On Redesigning Pixelated Princesses- An Animated Discussion*

*With apologies to Peter David

Recently, there has been a great deal of outcry over the new visual designs for Merida, the princess heroine of Disney/Pixar’s “Brave.”  The new artwork shows a clearly older princess, Merida’s gawky, girl’s body replaced with womanly curves, her baby fat trimmed away, leaving a slimmer figure, and her large round eyes full of wonder giving way to a hooded, sultry look.

This new imagining of the character is meant to bring her more in line with the other Disney princesses.  Many people, mostly empowered women and effeminate men, have protested this change, claiming that it undermines the very message of the movie.

I decided to weigh in on the topic in the form of a dialogue between the princess in question and her royal mother, since this conflict seemed in keeping with the themes and action of the film.  It may help to imagine it in the voices (and accents) of the characters themselves.  Enjoy.

“This is an outrage!”

Merida flung the door open with a bang, storming into her mother’s chambers brandishing a scroll.

Her mother sat at her sewing table, altering a dress with slow and deliberate movements of her needle. 

“What is an outrage, dear?” she asked in a pleasant, measured tone, adding; “and princesses do not burst into their mother’s chambers without knocking.”

Merida ignored the admonishment and thrust the scroll into her mother’s face.  It showed an image of the princess as an older, more mature lady.

“Yes dear, isn’t it lovely?”

Merida was stunned into silence, her lip raised in a look of utter incomprehension.  “But…” she stammered, “but it looks nothing like me!”

Her mother put down her sewing and smiled patiently at her daughter, adopting the infuriatingly patronizing tone she used to explain things to her.  “Perhaps not, dear, but it’s another version of you.  An idealized version of what you could be.”

“What I could be?  What does that mean?”

“You must remember dear, that you are a Disney Princess^™, and that means you are to serve as a role model for young girls everywhere.  You have to show them what they can become.”

“Then I don’t want to be a Disney Princess^™!”

Her mother set down her sewing, her face darkening in a dangerous cast that caused Merida to take a step backwards before planting her feet and thrusting her chin out towards her defiantly.

“Oh yes you do, young lady!” she hissed.  “As a Disney Princess^™ you will be known around the world, you will be the idol of millions of young girls, and you will live forever in the collective culture of the world.  So you will be a Disney Princess^™  and if that means making a few small changes, you will accept them while smiling graciously.

“But what’s wrong with the way I look now?”

Her mother made a sympathetic face.  “Well you are the first Disney Princess^™ from a Pixar film, and they just want to bring you more in line with all the other princesses.”

“Why should being from Pixar mean I need to change?”

“Well dear, Disney has been establishing a particular look, a particular aesthetic, for their princesses for decades now.  Your pixels just don’t match up with their traditional cell animation.  So they needed to make a few adjustments here and there; fix your frizzy hair, narrow your face a bit, make your proportions more…human.”

“Human!” shouted Merida indignantly.

“Well of course dear, remember, they need to hire actresses to walk around the parks dressed as you, and no living actress can be expected to look like a CGI character.”

“What about Rapunzel?  She was CGI!”

“That is true, but it was CGI based on the traditional Disney aesthetic.”  Adding under her breath, “A little more manga around the eyes than most, but times are what they are I suppose.”

“So I need to change to fit in?  Isn’t that a terrible lesson to teach the young girls who watched my movie?  And doesn’t that contradict the whole point of the story?”

The Queen laughed, “oh Merida, the story creates the characters, and then the characters drive the merchandise.”

“Merchandise?”

“Of course my dear, it is the merchandise that gives a Disney Princess^™ her immortality.  Long after she stops appearing in movies, it is the products bearing her likeness that line the shelves of the Disney Store that keep her forever young.”  And Disney knows what they are doing, they have been in the princess merchandising game for a very long time.  They know from experience and market research that little girls want glamorous princesses wearing fabulous gowns with hair they can brush.  They want the beauty and romance of a princess, and that is what their parents spend money on.”

“But what about the girls that don’t want that?  What about the girls that identify with me the way I am now?  I know those girls are out there, and they don’t want me to change and look more like a Disney Princess^™.  What about those girls?”

“Oh Merida,” her mother began with a weary sigh, “in the grand scheme of things, those girls simply don’t matter.”

Merida spluttered incoherently, struggling for a rational response, “wha- but, How can you say they don’t matter?”

“Because girls like that are statistically insignificant.  A major corporation like Disney has to aim for the largest demographic.  If they spent money on appealing to the kind of girls who are different, they would lose money.  It’s a simple matter of economics.”

