Academic literature on the topic 'Disney's'

Disney’s princesses and heroines have long captured the minds and hearts of young girls with their magical dress. This thesis researches the fashion symbols in a chosen set of animated movies and relate this to children’s reception, sexuality and gender issues and narrative identities. A semiotic analysis of the movies and relating them to read literature will shine a new light on this subject.

The animated films of Walt Disney have played an important role in American culture. Most Americans, either during childhood or adulthood, have been exposed to at least some of them. The films themselves have, in some respects, reflected American society and culture. They may also, at least to some extent, have influenced them. As academic scholarship on the history of Hollywood film has grown, various aspects of Disney's influence and cultural position have likewise come to be the focus of study. In recent decades, also, there has been a continually greater interest in the role of women in American society and how that role is constructed. Uniting both these scholarly interests, this thesis analyses how Disney films depict femininity, and the ways in which such depictions correspond with those in the larger arena of Hollywood film. To make these issues more comprehensible, it describes the beginnings of animated film in the United States, together with the early career and works of Walt Disney. In order to cast light on the manner in which such portrayals have changed over time, the films examined are analysed in relation to three particular time periods: 193 7-67, 1967-89, and 1989-99. By examining the depictions to be found within individual films, and comparing these depictions both with one another and with selected live-action, mainstream Hollywood films of the same eras, a better understanding of the make-up of the Disney films as a body of work is achieved, and a corrective offered to some of the misconceptions of Disney to be found within American society in general.

This text seeks to provide an account of the subject as a consumer of mass-media. As such, the contemporary consumer must interact with corporate entities as socio-cultural institutions that enable a self-administration of gratification. The case under discussion is that of the Walt Disney Company, which is perhaps the most iconic purveyor of consumable media in the world. It is argued that the Walt Disney Company is structurally perverse, that the gratification of the Disney consumer is achieved at their expense, and that this expense is to the benefit of Disney commercially and structurally as a major socio-cultural institution. This text makes use of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, film and cultural studies, and the industrial-organisational history of the Walt Disney Company to create an account of the subject's interactions within the apparatus of Disney media. The account of consumerism constructed within this text is organised by a synthesis of several theoretical constructs: the animated homunculus, the regressive cinematic apparatus and the Disney consumerist utopia. The homunculus refers to a point of contact for the subject's gratification. It is a fetishistic device used in animated films to create a focal point for the viewer's desire and identifications. This operates within the subject's relation to the screen as apparatus, which in the case of Disney is demonstrated to be regressive in its narrative structure and stylistic content. The regressive pleasures of Disney media support a system and economy of gratification that crystallizes in Disney as a commercial entity. The ideological and structural core of the Disney entity is demonstrated to be a utopian vision of consumerism and self-administration of gratification. The creation of socio-cultural structures that enable the subject to self-administrate their gratification is shown to be related to the problem of addiction; a dependency on consumables and consumption itself. Together these concepts create a holistic account of Disney as an object of study, as both commercial entity, visual medium and cultural institution.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, School of Communication, 2009.<br>"August, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 10/14/2009) Advisor, Mary Triece; Committee members, Therese Lueck, Carolyn Anderson; School Director, Carolyn Anderson; Dean of the College, James Lynn; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Disney's Hercules is an apt modern reception of the ancient mythology of Herakles, acknowledging ancient and modern sources surrounding three types of classical hero: the archetypal hero, influenced by the ideas of Joseph Campbell; the Pan-Hellenic hero, distilled from ancient Greek exempla of heroism from epic and other genres of ancient literature; and the tragic hero, inspired by the heroic criteria presented in Aristotle's Poetics. By adapting these heroic types from their traditional ancient source myths, Disney's Hercules produces a new, contemporary definition of heroism—one informed by modern, Western family values. This adaptation renews the power of the myth of Herakles for a modern era, whose image and characteristics have been changed and adapted since ancient times to suit each receiving culture's conception of true heroism.

This study contributes to the discourse of the body and the voice in feminist psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic film theory by exploring the currently under-theorised notion of the singing body in particular, as this notion finds manifestation in Disney's Singing Princess. Analyses of musical coding and other filmic tropes follow the trajectory of the Singing Princess across thirteen Disney Princess films - from her first appearance in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) through to her most recent manifestation as Elsa in Frozen (2013) - to reveal deeper insight into what she sings, how she sings and why she sings.