Interesting Take on Disney
Click here.
This essay questions why Disney has moved from a portrayal of romantic love as the end to a portrayal of family love as the highest.
The comments are good, too.
Not that we can't enjoy Frozen and Tangled just because. But the portrayed relationships are so . . . different that we can't overlook them.
I am glad that finding romantic love (heterosexual) is not the theme of all of them. For one, it reinforces the dependent woman. Second, there are other types of love. Third, such portrayals do not show the complexity of really living in marriage. As has been noticed about Jane Austen's novels, she doesn't exactly portray a lot of happy marriages (although there are some with minor characters).
On the other hand, the idea that "friends are family" or "we can cobble together our own family" is problematic. The biological family has to be the core of civilization. We do need to bend it sometimes for adoption (not a 20th century phenomenon) or step-parenting, but it is the core. We have to allow ourselves, under most situations, to be molded and sometimes sculpted by the nuclear biological family. (I recognize there are instances of abuse where the nuclear biological family must be displaced and where reconciliation is not possible.) Friends are a type of family and are needed; but I am always suspicious of adult siblings who just can't get along with each other.
This essay questions why Disney has moved from a portrayal of romantic love as the end to a portrayal of family love as the highest.
The comments are good, too.
Not that we can't enjoy Frozen and Tangled just because. But the portrayed relationships are so . . . different that we can't overlook them.
I am glad that finding romantic love (heterosexual) is not the theme of all of them. For one, it reinforces the dependent woman. Second, there are other types of love. Third, such portrayals do not show the complexity of really living in marriage. As has been noticed about Jane Austen's novels, she doesn't exactly portray a lot of happy marriages (although there are some with minor characters).
On the other hand, the idea that "friends are family" or "we can cobble together our own family" is problematic. The biological family has to be the core of civilization. We do need to bend it sometimes for adoption (not a 20th century phenomenon) or step-parenting, but it is the core. We have to allow ourselves, under most situations, to be molded and sometimes sculpted by the nuclear biological family. (I recognize there are instances of abuse where the nuclear biological family must be displaced and where reconciliation is not possible.) Friends are a type of family and are needed; but I am always suspicious of adult siblings who just can't get along with each other.
Comments