Student Projects from Dr. Begum's Literature and Film Courses
Document Type
Student Project
Abstract
"Savages, savages!" scream the English colonizers at the Native Americans in the Disney film, Pocahontas. This quote exemplifies the postcolonial tensions that are present in several of Disney's movies. However, the characters in Disney movies tend to be romanticized. Thus, we judged that Disney's children's characters were the perfect basis for our Post-Colonial video. The princesses we chose to look at were Ariel (and Ursula), Jasmine, Pocahontas, Cinderella, and Rapunzel (with focus on Mother Gothel). Each of these princesses had their own cultures and were oppressed by a colonizer, either literally or figuratively. Yet, the classic Disney movies glossed over this colonization in favor of a romantic, happy-ending plot. By creating song parodies of each princess's song, we highlighted the already existing colonial nature of the movies, while also connecting to the post-colonial literature read in class.
Repository Citation
Herrholtz, Madilyn; Wodarski, Alicia; Stamm, Sarah; Shelton, Ashley; and Montgomery, Kelsey, "ENG 3140: The Post-Colonial Nature of Disney: The Ruining of a Childhood" (2014). Student Projects from Dr. Begum's Literature and Film Courses. 3.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/lit_film_stud_projects/3