Susan. “Confronting Master Narratives: History as Vision in Miyazaki Hayao’s Cinema of De-assurance.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 9.2 (2001): 467-493. 

    Susan Napier’s article discusses the cinematic master narratives in the context of Japanese cinema and the larger global cultural consciousness. Its main subject is Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, though his work is described in view of his contemporaries and influences. Napier begins by discussing the broad ideas of modernization vs. history and the role of cultural identity in art and cinema. She asserts that films have the power to “write history” and “create national identity” on the global stage. She points to the crucial post-WWII period in Japan when Japanese cinema first made its mark. Specfically, she credits Akira Kurosawa and his jidaigeki, “period films,” with their realism and dazzling visual aesthetics, as being the most influential Japanese filmmaker at the time. In his films, Kurosawa both “exploit[ed] and deconstruct[ed] the mythology of samurai.” His films powerfully brought humanity to the Japanese traditions and brought the past into the contemporary discussion of Japanese identity. Similarly, the animator Miyazaki, of the title of the piece, created scenes and characters that while being decidedly Japanese are individual in their personalities and actions. Notably, this characterization can be seen in Miyazaki’s many female protagonists, who stand out from their group-oriented traditional counterparts. The article then focuses on Miyazaki’s film Princess Mononoke, comparing it to the English powerhouse animation counterpart, Disney.

The relevance of this article to my project is found beyond the simple citing of Kurosawa’s influence and works. The real insights came from the comparisons of Miyazaki’s style and that of Kurosawa. Miyazaki is cited as criticizing Kurosawa’s formulaic depictions of good and evil in his samurai films. However, it seems clear in the larger sense that Kurosawa’s humanism did anything but adhere to clichés. He brought life into historical stereotypes. Furthermore, Princess Mononoke is praised as being “history as vision,” or representing in a new light a “historical reality,” recognizable yet distinctly unique. What style could better apply here than that of Kurosawa and his Rashomon-effect. Rashomon deals entirely with the reconstructions of identity through deceit and the power of perspective on redefining historical fact. The two directors offer a great deal of illumination to one another.

The topic that I want to look at is Walt Disney's Cinderella's influence on children's perceptions about love and romance.

Holson, Laura M.  “For $38,000, Get the Cake, and Mickey, Too.”  New York Times on the Web 24 May 2003.  University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia 7 April 2008.   <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/24/ business/24WEDD.htmlei=5007&en=8bd92e1431ff9b1a&ex=1369108800&adxnnl=1&partner=USERLAND&adxnnlx=1145527777t6xyln6tLdWqb1ZTWNb1aw>

This is a newspaper article that talks about how couples can get married in Walt Disney World.  The article references several examples of couples that have chosen to get married in this manner, explaining that a woman has the chance to feel like Cinderella.  It depicts a few weddings in detail; in one example, the bride, donning a tiara, arrived in horse-drawn carriage to the wedding pavilion, where guests listened to Disney songs such as “Someday My Prince Will Come,” and wedding rings were presented inside a glass slipper.  In another detailed account, one couple married in front of Cinderella’s castle inside Disney World’s Magic Kingdom theme park; the bride arrived in Cinderella’s coach, while the groom arrived on white horse.

The fact that couples want to get married in Disney World and have a Cinderella wedding experience helps elucidate the notion that people value Cinderella as epitomizing the romantic ideal.  Brides can get married in Disney to feel like Cinderella, and the fact that couples choose to literally copy certain aspects of the film, such as the bride riding a horse-drawn carriage, goes along with the idea that the film sets an ideal within our minds on what marriage and love should be like – an ideal that was probably first learned about as a child.  By copying various aspects of the film in their weddings, these couples may be trying to recreate the themes depicted in Walt Disney’s film, in the hopes that they will live “happily ever after.”

Orenstein, Peggy.  “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?”  New York Times Magazine 24 Dec. 2006.  8 April 2008. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.htmlpagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=8e5a1ac1332a802c&ex=1324616400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>

 

 

                This article talks about how the Disney “Princess” brand is becoming ubiquitous to the point that girls do not have any option but to embrace the brand.  The column is interspersed with personal anecdotes of the author’s experience with her little girl, who innocently wonders why her mother does not like the Disney Princesses.  The author talks about how products related to the Disney Princesses are everywhere, and discusses how the idea to create a brand that connected the Disney Princesses was formulated in 2000.  It was the first time that Disney characters were marketed separately from a film’s release.  Since then, the Princess brand has earned billions of dollars; it is the fastest-growing brand ever created by Disney, and may become the largest girls’ franchise in the world.

                This piece’s discussion on the Disney “Princess” brand is relevant to the topic of Cinderella’s influence on children.  If Cinderella has the capacity to be so influential in a child’s formulation of ideas on romance, then a discussion on the Disney “Princess” brand, which includes the character of Cinderella, is applicable to discussing how a film can have such a profound impact on a child’s social education.  Since the brand is so ubiquitous, and young girls receive constant reinforcement that this brand is essential to their upbringing, then surely it may be that they pay close attention to the ideals put forth in the film.  They may be reminded of these ideals each and every time they see a Disney Princess product in the store, and their beliefs may be continually reinforced, as young girls all claim that they want to be princesses.  

