Decoding Disney: Amelia Steinbach

The Walt Disney Company and fast-food giant McDonald's have announced a partnership! Beginning in June, 2018, McDonald's will begin to include Disney-themed toys (specifically, Incredibles 2 ) in its Happy Meals. In addition to this inclusion of disney-themed toys, McDonald's will also begin to follow Disney's guidelines for nutrition in its food. Disney tends to emphasize vegetables, fruit, and whole grains a bit more than McDonald's, so the partnership is perhaps not such a coincidence, as McDonald's has also announced that they will be limiting the maximum amount of calories for a Happy Meal to 600 by the year 2022.

On February 27th, the Walt Disney Company announced that they would be investing the equivalent of nearly two and a half billion US dollars into building upon Disneyland Paris in France, which was originally opened in 1992. This may seem quite ambitious, especially after France, and Europe in general, suffered decreases in tourism numbers after numerous terrorist attacks. However, those numbers jumped back up for France in 2017, helping to justify Disney's massive investment. Considering the fact that Disneyland Paris is Europe's most popular theme park, this could end up being a huge payoff for Disney. Specifically, the company hopes to include new areas dedicated to Spider-man, the Hulk, Frozen, and Star Wars. They should be opened beginning in 2021.

As I have previously mentioned on this blog, The Little Mermaid was my absolute favorite Disney princess movie when I was a little girl; I loved the idea of an ocean setting and mermaids. We even performed “Under the Sea” during my fifth grade chorus concert, reinvigorating my love for the film at ten years old. I did not think much about the film again until my high school independent study on gender inequality. Once I started to examine the movie with a new lens, I was not too pleased that I had been allowed to see such a film at such a formative age. I mainly watched clips and read articles for my independent study, so this was my first time watching the entire movie, beginning to end, in quite some time. After watching it, I continued to be frustrated about several things, including the image of the mermaids, the portrayal of Ursula, the lyrics of “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and, honestly, just the general plot of the movie. I know that all of the Disney princesses are ridic

During the second week of February 2018, Walt Disney World and Disneyland increased their entry prices. The price of each entry option was heightened anywhere from a couple dollars to over ten dollars more. The price for a family of four to attend Magic Kingdom park in Orlando, FL for one day now amounts to $526. Personally, I am not super surprised that Disney is raising its prices; I imagine that, from a business perspective, this is the ideal change. Disney is so enormously popular; people plan out entire trips just to visit the parks. For this reason, I doubt that the amount of people who attend the Disney parks will actually change all that much. Most people will probably be willing to pay the higher prices, increasing Disney’s revenue pretty extensively over time. However, I think that the socioeconomic class diversity at Disney (to the extent that it exists...) may end up decreasing. While people obviously have to have a certain amount of wealth in order to

On Friday, February 16th, 2018, Black Panther was released in theaters. The movie was released by Marvel, which has the Walt Disney Corporation as its parent company. Disney had provided a $200 million budget for the film, which, for the first time, starred a black actor playing a superpower, and was directed by a black man. In just the first weekend, the movie has generated over $360 million across the world. The release of this movie was highly anticipated, especially because of its messages about race - both in stories and in Hollywood. Many believe that it will set a powerful example of black leadership - especially for younger audiences, who will finally be able to see themselves reflected in power positions in films of this genre. I believe this proves that movies are not simply a couple hours of our lives that, otherwise, have no impact on our lives or development. Rather, the messages depicted through the entertainment industry can both empower and destro

The Sleeping Beauty  was my second favorite Disney princess movie as a child (after  The Little Mermaid  - I somehow managed to pick two of the most problematic films as my favorites... yikes). My love for the film was definitely partly inspired by the fact that it was not a Disney princess movie that my family owned, so watching it at a friend’s house (or elsewhere) was always a special treat. Prior to watching the movie again for this class, I would have probably summarized it as follows: Maleficent crashes a party with Aurora as a baby and sets the curse on her because she was not invited, Aurora goes to live with the three fairies in the woods, she has a run-in with the Prince she is supposed to marry, she gets tricked into touching the spindle, Phillip goes after Maleficent in anger and defeats her while she is in dragon form, he goes to kiss and wake Aurora, and they lived happily ever after. I also would have made the claim that her dress was pink the entire fil