I Want More!

I saw Tangled when it came out in theatres on my birthday twice. I happen to be a huge Disney freak, and the two new Princesses, Tiana and Rapunzel, excited me with a new hope of returning to the Disney Princess phase.

However, as anyone can point out, Disney Princesses are very flawed.When you hear the words 'Disney Princess,' you usally think of this: lonley sad princess with huge ees sings songs about how she wants more, she gets her 'more' and her man and they get married. The Disney concept of more tends to be my biggest pet peeve about the princesses. The Nostalgia Critic put it very well when he said, "You're fucking royalty! If you had any more you'd be fucking godesses!"

With that said, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of Disney princess I would want to be. While most of them fall into that 'more' categlory, each of them has little things that make them specail and unique. After the death of Walt Disney, the concept of the princess changed, as rises in the idea that a female in a movie didn't have to be sitting around waiting for her man sparked a new idea of what a Princess should be.

First, I'll start with the three Walt Disney princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty.) You'll notice a lot of similarites in these three, since these were all Walt's idea of a princess. And really, I'll go on record in saying Snow White is my favorite Disney princess. You're probably out to call bullshit on me by saying, "Hey hey wait- aren't you pointing out all the flaws in the female sterotype princess? Snow White is classic 'female can only cook, clean, and wait for her man,' and she's your favorite?"
Well, here's the thing: Snow White was the first Disney princess, and thus cannot fit into the sterotype. The sterotype of Disney princess didn't exist yet! Sure, if we look back on it now, Snow White is just a cute dame who sits around the house, spending all her time singing, cooking, and cleaning. She doesn't actually get much done in the movie other than providing the Dwarfs with a mother figure who could do all that for her, since the men are out working all day. However, we also have to look at the fact that this movie was made in 1937, and the idea that a woman could even think about working for a living wouldn't come around until the middle of World War II. Snow White was also very young; she was only about 14 (yeah, and she gets married at the end.) And this was before 14 year old girls could spend their time Facebooking (when did that become a verb?) meaningless song lyrics and spending 10 bucks a week going to see Justin Beiber: NeverSayNever. This was a time, not just when the movie is set, I'm talking 1937 too, where a 14 year old girl probably wouldn't know anything else besides how to be a mother. And even if you take it out of the context of 1930's, Snow White is set in midevil times (I can assume?) so the concept of her being anything other than a baby train for a man would be even less prominent. Snow White is my favorie because she is just the embodyment of cute, and she did set the stone for Disney princesses in the future. While this may not have been a good thing per-say, it works for her.

Sleeping Beauty (why does no one ever all her Aurora?) and Cinderella tended to follow much the same pattern, which is why these two are usally looked over. Aurora moreso- since she doesn't do shit in the movie. I know she talks and gets one song at least, but other than that, she's just a painting for half the movie, laying in her bed of 'I don't have to do shit because I'm a woman.' Sleeping Beauty wasn't even about the sleeping beauty. If anything, that movie is about the fairies! They do all the shit! We could have just had a movie about the fairies and Meleficant, but I guess you have to have the sleeping beauty in Sleeping Beauty. But honestly, it's easy to over-look a Princess who didn't do much besides sing a song about dreams, be a curious fuck who cant deciefer that a sharp thing will cut her. I know the explination was that she's never seen a spinning wheel before, but even a monkey could realize if something's sharp, it will cut you. And yes, she didn't know the cut would put her to sleep, but she couldn't have been so dumb as not to think "Oh, that's a sharp needle. I see sharp things all the fucking time. I know if I touch it, it will cut me. I should stay away from it!" instead of having that look a baby gets when you shake something in front of its face. I mean really, there is no way she couldn't have been exposed to sharp things every day. Glass, needles, sissors, things of that nature, and she had to have been taught (and if not taught, just fucking realized it by age 16) that sharp things cut you. Sharp things hurt. You don't go around touching sharp things. Okay, I'm done, I'm done. It just bugs me the movie had to be about that dope instead of the real heros: Floura, Fauna, and Merryweather.
Cinderella went back to the Snow White trend and was a Princess who was not treated like a princess. For Cinderella and Snow white, the 'I want more' excuse is fine. I let it slide for them because in all honesty, they really were not treated well. While they didn't show it in Snow White, Cinderella concentrated more on the emotional abuse side of the story. While Snow White was still okay with working, Cinderella knew she didn't have it so hot, and felt the pain. I think this was because Cinderella had those two sisters who would constantly flaunt in her face how much better they were treated. This makes Cinderella a bit mroe of a believable princess in my opinion, because while a young child might not understand Snow White's struggles since she never is upset about them at all, most little girls can relate to having siblings or other children picking on them for not being 'good enough' or not 'having enough'. However, as I have mentioned, the main focus for these three girls was always to get the man. But, this can be ignored for the time they were made, the lack of that just being a 'Disney princess sterotype' at the time, and Walt's perception of the princess.