 

 

Meehan, Eileen R., Mark Phillips and Janet Wasko, ed.  Dazzled by Disney?: The Global Disney Audiences Project.  London; New York: Leicester University Press, 2001.

 

The chapter entitled “United States: a Disney Dialectic: A Tale of Two American Cities” includes results from a study that looked at two American towns – Athens, Ohio, and Tuscon, Arizona.  The results from this chapter are part of a larger study that aimed to look at perceptions of Disney in different cultures.  This chapter focused on the United States, and focused on college students’ analysis of the Disney brand.  The two cities are different markets in that Athens has less access to Disney films and products, while Tuscon has easier access.  Despite these differences, the study found that respondents in both cities found Disney to be ever-present in society, and recognized Disney as an important part of a person’s upbringing and family life.  Older students found that as they thought about the future, they saw themselves as having families and children, and thus Disney would come back into their lives.  Respondents saw Disney as invoking ideas of love, romance, and fantasy, and happiness.

 

This chapter is useful in looking at Cinderella as a place where children learn about romantic ideals, since the study finds that people believe Disney to be a pervasive and important part of culture.  If this is the case, then it is possible that the pervasiveness of Disney may result in a child placing an emphasis on what they learn from a Disney film.  Since college students find that Disney conveys notions of love and romance, then this means that they recall these ideas, and have come to recognize Disney as being a purveyor of particular morals, thoughts, and beliefs, including those about love.  A child may thus come to find Disney films to have these same beliefs, and these values may be perpetuated over time with increased access to the ever-present Disney brand.  

 

 

Lieberman, Marcia R.  “‘Someday My Prince Will Come’: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale.”  College English 34.3 (1972): 383-395.  JSTOR.  University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia.  9 April 2008.  <http://www.jstor.org>

 

This article talks about how popular fairytales such as Cinderella and Snow White are now elevated to mythical proportions in the eyes of children.  The author analyzes The Blue Fairy Book, a book that contains many of these famous fairy tales, in the attempt to see what sorts of lessons children are being taught.  Lieberman, working under the assumption that children care especially about endings, finds that marriage may be seen as the ultimate goal for children who read these fairy tales, since most of them end with the couple getting married and living “happily ever after.”  Courtship is emphasized in these fairy tales, and thus a child may yearn to be courted, since it is often portrayed in fairy tales as the most exciting time in a female character’s life, culminating in marriage.

Lieberman’s beliefs about what children learn through fairy tales are the sorts of beliefs that they also may learn as a result of seeing Disney’s Cinderella.  In fact, the textual version of Cinderella is one of the tales included in the book that Lieberman analyzes.  The idea that marriage is the ultimate ending, and that courtship is extremely important, are the exact sorts of ideas that may influence a child when he or she watches Cinderella.  Romance is portrayed as very exciting in both the textual tale and the film, and thus a girl may come to value romance as extremely important in her life, and she may learn ideas on what romance should be like, especially the idea that marriage and “happily ever after” are the ultimate form of existence for a female.

 

 Shortsleeve, Kevin. "The Wonderful World of the Depression: Disney, Despotism, and the 1930s. Or, Why Disney Scares Us." The Lion and the Unicorn, Johns Hopkins University Vol. 28, No. 12004 pp 1-30. 2 April 2008 <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2239/journals/lion_and_the_unicorn/v028/28.1shortsleeve.html>.

    In this article, Kevin Shortsleeve discusses the tension between Walt Disney’s messages and his actual organization.  Shortsleeve finds that on the one hand Disney is committed to a utopian fantasy and a sentimental longing for monarchy in the messages of films.  However, on the other hand, he also finds that the level of efficiency and production that has been achieved in Disney could not have happened in a democratically run system and that Disney is in fact run exactly like a cutthroat and semi-fascist U.S. corporation.  Because of the disparities in the way Disney runs its organization and its posture as a representative of American ideals, there is a level of mistrust and paranoia surrounding the Disney enterprise.
    Critiques of Disney range and vary depending on its opposition.  Some authors critique the “dumbing down” and simplification of fairy tales for film adaptation.  They despise the moral simplification and appeal to sentimental aesthetics, which result in the elimination of more thought-provoking and complex outcomes.  P.L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books, expressed many of these sentiments during the making of Mary Poppins.  In addition, some political critics argue that many of the films, like Aladdin for example, further U.S. imperialist aims and stereotype minorities.  Feminists critique the depictions of women as Barbie-like and unrealistic.  Other critiques of Disney posit that many of the films peddle false innocence and brainwash children and its employees.  Conspiracy theories cite the immense autonomy Disney World enjoys in Florida and totalitarian working conditions in the Disney Corporation.  This paranoia is apparent in Godzilla (1972), for example, where cartoonists who are designing a theme park turn out to be alien cockroaches with an evil plan to take over the world. 
    Just like in Mary Poppins, the tensions between Walt Disney’s conservatism and modernism is exhibited.  Ex-employees have referred to working for Disney as ‘Waltarianism’ where collaboration and camaraderie between colleagues is prohibited and the executives rule with an iron fist.  The working environment has been compared to Nazism or Big Brother, where someone is always watching and any wrong move is punished.  At the same though, the corporation has maintained a rare unity in all aspects since its rise to fame in the 1930s.  Disney helped ordinary Americans define themselves in a time of trauma and uncertainty throughout the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War.  Disney’s essence is a set of beliefs about good, evil and human aspiration where films are imbued with a sense of optimism.  Shortsleeve identifies this rift between Disney’s idealistic message and its inner workings, which has fueled paranoia, and critique of Disney.  This rift can be likened to the tension of ideas in Mary Poppins where a strong patriarchal family structure and strong outspoken woman are advocated at the same time.
 

