Old vs New Disney

so some time ago I was given an interesting idea for a video I and others have praised modern Disney movies for subverting or diverting from certain traditional Disney tropes does that mean that new Disney movies are inherently better than older Disney movies now before we address the question let's think in a very broad sense about the aesthetic difference between Walt's era Disney and after generally speaking modern era Disney films have a pretty straightforward narrative and character focus with most of the scenes serving a purpose of fulfilling a story defined by overcoming a particular conflict Snow White has a five minute scene where the dwarves are washing their hands Dumbo has a scene where alcoholic bubbles become a series of nightmarish pink elephants the majority of Bambi and sword in the stone not every scene necessarily serves to move the story forward sometimes scenes just happened because they were fun beautiful atmospheric or weird because wild story and characters still mattered the real focus was about the art of animation itself this so being a time where animation was evolving as an art form and Walt Disney was always trying to be experimental and testing potential and you can really tell that fact from the significant percentage of early Disney films that were just collections of short films bite-size small stories encompassing a variety of concepts and styles it also helped that at the time Disney didn't really have any other competition for a feature-length animated films were concerned so they really could do whatever and it's also why the films took a bit of a dip after his death and became a bit more mainstream fairy tales were a popular subject because they were basically prepackaged small stories ripe for filling with fantastical imagery less impacted by time or narrative constraints and that's not to say that modern animation doesn't have segments of interactive story for creative visuals match to music that's literally the definition of a musical number they do tend to be more character centric now rather than random dance parties yes I would say that modern Disney is better at making fuller rounder characters because those films are more character-driven ergo characters can be more relatable and likely effect you in a more personal way but good movies don't necessarily we have to be character oriented they can be driven by atmosphere situations or completely visually abstract although because people at the time didn't think you could use animation to tell dense dramatic stories know they were just silly musical fun but let's be honest the original question concerning subverting old Disney tropes is most likely referring to you can't marry a man you just met you can if it's true love you wear a dress and you have an animal sidekick your princess yeah there was that one time Disney acknowledged that wishing upon a star wasn't going to instantly solve all your problems and occasionally knocked against the bursting into song trope but it's those darn princesses they get most of the fire and one of the biggest changes from old Disney first acknowledgment that out of all of the current big animation companies Disney in just at CGI era has already had more female leads than any other and that's kinda sad but that's literally the reason why people make a big deal about them in mainstream family films Disney's leading fictional females are the ones most young girls will become familiar with and absorb a certain amount of unconscious cultural coding and I do think those things are important and I'm happy to see them but because the topic comes up so much in general when talking about fiction it tends to be interpreted that we think that's the only thing that matters and that's just not true Cinderella is arguably a more proactive rounded character with agency in the Cinderella sequels than in the original but that doesn't mean the sequels are better movies in the same way that having a plucky black female lead didn't automatically make home a good movie heck it's part of the reason I like to talk about the subject because so many try to make modern female characters are literally strong but fail to make them interesting heck often they're older incarnations hold up so much better yes the early princesses usually get flack for their stories over emphasis on beauty their eagerness to run off with men they don't know and despite them being the protagonists giving up massive amounts of their screen time to the other more active characters they may not be feminist icons but that doesn't mean that their stories don't still deliver some powerful character moments Snow White is a kind but sir an authority figure to the dwarves and despite that most of the story features the characters doing supposedly normal inconsequential things that have nothing to do with flirting the villain and the story largely takes place in a single day and night after all that interaction you really feel a genuine bond between Snow White and the dwarves that is incredibly endearing Aurora may not have a lot to her but the fairies have a lot of personality and are the ones that deal with all the conflict and holy crap prominent older female characters that aren't villains that's still rare and let's compare these two scenes from Little Mermaid and Cinderella when Ariel's dad blows up her grotto and Cinderella gets her dress torn both of these characters at their lowest moments having faced personal attacks in the Little Mermaid scene there are much more impressive visuals because of the advanced animation techniques with the dark colors and the loud noises and the music and the destruction and we have gotten to know Ariel a lot more than Cinderella so we do relate to her a bit more and we know how much this means to her but then again ultimately this is all just stuff think about it in terms of context of the story so far ultimately nothing has really changed in Ariel's life and she's still a princess this ball was the one escaped Cinderella had from her horrible life that dress was a gift to her by her loving friends who by the way we just spent the last 10 minutes or so watching her friends risk life and limb just to make this for her and then they physically tear it off her for no reason so between the two I would honestly say that Cinderella's scene is more emotionally devastating though the grandeur cinematic techniques in the Little Mermaid do leave their mark so despite being less progressive the older movies are still able to leave memorable impressions it's just that the strength of their movies tended to come from elements besides the main characters and also that for as much as people would say the animation in film hasn't been good to women there has at least been one female character in virtually every movie made less