Next comes the 90's Disney princesses. Though, technically, the first Princess I include in this categlory is Ariel, whose movie was realised in 1989. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontis, and Mulan are part of the categlory of 'Princesses who bug me because the creative team at Disney couldn't think of any ideas for Princesses that didn't just want more and a man.' Well, Belle, Pocahontis and Mulan seem to avert this, but Ariel and Jasmine are usally listed as the Princesses who grind people's gears because they just sit on the sterotypes of early Disney princesses. While you can't blame them for wanting that 'more' they wont shut up about, as I've stated, they're fucking royalty. Cinderella and Snow White had an excuse! They had fucking crappy lives! Ariel and Jasmine have it great compared to them. Sure, Ariel is just another curious as fuck princess, and Jasmine wanted to see life outside her palace (and not be forced into an arranged marriage,) but they could have had it worse. At least Jasmine didn't it have it like most Arabian girls at the time. If the movie was more accurate, her dad would have been raping and beating her and not even giving her a choice in a husband. Jasmine and Ariel also irk me because they're nothing like the book. Want a nice example? In the book The Little Mermaid, Ariel isn't magically changed into a mermaid and safely swims to the surface. Her fin is cut in half, she almost drowns, and when the gets to the surface, she is bleeding to death. That prince guy (I cant recall if he was named in the book or not, but Eric is such a dumb name for a prince) doesn't help her, either. He starts laughing his ass off and tells her to dance of his asmusement, bleeding all over the sand. Then, instead of the book ending like the movie where she defeats Ursula and marries the prince, uh...Ariel doesn't make it in the book. No happy ending for her. She's stuck in purgatory for the rest of her life, and I think it's that every time a child cries she's gotta spend 200 more years there or something like that. That would be the interesting Disney story! Now Belle from Beauty and the Beast, I can live with. Same with Mulan. They were both great princesses (although Belle wasn't a princess until the end and Mulan never was) who really changed it up. They don't spend the movie man-hunting, and they're need for more is actually well done. Both are living in female-opressive socities: Belle lives in a time where her intellegence is looked down as a fault since she's not popping babies out like she should be, and Mulan is the same thing, but instead of her intellegance, it's the fact that she lives in ancient China and was also not activily pregnant while also giving birth to soilders. Pocohontis is also in there, but she didn't actually do much to advance the understanding of Native American culture. She spends half the movie talking to trees and trying to get white ass. Yeah, it's a very pretty movie, and it definatley could have been WAY more sterotypical, but I just don't look upon it as a good movie.

After Mulan was released in 1998, there weren't any Disney princess movies made until 2009 with one of my favorite movies: The Princess and the Frog. Tiana was specail for being the first African-American princess in the series, and in my opinon, it's the studio's best 2D animated feture behind Snow White and Fantasia. However, I know I'm going to get hate for this, but I just don't see Tiana as a Disney princess. I can give Tiana every single compliment I can because she was a fresh, new idea: a Princess that wasn't seaking 'more.' The whole idea of her character is that she was going to be a Princess who wasn't just going to sit around and dream, she's going to fucking get shit done. Tiana works hard and is a modern-day girl. However, this is why it's hard for me to look at her as a princess. When I think of the Disney princess, while I do hate the sit around for my hot sex girl, they're what I think of as a princess. Tiana isn't a Princess until 5 minutes before the movie's done, she doesn't live in a palace (she lives in the slums), and works at two diners. Tiana is a magnificant character. She's everything I'd look for in a great character. She's not going to let her race and gender stop her from achenving her dreams. And, she is a princess in her own right. But I can't think of Snow White or Aurora working in a diner and acting so un-princess like. I love Tiana as a character, but for me to imagine them as a Disney princess, I like just a little bit of that early Snow White feeling.
This is why I love Rapunzel in Tangled. Rapunzel is a perfect combination of Tiana and Snow White. She fights for herself, but is naturally scared and naive. Yes, she is just waiting around in a castle, but first off she can't go anywhere, and second, she never mentions just wanting a man. She just wants to leave her castle for one day. She's not after men or children or a fairy tale life, she just wants to live a little. But Rapunzel also retains that early Disney princess charm. She's girly, playful, and maybe she does act scared at times. The princesses dont all need to be like Tiana and be more manly that the male lead. Just a little bit on anti-feminism works for the Disney princess. Because, as a female writing this, I know it's hard for a girl to be just as a strong as a boy. What Rapunzel does is she is girly, but when she knows she can fight back, she can. She's cunning, but also has that name naive charm of the old Princesses. I think if we had more 'perfect mix' Princesses, we'd be heading in the right direction. I just hope Disney returns back to it's 2D roots.