   Wright, Jon. "Leaders in Marketing."Journal of Marketing. Vol. 32, No. 1, (1968), pp. 62-63. 2 April 2008.       <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:5549/stable/view/1249199?seq=2>

    As shorter workdays and lengthened vacations started to become the norm in the mid-1960s for middle and upper class families, leisure time became a subject worthy of study.  Once businesses starting to realize the implications of this new leisure culture, the need for leisure and recreation marketing increased.  E. Cardon Walker was the Vice President of marketing for Walt Disney, Inc. and was largely responsible for revolutionizing marketing in this era.
    Walker rose through the ranks of Disney starting as a messenger after graduating from UCLA in 1938 and eventually moving to the advertising/publicity department in 1949.  He was promoted to head of the department in 1950 and by 1960 became part of the three-man executive committee including Walt Disney himself that served as the top policy-making body.  Walker was in charge of sales, advertising, publicity and promotion.  In 1966 under his direction, Disney’s sales were $116.5 million and their profits reached over $12 million. 
     The marketing philosophy that Walker built for Disney in the 1960s has not changed much over the past half decade.  Walker’s philosophy is grounded in sound marketing policies.  Walker wanted to keep Disney limited to family entertainment and specifically film to maintain complete control of marketing from within the corporation.  Approximately half of the corporation was devoted to films and the other half focused on ancillary products such as sound tracks, merchandise and toys, all of which reinforced the advertising of the films themselves.  During this time, Disney was able to transition successfully from cartoon shorts to feature length animated films, to feature length live action films and eventually to television.  These smooth transitions show Disney’s flexibility and ability to maintain control over its market.  For example, when television emerged as a new means of entertainment, Disney embraced it instead of fighting this new technology and starting to produce television programs.  Again, Disney’s conservative but modern approach is apparent.  Disney did not expand its markets beyond the entertainment and film industry, and when it did, do so slowly and cautiously to avoid risk.  In addition, its marketing techniques have not changed significantly over the years.  At the same time, they were one of the first to jump on the television bandwagon and utilize marketing techniques to enhance their sales.

The goal of my research is to take a close look at Disney's history of successful feature animated and live-action musicals to demonstrate that these movies are the source of Disney's success and should be their current focus as well. I am specifically interested in the recent movie High School Musical, and I plan to use it as a case study about how musicals in general are a better source of entertainment for children. Disney's marketing of High School Musical made use of many new forms of media and took advantage of the cross-platform media available to such an all-encompassing conglomerate. I also will look at research studies concerning children's attentiveness to different forms of media to show that they are more likely to show repeated interest in and remember songs than standard dialogue. How many of your favorite childhood songs were from Disney movies?

    The 2006 Annual Report from The Walt Disney Company summarizes the financial status of the company in comparison to the past two years. It is sent to every shareholder and available online as well. While reading through their statistics, I was looking to see if they made mention of “High School Musical” as having any amount of effect on their success and to see how much they specifically credited made-for-TV movies or feature animation as key to their survival.
    Disney has their hands in a large variety of markets, from their parks and resorts to movies to cable TV channels, international markets, and consumer products, and their newest endeavor with the Walt Disney Internet Group. Each of these components contributes to their overall financial success. Featured on the title page of the the section on “Media Networks: Cable Networks” is a two-page spread picture of the cast of “High School Musical,” claiming that nearly 90 million viewers have seen the movie since its debut on the Disney Channel.
    Overall, the company boasts revenues at $34,385 million for the year, a seven percent increase since 2005. For perspective, 2005’s revenues were a four percent increase from those of 2004. Their net income weighed in at $3,374 million, which is thirty three percent higher than last year’s income. The percent difference between 2005 and 2004 was only eight percent (p.57). Obviously they’re heading in the right direction, up. But when I was looking at the numbers for their Media Networks section, nothing seemed unusual or different from the previous year. The eleven percent increase to revenue of $14,638 million is close to the twelve percent increase last year (p.59). The increase specifically from cable networks (as opposed to broadcast television) was ten percent, whereas last year’s revenues increased by thirteen percent (p.60). At least when looking at the numbers, it doesn’t look like the cable networks experienced any sort of huge jump from previous years.
    The note about Disney’s purchase of Pixar, however, shared some relevant insight into the company’s philosophy of the nature of feature animated films: “Disney believes that the creation of high quality feature animation is a key driver of success across many of its businesses and provides content useful across a variety of traditional and new platforms throughout the world.” (p.83) Not only do they consider feature animation important in its own right, but they see the multitude of possibilities that it creates in their other markets. Disney is already used to the idea of cross marketing, because they’ve existed across so many different forms of media for a long time already. I’m glad to see that they’re sticking to tradition in putting feature animation at the top of their priorities, because it has been proven to be their most successful endeavor as well as a valuable fuel for the rest of their departments.