“That’s not true!  Disney just doesn’t want to take the chance on a different kind of princess like me!”

Her mother sighed and spoke very quietly.  “No dear, they already have tried it.  More than once, actually.”

Merida blinked, her tirade halted in mid stride.  “What?”

“Her name was Mulan,” her mother began.  “She had nearly everything a successful Disney Princess^™ required to make it, a compelling story based on a traditional folk tale, great voice talent, excellent songs, talking animal friends; the works.  But like you, she was an independent young woman, who turned her back on marriage proposals, preferred to wear more…practical clothes to fancy gowns, learned to fight with swords and bows, and even risked her life to save her father.”

“I…I’ve never seen her around the other princesses when they gather.”

“No dear, she is rarely even mentioned these days.  Her merchandise does not appear on the Disney Store shelves.  That ‘evil, patriarchal template’ that Disney uses for their princesses?  She broke that pattern, and no one bought her products.  Disney didn’t abandon her, the public did.  Just like Pocahontas, or Megara, or Eilonwy

Merida struggled angrily with herself for several seconds, struggling to find the weakness in her mother’s argument.  Finally she collapsed, throwing herself down across her mother’s bed in despair.”

“But why do I have to look so much older?”

The Queen smiled and came over to sit on the bed, stroking her daughter’s hair.  “You must remember Merida, that you are an ideal.  Young girls need to look at an image of what they can be one day, and that means showing them a strong woman, not a strong child.”

“But my fans are children!” she shouted, jumping up from the bed and pacing the room again.

The Queen sighed again and returned to her sewing.  I know it’s not what you wanted dear, but this new look is just the way it has to be from now on.  I quite like the new dress, myself.

“I won’t wear it!” huffed Merida, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“Actually dear, I already got rid of all your old clothes,” her mother said, holding up the dress she had been altering.  “I’ve just been taking in the new ones Disney sent over.  Aren’t they elegant?”

Merida clenched her fists at her side, her face glowing red.  “Then I’ll rip these just like I did my old one!”

The Queen smiled.  “I’m sorry dear, they’ve already thought of that, I’m afraid.”  She stretched the fabric of the dress for her daughter to see.  “See?  These are all Spandex.”

Word To (My) Mother

My mother is an artist.

This is true first and foremost in her temperament; she is never happy unless she is engaged in a project that allows her to create and express.  She pours her soul into everything she does, and constantly experiments and tries new things.

Not all of those experiments were successful (if truth be told, the most memorable are the more spectacular failures,) but she was never discouraged.  No matter how badly a project may have ended, she would continue to experiment and take risks.

But when I say she is an artist, I also mean that quite literally.  She has tried her hand at a myriad of forms of artistic expression from watercolors, oil paints, pencil sketching, photography, stained glass (tink tink tink...) and metal work.  She has made money at many of them, including doing work as a calligrapher, cake decorator and wedding photographer.

And like many artists, my mother is a very sensitive person.  I have learned to be very careful what I say about her in a public forum such as this one, for she bruises easily, like a nectarine.  An artistic nectarine with a highly mercurial sense of humor.

So for Mother's Day, I am not going to launch into a cynical diatribe about how the holiday has been corrupted by the greeting card industry (although the woman who first conceived of the idea later denounced what it had become.)  Nor will I regale you all with hilarious tales of some of her more ridiculous escapades (although seriously, those stories are awesome.)

No, instead I am going to be boring and talk about why my mom is great (and consequently better than your mom, because it is MY blog, not yours, so nyah.)

I realize that everyone does this kind of sappy thing, where they talk about how their mother took care of them when they were sick, and how their mom makes the best (fill in name of ethnically-appropriate comfort food,) or how their mom was a rock in the storms of life.

But I'm not going to talk about that crap because my mom didn't do all that crap.  You know why?  Because that crap is boring.  And if there's one thing you can say about my mom (without getting an angry phone call,) it's that my mom has never been boring.

While your mom was teaching you how to fold sheets, my mom was taking me to Mexico to see mummies.  While you learned good habits about housekeeping and home economics, I was learning how to look at a pile of discarded coffee cans and air conditioning conduit and see the basis of a sweet robot costume.  While your mom was explaining the best ways to freeze leftovers, mine was introducing me to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien, Frank Frazetta and Robert Heinlein.

I mean, I'm sure she taught me all that other stuff about brushing my teeth and eating my veggies and crap, but I don't remember any of that.  I remember her taking us out to try new cuisines (before such experiences were commonplace, when there weren't ethnic restaurants on every other corner in South Florida.)  I remember her teaching us about art by handing us a brush and letting us go to town.  And I remember taking trips and ignoring the touristy crap you are expected to see, and instead checking out the museums, restaurants, and historical sites, because that was were the substance was, not on the postcards.