There's a new style of music that's slowly gaining in popularity right now.  The most popular name for it is a 'Pogo Mix' or a 'Pogo Tribute' after the person who started them, a composer named Nick Bertke who calls himself Pogo.
What he and now so many other people are doing are taking some of the greatest movies, and using the voices as imstuments. Computers can do wonderful things, and instead of it just being a 'remix', small voice samples are taken and each little noise is used as an imstrument. I wanted to use this journal for you to find some of your favorite movies in this list, and hear the amazing 'Pogo Mixes' for that movies, all by different people.

I'll start with Movies.

Bing- Groundhog Day. Composed by Skye.

Wisperlude- A Little Princess. Composed by Pogo.

Ruby Shoes- The Wizard of Oz. Composed by Dainumo.

Aurora- Sleeping Beauty. Composed by RemixLuke.

Chihiro- Spirited Away. Composed by goldpikpikcarrots

Lov.E- WALL.E. Composed by D!tto.

I Want A Party- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Composed by HappyLandfill.

Next, Television Shows.

Fanime- Full Metal Alchemist. Composed by D!tto.

Beautiful Comedy- Whose Line Is It Anyway? Composed by Skye.

Dexter- Crimson. Composed by Pogo.

And just because I can, here's a Video Game.

Epic Mickey- Epiculous. Composed by D!tto again.

Make 'Em Laugh!

"My Dad said 'Be an actor, my son, but be a comical one!'"

Any film historian will agree, some of the best film comedians came from America. True, I might have a bit of a biased opionion. I have no earthly idea what silent comedies were like in other countries, or if any other countries, well, had them. You know, outside of the early, early films by the Lumière brothers in which a comedy consisted of a man putting on several hats and making faces. But then again, I'm not even sure if that was made in France or not.



The French brothers are known for their hat tricks and amazing moustaches.



And can we just count A Trip To The Moon as a comedy? That was French, I'm certain of it. I mean, i realize this was at a time when people knew nothing out of nothing about the moon (Do the French even have a space program?) but either way, it's god damn hilarious to see an astronimer/magican stick his unbrella into the moon's crust and watch it turn into a mushroom and that still be considered top science.

Since it seems French comedy so far has ammounted to hats and a space shuttle being loged into the moon's eye, let's get back to American comedy (and my French friends are going to think I was insulting them, whoops.) Arguably, the three greatest silent comedy stars came from America, and since I've watched films from all three, my opinon isn't just going by what I think I know this time. (Seriously, I'm going to get like 50 e-mails telling me in complete detail the history of the French space program.)

Depending onwho you ask, the three greatest silent comedians of all time are in any combination of this order: Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton. And it's now 6:47 am, and since I've had a good ammount of caffene I'm going to talk about all three.

I guess I'll start with Buster Keaton, also known as 'The Great Stone Face.' That wasn't just a gimmick, either, the guy almost always looked like that.

As a kid, he travelled around with Harry Houdini (yeah, THAT Harry Houdini) and his name 'Buster Keaton' came from this kid's stone face. Can you imagine him coming out of his mother looking like that? No wonder he's a comedian, that's probably the funniest thing I've ever pictured in my head. Anyway, ol' Joseph Keaton was just 18 months old when he fell down a flight of stairs. Houdini was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and when Joseph just stood right back up with the same look on his face instead of crying like a one year old should,Harry Houdini said, "That was a real buster!"

As he got older, his father decided the best vaudville act to adopt would be child abuse, of course. Alright, Buster Keaton did come out and say his father wasn't hurting him on purpose, it was just part of their act. Aparently, the act would always go the same way: Buster and his father would be doing a sketch, and during the middle his charcter wouldmake his father's character angry. Theygot into the habit of picking upand throwing Buster on the stage, into the orchestra pit, and into the fucking audience. Buster never brokea bone or got a bruise, and since him laughing and squealing while being thrown over everyone's heads made it look fake, he adopted his stone face up there, and it stuck.

Buster then met the man who changed his life: Roscoe Arbuckle.



Buster's smiling! Call the police!



Already a film star, Arbuckle (a great comedian as well, I might add, I'll write about him some other time,) Arbuckle helped Buster get started in the film world, and let me say that whole stone face thing made his career.
I've only seen two Buster Keaton films all the way through, the one with Arbuckle where he's at the carnival and spends 45 minutes trying to get laid, and of course, The General. You can't say you like Buster Keaton unless you've seen The General. All through the movie (any of his movies) shit goes wrong. Cannons fire without him knowing, swords come flying off their handles, his own train leaves him without him being on it, stuff like that. And the best part about it is he shows no shock. No remorse, no emotion, this guy cares but he's not showing it. The best way I can explain is with this great clip from 'The College.'