Note: Page numbers are based on the print version of the Annual Report. To download a PDF copy, click on the tab labeled “Financials.”

Throughout Smith and Clark’s catalog of one hundred years of Disney endeavors, one particular element of their success is consistent: feature animation musicals. At practically every turning point in the company’s history, the great success that brought the studio back out of the red was always a successful feature animation, and not just that, but a musical too. Disney’s initial success in the business of cartoons was with Steamboat Willie (1928), which was the first “synchronized sound cartoon” and put Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse on the map (p. 24). Soon after, Walt and Roy Disney formed their own recording company to make back the money they spent on sound equipment. The world’s first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was also the first film whose movie soundtrack was created using the original movie soundtracks, and it was the first film to have a merchandising campaign established to coincide with the release of the film into theaters. Everyone left the theater singing one of Snow White’s songs.
    The nineteen forties left Disney headed toward failure with the loss of their international markets because of the war. They invested everything they could in a new feature animation: Cinderella (1950), and they ended up with a huge success. The fate of the company rode on the success of the movie because of all of the labor and money put into creating it, and with both its score and the song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi Bo” nominated for Oscars, Disney realized that their salvation was in the creation of more feature animated musicals.
    Of course not every feature was as profitable. Disney invested over six million dollars in creating Sleeping Beauty (1959), its “most lavish and costly” film up to that point, but its initial release did not do as well as they’d hoped (p. 85). Luckily, Mary Poppins (1964) flew in with her umbrella and created a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious film that received thirteen Oscar nominations and five awards.
    The authors mark 1984 as the lowest point financially for Disney theatrical releases in thirty years. Under the new leadership of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, though, the company started turning around. By 1989, The Little Mermaid put Disney back at the top. It was the first of five Disney feature animations in a row to win the Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song, and it caused for “renewed excitement in the animation and musical genres” that set Disney straight for the next decade (p. 151). Beauty and the Beast, which was also nominated for Best Picture in 1991, Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Pocahontas (1995), followed equally strongly, and reinvigorated Disney’s animation department. Again, the cause for success was feature animated musicals that brought back both audiences and awards.
    Following the entry for the final year, 1999, the authors take a look into the future at what Disney has planned for the upcoming century. They spelled out every bit of advance information they could get their hands on, and looking back, they were pretty dead on. Two of the major disappointments that they could not have anticipated were the movies Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and Treasure Planet (2002). Their predicted success was based on the fact that they would have the same directorial and production staff that made the movies of the early nineties so incredibly successful. The missing piece? Music.

TELEVISION; Oh, Grow Up, Mr. Ross - New York Times
Jacques Steinberg, October 22, 2006

In this article, Steinberg presents an inside look at the daily work of Mr. Rich Ross, president of Disney Channel Worldwide. He is at the head of the company responsible for what most children watch on television, not just in this country but all over the world. Mr. Ross often consults with an expert in the area of child audiences when making decisions about Disney’s television programming, that is, he has a family friend’s eleven year old daughter take a look at what Disney’s been working on and offer her opinion. But that anecdote is not meant to minimize his credibility. In fact, Mr. Ross has worked hard to keep up in the changing nature of children’s marketing, and he’s been quite successful. He was able to coordinate the publicity of “High School Musical” between Disney’s radio stations, magazines, and websites, which ended up as the perfect combination to create such a strong fan base. It’s nice once in a while to get a glimpse at what goes on in the boardrooms and the studios, and to see that the people running these major companies are just normal people who happen to love their jobs and be very good at them. But it may be fair to note that it seems Steinberg has gone a little far in praising what appear to be purely capitalist motives on the part of Mr. Ross, sugarcoated with idealism and altruism.
Mr. Ross seems to think a little more idealistically about the television shows than one would expect from the president of a huge moneymaking entertainment business. He values the fact that “High School Musical” and many of Disney’s other recent programs “share an unapologetic emphasis on traditional life lessons” just as the Disney programming of his childhood did. He wants music to be embedded within the storyline; he wants each episode to demonstrate strategies of problem solving when issues arise between friends or with parents. As an example of his desire not to condescend to his audience, the Disney Channel website now features a space where children can create mash-ups of their favorite episodes and have control over how they turn out. Steinberg presents this as a measure of Ross’ connectedness to his audience, but it seems more like Ross is just picking up on the user-generated content trend that has become prevalent because of the internet and the accessibility of video editing software. Since Mr. Ross feels that “High School Musical” is truly about kids anywhere and not just about Americans, he has traveled all over the world to bring the movie to as many countries as possible. My reaction to this statement is questioning whether he is doing all that traveling just for the sake of spreading the good messages in the movie, or to make more money in the international entertainment markets. Ross’ influence on the nature of the channel can certainly be felt when looking back to the days before he entered the scene. His leadership helped bring the Disney Channel into its current 90 million homes from a bare 15 million, and lead it to practically knock all other children’s television channels out of the competition.

