skygiants: Princess Tutu, facing darkness with a green light in the distance (les cloches)
[personal profile] skygiants
So I read Sold Down the River, the fourth Benjamin January book, a while back, and decided to hold off on reviewing it until I got the next one so as not to completely spam my flist . . . and now it is going to get totally shortchanged because the next one, Die Upon a Kiss, is the Benjamin January book that was written for me. It is full of (literally) operatic drama and wildly labyrinthian revolutionary plots and people agonizing about the director's terrible artistic choices in between trying not to get killed! There is lots of musing on Shakespeare, and awesomely hardcore ladies, and the LEADER OF THE CORPS DE BALLET IS NAMED MARGUERITE. I maintain that she is Madame Giry's grandmother. I could not in any way keep track of the actual murder plot, which is probably as it should be in a meta-opera, but I really enjoyed the SUPER DRAMATIC cast of characters. (I kept picturing Montero as played by Wilhelmina Slater. Yes, she is that fabulous.) Sold Down the River is, I think, actually a much better book - it's the one where January has to go undercover as a plantation slave, and really doesn't shy away from how awful that was, while keeping all the characters involved very much three-dimensional. But Die Upon A Kiss is totally my favorite so far. VIVA L'OPERA!

I was actually 3/4 of the way done with Die Upon a Kiss yesterday when I went to go see The Princess and the Frog, so it was a bit jarring to go from a fairly gritty picture of the complex segregated society of nineteenth-century New Orleans to Disney Fantasy 1920's New Orleans. Not that I am complaining about Disney Fantasy New Orleans - I really liked the movie, and I actually thought they did a pretty good job subtly alluding to the societal issues without having them at all overtake the gleeful Disney escapism. Also, Tiana is definitely up there among the Most Awesome Disney Princesses, and to add to that, actually has a supportive mom! And female friends! And passes the Bechdel test a whole lot! I could have wished for a couple things, namely that there was not so much emphasis on EVIL VOODOO, that Tiana and Naveen did not spend so much time as frogs - their character designs were adorable! Let us see them! - and that I DIDN'T MISS THE LOVE SONG, wtf, self! Way to pick the worst time to go to the bathroom! but overall I came out pretty Pleased With That Film Experience. Also, jazz music: an excellent soundtrack choice!

Date: 2009-12-15 08:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cerusee.livejournal.com
Wow, a Disney heroine who has a mom? My brain just broke.

I've been hearing good things about this movie--mixed with some criticism about this or that aspect of how Disney handles race, which I appreciate because I know damn well Disney is not going to do it entirely right the first time, if they ever do, and the criticisms all allude to relatively minor and bearable sins, not to a clusterfuck of offensive stupidity--and I am excited to see it. I'd been planning to see it anyway, just for the solidarity part and wanting to prove to Disney that yes, there is an audience for movies starring POC, but then I read a review and suddenly realized, hey, I actually really enjoy Disney movies. I've been going to see them all my life and never quite realized that. My dad always scoffed at the sentimentality of them even while faithfully going with his family to see them, and some of that carried over into how I thought about them. Not that's he's wrong, and I appreciate his general skepticism about untouchable cultural institutions, particularly ones like Disney, that do all kinds of harm through bad corporate practices (what their endless pursuit of a permanent hold on Mickey Mouse has to the state of copyright in the US, say), or their sins of omission (Disney has been around HOW many decades, and has only just gotten around to doing an animated film with an African American heroine? I appreciate Jasmine, Mulan, Lilo, and Pocahontas, but Tiana is like fifty or sixty years overdue and everybody knows it), but at the end of the day, I've gotten a lot of pleasure from the spectacles that are Disney's animated fantasy films. Hey, I'm an American, I'm sentimental, I'm built for it.

Date: 2009-12-15 08:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mawombat.livejournal.com
I don't know; while I love Disney movies too (like way too much), the messages they send about women have always pissed me off. Why does she always need a prince? I'd like to see a movie about a woman, not a princess, who is a heroine in her own right without the reward of a man at the end. In addition to other multiple issues. I guess my point is I love each movie on its own, but taken as a whole the body of work and its messages really aggravate me. That said, B&B, Bambi, Mulan and Aladdin are some of my favorites.

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