My mother takes the blame for many of my flaws, (she's not known for her punctuality, for example,) but she is also directly responsible for a whole lot of what makes me awesome (humility is another of those things your mom taught you while mine was taking me to scuba diving lessons.)

My mom is why I am a writer, my mom is why I paint (and have started sculpting,) minis, and my mom  is why I know the Owl and the Pussycat from memory.

So for this Mother's Day, I want to send out this message of love and gratitude:  "My mom is better than yours, because she made me."

And I can't think of higher praise than that.

Stop All The Clocks (then take a picture and move them slightly)

Ray Harryhausen died today.

If you don't know who that is...well you should.   But if you are one of those sadly unacquainted with the name, you are no doubt familiar with the man's work.  Unless you are one of those young snots who never watches movies from before 2000, in which case seriously; go to hell kid.

Ray Harryhausen was the undisputed master of stop-motion animation, that most painstaking of filmic techniques, and responsible for so many classic movie moments and monsters.  It begins with an amazing model, and from there it moves forward at the breakneck speed of a glacier that has not yet had its morning coffee.

This type of animation requires you to move your models, take a picture, and then move the model again, by fractional increments.  For each second of screen time, you need 24 shots to make it look anything like realistic motion.  This is an art form for talented sculptors, and patient photographers.

Ray Harryhausen was both.  He created monsters from some of the greatest fantasy and scifi movies of the twentieth century.  I won't bore you with his filmography, I'm just going to tell you the ones that made me an eternal fan.

He gave us the awesome skeleton warriors in the 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, and anytime you imagine skeletons walking around, I guarantee that it's based on those images (not to mention nearly every other one was based on his work.)  He created the horned cyclops thing that you've seen a clip of thousands of times, even if you never actually saw the movie it's originally from.  He gave us all these ideas and more.

But for me, the most important thing he did was give us the 1981 magnum opus Clash of the Titans.  This movie had a huge impact on me as a child.  Pegasus, Medusa, the vulture, Calibos, and the Kraken were wonders to my young eyes.  This film gave voice and visuals to the stories I had read, and I wanted to bring my own ideas to life in the same way.  One of the reasons I took to miniature painting was to try and replicate his successes.

He is gone now, but not only do we have his films (seriously, go check out some of his earlier stuff, it's great,) we have the work of all the special effects artists that were inspired by his work.  Because of him we all know how skeletons are supposed to move, and that is a rare and priceless gift.

Thank you for all you created mister Harryhausen.

Even freaking Bubo.

And In Return, I Won't Come To Your Church and Teach Macbeth

Now, I’m not trying to offend anyone here, but I’d like to discuss religion in schools.

See?  Now I’ve offended people.

A great many people I know like to forward these sappy, snarky, grainy (why are they always grainy?) inspirational posters talking about how our problems today are a result of taking God out of schools.

The ones I get are all Christian, because most of the religiously minded people I know are Christians, although I shouldn’t be surprised to find that similar complaints are made regarding other faiths.

Now I’m not going to enter into any kind of debate on the merits of religion itself, and whether or not you feel that it actually does solve problems, or if it causes more.  Likewise I’m not going to extol the virtues of different faiths, or different denominations of any one faith.

My aim here is simply to discuss the premise that God (or free practice of any religion) has been expelled from public schools.

Usually, this issue boils down to the concept of ‘School Prayer.’  And the thing is, this is in large part a generational thing.  Older folks may remember having prayer in public schools, or have been raised by people who do, and grew up hearing about how great that was.

But before we go any further, we need to clarify what ‘School Prayer’ means.  This was not, “hey let’s allow people to express their religion as they see fit,” the prayer was mandatory.  It did not matter what your religion was, you were forced to pray along with the prayer that the school chose for you.

Now many of you reading this may be thinking “what’s the harm in that?  It’s a prayer for God’s sake, how can anyone object to that?  You are free to think something different while you pray along, it’s just a harmless expression of divine love, and surely no one can be offended by that?”  And if you do feel that way, that’s perfectly reasonable.

I’m guessing you’re a Protestant.

Because that is the tyranny of the majority, when the minority’s opinions and values are trampled by the dominant (usually numerically superior, but not always) group’s opinions and values.