A Musical For Tweens Captures Its Audience - New York Times
Ben Sisario, February 8, 2006

    Ben Sisario examines the marketing strategy that went into Disney’s High School Musical and how it was able to engage its target audience with not-yet-standard techniques. The movie premiered on the Disney Channel on January 20th, and by February 8th it was already making news for its popularity. The soundtrack released with the movie reached top 10 of the Billboard charts, made 45 percent of its sales online through iTunes and had no radio airtime outside of Radio Disney’s station, and that was only in the first two weeks.
    Sisario quotes Gary Marsh, president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, as explaining the value of the story in its themes such as “express yourself, believe in yourself, celebrate your family, follow your dreams,” but it wasn’t just the optimism that made this movie and all of the other media associated with it into such a success. Because Disney’s presence exists across multiple forms of entertainment, it was able to use cross-platform advertising to build excitement about the movie before it was first aired. The show’s characters appeared on a New Years Eve show, the Disney channel played music videos from the movie’s songs “in heavy rotation,” and Disney even offered a free download of the song “Breaking Free” around the time of the premiere. After the movie aired for the first time, Disney directed viewers to a sing-along version online where they could download the lyrics. According to Sisario, the lyrics were downloaded 500,000 times in the first 24 hours. That’s successful cross-marketing.
    Disney capitalized on its integration of web content into the TV market, something that they’ve gotten very good at of late. They also benefited from the fact that the movie and soundtrack were released in the winter, specifically because of the holiday sales of iPods and iTunes gift certificates.
    Sisario sees this movie as the beginning of “a new musical phase,” referring to the previous cultivation of pop stars Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the members of ’N Sync. They are creating a new generation of pop icons following the success of Hillary Duff, which began with her TV show “Lizzy McGuire.” The most interesting element of the movie and album’s success is the fact that it did not rely on traditional radio or MTV for its publicity. They know that their audience, because of their age, is very comfortable with the internet and digital music, so they were able to make use of their own website and their relationship with Apple’s iTunes to set the movie up for success.

JSTOR: Music Educators Journal: Vol. 32, No. 5, p. 18-19. April 1946

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4321%28194604%2932%3A5%3C18%3AMOTAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

    This article analyzes the use of music in animated cartoon movies, contrasting its use with that of live action films. Since animated movies are more exaggerated and are filled with constant motion, a composer needs to make his music do the same. Rodriguez begins by examining the role of music in movies more generally. He defines the difference between a screenplay with music and a musical by stating that screen plays use music to enhance the emotion of a scene or clarify a point to the viewer, but they keep the plot is still the central focus of the movie. In musicals, however, the plot can be completely swept to the side to make room for a musical number that has little to do with the actual story of the movie but is there for pure entertainment.
    Because cartoons are by their nature based in fantasy rather than reality, Rodriguez states that a composer working on a score for an animated movie has a much greater task ahead of him than if he were working on a live action film. The actions of the animated characters are timed down to the frame, which is 1/24th of a second. In order to fit the action perfectly, then, a composer must change his frame of reference from the usual beats per measure approach to beats per frame. This argument seems to work for live action as well, since in the end everything is broken down into frames to be projected, but Rodriguez claims that synchronization of action with music in live action films is coincidental and unlikely while it is “almost a rule of life with animation composers.” (p. 19) The music must be constantly active and moving, simply because the characters are. A good composer must know how to make his music as humorous and exaggerated as Donald Duck of Goofy but also be able to convey the tenderness and emotion found in many animated films. Rodriguez specifically mentions Dumbo, Bambi, and Pinocchio in the latter category.
    Although the subtitle of the article reads, “Will ‘Cartoon’ films have a place in music education?” the author only mentions music education in passing in his last paragraph. He laments that not enough researchers or critics are writing about how well cartoons can teach music to children. His idea of music instruction is creating an animation that is didactic in nature, instructing children about notes, musical structures, harmonies, and other complicated elements of music that are not easily explained otherwise. The fact that music can be added to animation would only serve to illustrate the different sounds that would be taught in the animation. In my opinion, his focus on education is quite limited to high level music theory and could be extended much further. Rodriguez mentions Fantasia in a reference to animation set to pre-composed music, but he failed to note how the animation visually conveyed the different elements and tones in the music, making the music’s qualities apparent both to the ear and to the eye.

 

Pang, Kevin

Chicago Tribune (IL); 2/02/2007

Persistent link to this record: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=2W62W63210752887&site=ehost-live

    Ken Stromberg is the musical director for Palatine High School in Illinois. His decision to direct “High School Musical” caused a great deal of commotion, even before auditions had begun. The Disney Channel made-for-TV movie was extremely successful, with a chart topping soundtrack and a fan base as large as the number of 6 to 14 year old kids, and that’s just in America. Kevin Pang’s article exposes the craze that built up around this one high school’s performance of the now famous musical.
    It’s as pathetic as it is amazing: parents of children from far outside the school district started calling for tickets even before the actors had been cast or started rehearsing. The high school added two performances to their standard four and added 40 chairs to their theater for 600 (the most that the fire department would allow), but still the waiting list for tickets was long enough to fill the theater twice over.
    Although Pang spent most of his article quoting conversations between Stromberg and a slew of crazed parents and explaining to readers that High School Musical has become a pop culture icon to so many children, he found a few paragraphs to devote to describing just how Disney capitalized on their successful movie. Disney Theatricals Productions usually spends about a year adapting a movie to a stage play, but this one they were able to churn out in six months, tweaking some of the dialogue and adding two new songs. High schools all over the country rushed to get their hands on a licensed copy of the script as soon as it was available, and the play has revitalized many small theater groups who’d had trouble finding kids to audition and enjoy acting until it came along.
    Pang’s article is a valuable window into the fan culture surrounding this movie. The parents who felt a desperate need to get their children tickets to the show were responding to the enormous success of the movie in the eyes of their children. However it was that this movie managed to get everyone’s attention last year, it has certainly generated a lot more than just buzz, and Palatine High’s experience is certainly just one example of many.