so if you're not Caucasian yeah that's the other big stain on Disney's and general animation history really the point to all this is if we think that good representation is so important does that mean that we should censor or reject anything we've made in the past that isn't positive representation no that would be insane aside that good representation means different things to different people as we've just discussed just because something isn't technically progressive doesn't mean it doesn't have value though yes there are cases where people have decided that the harm done by the negative depictions outweighed the positives like despite having an entire ride in Disneyland dedicated to it Disney has never officially released song of the south and completely cut out the presence of a black centaur in Fantasia which I am in complete agreement with not just because it's awful but because it's so inconsequential to the sequence that they managed to do it without changing the experience of that short where is if you tried to do the same thing with Dumbo and pan it would to severely impact the plot of those movies that said I also agree with the decision others have made to release their old shorts unaltered while putting a disclaimer at the front because to alter it would imply that these negative attitudes and depictions never happened because ultimately we need to be aware and acknowledge things that we've done wrong in the past to make better decisions for the future even while acknowledging that stuff we make now isn't perfect because it's pretty impossible to design anything that pleases everyone but you know what it does help when people actually try besides with the modern advancements I can at least feel better at the existence of the old stuff not just because media commentary and discussion is a thing that everyone does now which lessens the influence and the messages of old movies but the growing editions of if not good representation at least mildly better is gradually outnumbering them yeah I'm fine with showing the hypothetical child Sleeping Beauty as long as I can also show them ten other movies where female leads actually like do stuff because the power of representation and messages and media is ultimately more powerful in numbers again acknowledging that your options are more limited if you're not Caucasian and that does suck but now let's close this video with a slightly less depressing topic and one that people enjoy discussing in terms of old versus new Disney and that's villains now honestly for the most part good and less good villains have happened on and off all throughout Disney's history and not necessarily limited to time period the most memorable tending to be the more theatrical and radiating evil and often from the better movies which is why it seems we haven't gotten any for a while with the 2000 slump which after hiccupping with dr. Vasily a led right into the CGI Renaissance which has had a steady trend of kind of underwhelming less memorable plot twists villains why is this one big factor that I think matters a lot more than people think is the new CGI medium when Pixar's films completely changed the game for animation it wasn't just the style of animation it's also that their films had more contemporary less fantastical settings and generally had a much brighter tone also literally brighter so when CGI became the norm so did those other aspects and to match the brighter tone villains tended to be much more comedic and a lot less intimidating also you know parents knew Lakey when you scare their children oh but we'll just keep showing them the old stuff that makes perfect sense also because they had to hide as good guys they don't tend to have very memorable looks or impressive presences for most of the film there's also the likelihood that they were trying to evolve the perception of evil after all not all bad people are completely up front with their evil intentions wearing black cloaks and cackling they're liars and manipulators and they look just like everyone else then again almost every single twist villain has still been pretty one-dimensional II evil they're just better at hiding it it's also true that in older movies the villain was often the most memorable part of the movie because the protagonist was so underdeveloped and now we try to take president on our protagonist rather than the villains but in the 90s we were actually pretty good at making great villains and good protagonists so it's not like going back to that tradition would be impossible conceptually there's not anything wrong with a twist villain the final form of King candy is actually pretty horrifying it's just been so consistent the past couple years that it's really starting to feel like a dying cliche that we really need to take a break from for a while so in the end what you consider a good movie really depends on you and slightly more objectively the different eras of animation are just good different things and while we should examine on a case-by-case basis and certain things aren't done any more for a reason just because certain cliches get subverted or mocked doesn't mean that those cliches are inherently bad but very likely that they are overused to the point of being boring like the very first Shrek movie was heavily praised in its time for its mockery of Disney after a full plus decade dominated by their animated musicals it didn't mean that they were bad films most of them have frankly aged better than most Shrek products but at the time Disney domination was so in your face that people appreciated it getting a bit knocked it's also why I have my minor crusade against the abundance of romance in films and why one of the things I like in the new movies is the platonic male to female team-ups though obviously what you guys do with your fan art is your business yes I don't think we need to be shoving romantic expectations down kids throats as often as we do and yeah it's too often the only thing a female character exists in a movie to do but it's mostly because when you try to cram a romantic subplot into every single movie not just animated but every movie it gets boring and predictable very fast well we've gone over a lot here but now I want to hear your thoughts comment like subscribe etc and you stay shiny Animaniacs [Music] [Music] the South was this racist

Channel: CellSpex

Views: 535,214

Rating: 4.899694 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: rl0gF4IlLJo

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Cockwombles]

This video doesn’t really say anything of worth and has an annoying YouTuber voice.

[u/Thisisjimmi]

Even though the point was just hey look at disney changing, i still think the individual points were well raised. Maybe the voice wasnt the best, but it was well delivered and made.