Before you start your angry reply, understand that I’m not speaking ill of majority rule.   Logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.   However, no matter how much you like to run naked down the middle of your street covered in dog feces, your neighbors will most likely call the authorities who will come and explain that there are some freedoms that need to be curtailed in the interests of the common good.

This is also why you are allowed to own guns, but not allowed to shoot them off while sitting on the front porch of your suburban home (because where the bullets land affects the more crucial rights of others not to have holes in themselves or their property.)

But religion is a deeply personal thing.  Sharing fellowship with the rest of your religious community is great, but it should never come at the expense of a person’s right to their religion.  If you have a town comprised of 100% Methodists, then saying the Lord’s Prayer every morning might not seem out of line.

However, we live in an increasingly diverse world.  Asking someone to pray to a God they do not worship (or in a manner inconsistent with their conscience,) is an offensive intrusion into a person’s private faith.  And even if a single one of those hypothetical Methodists (from the First Hypothetical Methodist Church,) chooses not to pray in that particular way, should the others force him to do this deeply personal ritual in their chosen manner?

As I type this, I am sitting near an older colleague with whom I had this exact discussion several years ago.  This individual is deeply religious (Protestant) and I adore her as a person.  She was lamenting the loss of prayer in school like she had growing up.

I asked her if she would feel comfortable with her kids being asked to recite a Catholic prayer.  She was a little uncomfortable with the idea, but decided she could get behind that idea, since her kids would still be praying to Christ, and she would know that she had taught her kids Protestant values and they would know what was right.

So then I asked her if she would be okay if the school chose to have them recite an Islamic prayer.  Would she be okay if the sentiment was the same (God is great, avoid temptation, love each other and follow His commandments,) but if they referred to Him as Allah?  And that Mohammed is His prophet?

We are still friends, but we have not had that discussion since then.  I just want to get that out of the way first.

She stated that of course she would not be okay with that at all.  If the school tried to have her kids pray to a different god, she would feel the need to talk to the principal immediately.  Even if the principal explained that the message was no different, and that the students were not being radicalized or asked to join a new church, it was merely a prayer in the morning, she still would not be okay with it.

And I think she is right.  She has every right not to have her children forced to pray along with something in which she does not believe.

But I think the rest of us have that right as well.   I don’t want a school to tell my children how to pray.  That’s my job.  And even if the school followed the ‘correct’ religion now, what happens when the demographic changes?  If I move to Dearborn, MI (largest Muslim percentage in America) do my kids have to kneel on prayer rugs?

And as a teacher, should I have to pray in a way inconsistent with my beliefs?  Worse, do I then have to lead students in that prayer?  And must I punish them for not participating, or disrupting?  Will I be issued a torch and capirote, or will I have to bring them in from home?

No, I think the whole idea of forced prayer in school is a relic of the past, and we are all better off without it.

But does that mean that religion is banned from school?  Of course not.  It simply means that while we can force children to adhere to a dress code, and force them to learn math and read the Scarlet Letter, we cannot force them to worship in any way.

But students are free to practice their religion whenever they wish (with some notable exceptions I will mention below.)

There simply is nothing in the school rules that forbids the exercise of religion.  A student is free to pray at any time, barring being disruptive in class (much in the same way they ask you to leave church if you whip out an accordion and start playing Frank Yankovic’s greatest hits.)

You can pray in the classroom, pray in the halls, pray in the cafeteria, or before a sporting event.  If a group of students wants to sit together in the cafeteria and hold a prayer meeting over lunch, there is nothing stopping them.

And while it is true that there are some restrictions that interfere with an individual’s ability to fully express his or her religion, with dress codes that may prohibit covering the head or face, or not allowing students to take out a prayer rug, face Mecca and pray several times a day on Friday, or have the cafeteria prepare food in accordance with strict religious laws, none of those things affect Protestants, so it’s not really worth mentioning, is it?

Many schools, such as my own, have religious clubs that meet on campus.  These are often nondenominational or interfaith groups that operate with official sanction of the school.   They use public space for religious purposes because it is a club.  As long as no student is ever forced to attend, there is rarely any sort of problem.

As a teacher, I am allowed to talk about my religious beliefs.   However, I am not allowed to proselytize, force my students to pray, or discriminate against those who do not practice the same religion as me.

But then, as a person, I don’t do any of those things because that would make me an asshole.

Just like your children, your religion and your god (or gods,) are welcome in school.   It’s just that, like your children, we expect your religion to sit down, get along with others, not pick fights, and respect the rights of others as the learning process is under way.

And if I catch any of your gods chewing gum I swear to mine you will be in detention so fast it will make your holy radiance spin.  Are we clear?