MEDIA; The Top-Selling Tunes on Billboard, Sung by Children for Children - New York Times
Robert Levine, March 6, 2006

    The New York Times considered the growing market of children’s music important enough to report about. The news isn’t exactly news: music for kids, especially music recorded by other kids, is going to sell. Following the success of the soundtrack for High School Musical, which was the top album for 2006, other recording companies are seeing an opening for more albums for kids. The article highlights Kidz Bop, a series of albums containing covers of famous pop songs sung by children ages 8-12 with an “intentionally imperfect style.” The idea is that kids listening will want to sing along and can more easily imagine themselves as the rock star when the singers on the album aren’t easily identifiable and the vocals are less impressive. These albums, with the eleventh released this year plus a number of holiday and special edition releases, are part of the recent resurgence in children’s music.
    A quick check on Amazon.com reveals some interesting consumer reviews. Most of the reviews actually hate these CDs, but of course the reviewers are adults. They say Kidz Bop is ruining perfectly good and generally appropriate popular songs, and that some of the songs they’re picking are so far from appropriate that even when they’re edited it’s strange to hear such young kids singing them. But there are over thirty hits when searching with the terms “Kidz Bop” under Music on Amazon, so they must be doing something right.
    When the soundtrack for “High School Musical” was number one on the Billboard chart, spots two and three were also albums made for children. As most of the other music genres are noticing a decline in CD sales, children’s music is stable if not increasing. Recording labels are starting to take an interest in audiences too young to pirate their music. Razor and Tie, the independent label responsible for Kidz Bop, does most of their advertising directly television, and so far it’s been working well. They’re in direct competition with Disney, which has access to both the Disney Channel and Radio Disney to promote its music. At the time of the article, Disney was coming out with Devo 2.0 on its new label Disney Sound, described as “still safe, but it’s got a little bit of an edge,” by a marketing vice president at Walt Disney Records.

 

 

THEATER REVIEW; Trading Math Class For Corsets And Minis - New York Times
Ginia Bellafante. January 10, 2007

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    Ginia Bellafante is disgusted with “High School Musical: The Concert.” She does not take any pains to hide that feeling. In her review of the event, she shares her experience of seeing the actors from the Disney Channel movie turn into incredibly poor models of success and individualism. The characters in the movie dealt with cliques that tried to hinder their choices and limit their interests, but they were able to find their own passion, theater, outside of the math nerd or basketball jock world. Bellafante enjoyed Disney’s “just-be-your-real-self message” and was shocked to see it lost entirely at the live performance.
    The concert, one of the many ways Disney has cashed in on the success of their movie last year, features most of the original cast members performing all of the songs from the movie, to a wild adoring audience of adolescents. What upset Bellafante most about the performance was not only way the lead female actors danced and dressed inappropriately both for their characters and their age, but also the fact that the concert was really just a way of launching each of the actors’ solo albums directly to their target audience. She saw straight through that marketing pitch, and is sure that the teens felt the same way.
    Bellafante notes at the end that it’s quite curious that Disney made a movie about students learning to love musicals, just as the company jumped back into the business of making them. I admit, put that way it does sound scheming. I happen to be in favor of the production of musicals and the cultivation of an attitude that they’re an enjoyable form of entertainment. It says something about the quality of the music that so many kids desperately wanted to attend a concert where the music was the central focus. The self-appreciation lesson is certainly an important one, but it seems that Disney’s emphasis was on the music, and with a concert, a theatrical adaptation, and a top selling album, that’s where they’ve been the most successful.

Haas, Al. “‘Gus’ gives a kick to gridiron fantasy.” Rev. of Gus. Phildelphia Inquirer 8 July 1976:  6-C.

Short, sarcastic review in the Philadelphia Inquirer of the then-most-recent predictable and contrived Disney movie.  By A. Carl

This article discusses the Disney-Pixar merger and its implications for Apple and the future of online media delivery. As a result of the merger, Steve Jobs solidified himself as one of the most powerful executives in the continuing convergence of media content and online delivery, especially as movie studios now look to extend their digital reach.

Apple stands to benefit from the ability to distribute Disney’s animation studio’s content as well as its array of broadcast networks, namely ABC and ESPN. However, video media has been available online in the form of Pixar short films and more recently since the merger, Disney animated shorts.

As Jobs has already proved the viability of the online delivery of music, video-on-demand makes sense as the next step in rounding out the iTunes platform. By now gaining access to Disney’s video content, it makes developing the video on demand stage easier. Before, Apple was dependent on apprehensive third parties for content, specifically the record labels who doubted the viability of a legal download market. Apple needed large scale support because iTunes would only be successful if there was a large collection of downloadable music. In contrast, the dynamics of video on demand are different in that Apple can start with Disney and add more networks further down the road.