Up next we have the man dubbed 'Too Handsome for Comedy,' but he did it anyway. That's why he wears the silly glasses and hat, because as Clark Kent as taught us, just a simple pair of glasses changes your who apperance. Here's Harold Lloyd.

Harold wasn't on the same page as Buster. Buster was more along the lines of  "poor sap does something on purpose in which bad things happen but he's okay by the end." Harold, on the other hand was "poor sap gets pulled into something he does want to do in which bad things happen but he's okay by the end." Harold was a bit mroe sympethetic because he never wanted to be in the situation he was in. Someone else caused it, or he's just too nice to say no. Sure, he doesn't want to climb that clock tower, but his friend needs him to! He didn't want a bring that turkey on the trolley, but he won a raffle and he couldn't say no! Stuff like that. Buster was a bit more "I got myself in, now I have to get myself out." Lloyd was "I got myself in, now when will this be over?"

And if you think Buster had it bad, Harold suffered for his art, too. While rehersing for a movie, Lloyd was holding a small explosive in his hand. It was for a sunt, and it was really only suppoed to pop in his hand and mainly make a lot of smoke so you couldn't tell it wasn't really more than a party popper. It really was just supposed to be like telling a friend to hold out their hand and blow one of those party poppers into their palm. it'd hurt but not too bad. Well, someone who I guess holds a grudge against guys with funny glasses (Lex Luthor, I don't know) filled the popper with a lot more pop than it needed. While holding it in his hand it blew, resulting in Lloyd loosing three fingers.

Of course, that didn't stop him. Harold got three fake fingers and pulled it M.A.S.H. style, and would either hide his hand behind something, or he could move it in such a way you couldn't even tell it was fake. It's actually pretty amazing how he was able to pull it off, and in most movies you can't even tell if it's his real hand or if it's a fake.

Yes, I went out and watched youtube videos until I found this. I looked up 'Harold Lloyd fake hand.' You're welcome.

Alright, now here's a one more people will be firmillar with, the big man Charlie Chaplin. Most people know him as the silent era's 'Little Tramp,' but I really do wish he had been in more sound movies (he was in a few.) One thing you can't tell by looking at him: he's very very British. And if sound had been invented any sooner, I think he would have been bigger with the ladies than Valentino.

Hey, ladies dig British Nazis.

Alright, that's not him in the get up more people know him for. That's from one of his sound movies, The Great Dictator. I'll try to cover his silent works more, since Lloyd and Keaton I don't think ever made any sound movies. (Buster did say 'pass' twice in Sunset Boulevard, but that's all I know of.) 

More people reconize Charlie of course as 'The Little Tramp.' Despite being a hobo, his humor isn't like that of the previous two in that we feel sorry for him because he's in a bad situation. Why? This guy loves being a freaking hobo. Well alright, he may not love it, but he can't think of a better way to live. Chaplin described him as "a champane drinker on a beer budget." The Tramp was fine with being homeless. Sure it could be better, but it's not bad for him. The Tramp's humor was more of modern day humor, a well placed title card, his incredible faces, just the little things he does. Here, let'suse an example from his greatest film, The Kid.

When we first meet Chaplin in the movie, he's found a baby lying in an ally way. Picks up the baby, decides he doesn't want itand proceeds to drop it in the trash can. Okay, he would have, but here comes a police officer. Takes the baby back and scurries away (hobos and cops don't usally mix, expecally the hobos who throw babies away.) Okay, what to do with this thing, I can't feed it, I can't take care of it...stroller! Charlie pulls the first ever we can assume stroller gag and plops the infant into the stroller. End of story, he wipes his hands and walks away- until the mother clobbers him in the head senseless with an umbrella. Okay, gotta find another way. He tries a lot of stuff, giving it to another hobo, just putting it back and hoping the mother comes back, he even briefly considers dropping it down a sewer. It's pretty obvious that he does eventually decide to keep the kid, and thus kicks off our movie. Needless to say, it's a treat. Here's another great scene showing how Charlie makes money to keep the kid fed.

So, I think if you need a laugh, I reccomend you check out some of these guys. I think you can find The General, Safety Last and The Kid in their entirety on YouTube, so go give them a watch if you're in a humorous mood.

Next time, I'll try to talk about Roscoe Arbuckle or my favorite sound comedians. I don't know, you guys tell me. You can DeviantART message me, my user name is color-her-world (you can see my colored vintage photos there,) or my e-mail is malina.shelbie@yahoo.com That's also my Windows Live screen name so you can add me on there if you ever want to chat.

Yours,

Malina