very own Junko was a production assistant for the film too!

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Fantasy, Movies

Maleficent is Seldom What it Seems

Beware ye who may read this, for there be slight spoilers ahead.

In an embarrassment of riches as far as summer movies go, there was one that I had no intention of missing in the theatres. Maleficent was that movie.

As you would expect, this is a retelling of a story that you only think you know. Like the mega-popular Broadway musical Wicked did for The Wizard of Oz, Maleficent retells the tale of Sleeping Beauty from another point of view. Oh, and what a tale it tells! But that is also where I had the most problem with the movie.

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Animation, Movies, School of Hard NOCs

My Daughter’s Preschool Class Sang “Let It Go”

I’m sure that by now you’ve seen the video in which young Jathan Muhar answers the perennial graduation-time question of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with an answer to warm any NOC’s heart. He wanted to be Batman. [Ed. note: I guess kindergarteners are a superstitious, cowardly lot. Also, somebody should warn the kid’s parents to never walk down any dark alleys at night. Just sayin’.]

In one short day, it’s been everywhere from Break.com to Gawker to The Huffington Post to the Facebook page of the Ellen DeGeneres Show. But I saw it before it went viral — I saw it live because my 5-year-old daughter was a classmate of his, graduating with him this past Wednesday.

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