If Apple pursues the video content road, it will likely replicate its revenue model with online music. The majority of Apple’s money is made on sales of iPods, not on sales of legal downloads. Thus, Apple’s strategy was to drive consumer demand for its iPod devices through the access to digital music media. In this vein, Apple will most likely launch a new device, most probably a home entertainment center, to deliver its online video content.

Importance to Thesis:

This article helps support my third argument, which is that Apple has become the example of how media companies should adapt to technological change. By developing the preferred user interface for access to online media content, Apple has positioned itself not only as a technology company, but now as a major player in the media industry. Where 5 years ago Apple wasn’t even involved in media, it now controls the future of content delivery. Thus, by seeing the peer-to-peer phenomenon as an evolution in consumers demanding online media content (both music and video), Apple has put itself in the position to take advantage of the this technological evolution.

 

Unfair Use: The Lack of Fair Use Protection for Satire Under § 107 of the Copyright Act -- Adriana Collado, Journal of Technology: Law & Policy (June 2004)
This article gives a summary of fair use and parody decisions and attempts to show how satire should be protected under fair use because it is transformative. The primary argument against protecting satire under fair use is that “owners are likelier to allow use of their works in satire because satires do not target the copyrighted works directly” (II.A). This, of course, ignores the problem encountered in cases such as Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books USA, where, for instance, “satirists that propose using copyrighted works to criticize something else in an offensive manner are not likely to be granted licenses because copyright owners may fear the use will reflect negatively on their works” (IV.A). That is, courts have reasoned that because specific copyright holders aren’t being directly targeted by satirists, they will gladly license their work.

This line of reasoning willfully ignores reality; however, this reasoning still should not preclude fair use of satire, as, Collado notes, “reputational harm is not an interest that copyright law is designed to protect” (IV.A). Certain copyright holders, such as Disney and Dr. Seuss, notoriously guard their property against parody. Yet because of the rich nature of these works, they are ripe for parody and satire; by disallowing fair use of satire, the law in effect stifles the free speech and creativity of new authors. “The assumption,” writes Collado, “a satirist can ‘shop around’ for copyrighted works to employ in his satire ignores the nature of the creative process” (IV.C).

Finally, we may be headed towards a future where a court will rule that satire is protected under fair use. As Collado notes, “In Campbell [v. Acuff-Rose Music], the Supreme Court defined satire as ‘commentary.’ In turn, the Fair Use Doctrine states ‘fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism [and] comment ... is not an infringement of copyright’” (V). If a court were to acknowledge this--and the Supreme Court has nearly already done so with Campbell--then it would place satire under the fair use umbrella alongside parody. This would have an enormous impact on society; however, because most satire, like parody, does not compete in the same market as the original work, there can be little argument besides greed and prudishness against this result. Yet, as noted before, prudishness cannot be a legal justification for stifling free speech; as for the competing markets: satires and parodies, by their very natures, nearly never compete in the same markets as their progenitors, which would render moot the main argument against their fair use.

Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates (581 F.2d 751) -- LexisNexis
This Circuit Court case from 1978 involved a suit by Disney alleging copyright infringement of its characters by Air Pirates for its adult counter-culture comic book. Air Pirates mocked Disney’s Silly Symphony books with its own Silly Sympathies line of comics; the defendant also parodied well-known Disney characters such as Toby Tortoise and Max Hare by changing their personalities. Judge Cummings deliberated back and forth over both (1) whether or not a character from an illustrated book could be copyrighted, and (2) whether or not the change in personalities of the characters was enough to warrant a claim to fair use.

Ultimately, Judge Cummings ruled in favor of Disney, writing that

Defendants' assertion that they copied no more than necessary appears to be based on an affidavit, which stated that ‘the humorous effect of parody is best achieved when at first glance the material appears convincingly to be the original, and upon closer examination is discovered to be quite something else.’ The short answer to this assertion, which would also justify substantially verbatim copying, is that when persons are parodying a copyrighted work, the constraints of the existing precedent do not permit them to take as much of a component part as they need to make the "best parody." Instead, their desire to make the ‘best parody’ is balanced against the rights of the copyright owner in his original expressions. [7]

Though he cited as important Air Pirates’ defense that their characters--though similar in appearance and clearly meant to mock Disney’s characters--”parodied [Disney characters’] personalities, their wholesomeness and their innocence,” Judge Cummings’ ruling was ultimately decided primarily by the third copyright factor: the amount and substantiality of the portion taken.

This was an important ruling because it was cited in Original Appalachian Artworks v. TOPPS Chewing Gum, and in that case helped with the ruling that the Garbage Pail Kids were a copyright infringement of the Cabbage Patch Kids. The precedent set here that a parody cannot be the “best parody” without copying more than fair use allows was later overturned in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, which established that sometimes a parody must be the “best” in order for it to qualify for fair use.

Account of choosing Rite of Spring for Fantasia (35-6) cited in Nicholas Cook's Analyzing Multimedia (174).

A social and cultural history of Hollywood in the 1940s framed as its great height followed by decline and fall. Each chapter focuses on one year, reporting political and economic conditions as backdrop for behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Relevant to my concerns is the second chapter, “Ingatherings (1940),” which discusses the influx of European artists to LA which resulted from Hitler’s rise to power. The chapter’s most extensive music-related anecdotes concern Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, the making of Fantasia and Dimitri Tiomkin. The author is skeptical of the veracity of insiders’ reports, viewing Hollywood as a fantasy world, an imaginary city. This circumspection applies to the composers’ stories; however, while occasionally conflicting accounts of the same events are considered, the overall picture is presented as accurate. Movie produces had specific ideas about what kind of music they wanted in their films, and treated major composers and full-time studio composers alike as hired servants. At the same time, the concentration of classical musicians in Hollywood fostered encounters and collaborations among them, prompting (non-film) compositions and recordings which otherwise might not have been produced.

The article by Moya Luckett, "Fantasia: Cultural Constructions of Disney's "Masterpiece," focuses on the reception of Fantasia primarily upon its initial release (1940-1) but also upon its rereleases in 1954 and 1991. Luckett adopts the approach to reception studies explicated by Janet Staiger in Interpreting Films; rather than interpreting Fantasia she "attempt[s] a historical explanation of the event of interpreting a text." Luckett examines publicity and reviews in order to ascertain what audience expectations might have been and what readings of Fantasia were in circulation. Disney positioned Fantasia as a work of high culture by presenting it as a roadshow and referring to it as a concert rather than a film. Negative critical reaction tended to come from music critics and to focus on the incompatibility of film and classical music, the former being properly experienced in a mode of distraction, the latter in one of contemplation. Luckett's interpretation is convincing; her article also provides many quotes from reviews and Disney's own publicity with relevant citations, making it useful for anyone wishing to pursue a different interpretation of the reception of Fantasia.

Regarding Fantasia, observes that presenting American audiences with music of European origin poses certain challenges and inspires certain animation styles.  Otherwises discusses Fantasia's art and animation, in light of European influences, exclusively.

The culture of fairy tales has changed with time. Today, they are considered children’s stories by adults. The only way in which fairy tales have survived is through parents reading them to children, but these adults have been disapproving of those parts of fairy tales that make them serious literature. The marchen, or fairy tale, has evolved into simple happily-ever-after romance as parents have pushed stories for children away from violence and irrationality. Stone argues that adults should not censor out the parts of fairy tales that make them literary. The brutality and unreality does not affect young readers negatively. In fact, it is the parents, rather than the children, that are most disturbed by such stories.

Marchen used to conjure up images very different from those conjured by fairy tales today. They used to force readers and listeners to consider the balance of good and evil and the necessity of overcoming obstacles before ultimate goal achievement. The romance was rarely an integral part of the story, but rather a symbol of maturity. Often a small act of disobedience was necessary before the protagonist may reach maturity.

The marks of reworked Marchen began as early as Perrault’s version of “Cinderella” in 1697, emphasizing romance, strongly contrasting good versus evil, and muting the violent pieces. However, the Grimm brothers told stories that were closer to original Marchen, where romance was not the solution to most tales and where violence was a comment theme. The Grimms expected their stories to be taken seriously, and they were.

Disney’s Snow White is a clear example of today’s reworked Marchen. Compared to the original Grimm version, there is little distasteful content. The stepmother does not eat Snow White’s liver and lungs in the film. The romance is emphasized in Disney’s version, as the prince meets Snow White in the first scene, and kisses her in the final one. In addition, good and evil are blatantly contrasted in Disney. The stepmother’s uses black magic and has a menacing cackle, while Snow White has a sweet, innocent demeanor. In addition, the seven dwarves play secondary characters that provide humor and yet another contrast to the villainess.

Steven Watts argues a positive view of Disney’s importance in American history, although acknowledges the difficulty of understanding his impact on modern American culture. Many critics believe that Disney’s commercial success and popularity mean that his films cannot have cultural significance. In addition, the strong contradictory opinions of Disney make it difficult to simply look at his impact in order to gain understanding rather than to criticize or admire his work. Watts looks at Walt Disney as an artist of sentimental modernist films and as a promoter of American ideals, qualities that are evident in Disney’s rendering of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

America’s original perception of Disney was of a serious artist, inspired by both modernist art and sentimental realism. These two often contradictory influences show in his work. He blurred the line of reality and imagination by creating worlds where animals could talk, plants were animated, and household objects felt emotion. In Snow White, the forest through which the banished girl flees has trees which try to grab and trip her, but nearby, kind animals prepare to comfort her. In addition, he incorporated dreams often in his work. Walt Disney encouraged naturalism to a degree unheard of in animation and cartoons. He insisted that his animators take evening art classes and he invented the multiplane camera, which created the illusion of depth in Snow White and his other animated feature films.

Disney also used his films to imbue hope and to promote certain virtues to his audience during the depression. His films in the 1930’s remind Americans that they will overcome the hard times through vigor and virtue. Two Disney films in the ‘30s stand out in particular for encouraging the persistence and courage of underdogs. Three Little Pigs (1933) features the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” while the dwarves in Snow White (1937) merrily sing “Heigh Ho, It’s Off to Work We Go.” Snow White, too, exhibits a hard-working demeanor both in her house and the dwarves’. Disney claims that “wisd