Final Reflective Post

We’re finishing spring semester in a week.  I’ve almost finished my freshman year of college.  It’s honestly kind of hard to believe.  I’ve learned a lot in the last year, about things I never thought I could take classes in (like fairy tales, or even Disney 😉).  I think it was kind of fitting to start the first phase of my life as an adult by revisiting some of the movies of my childhood.  

This class has taught me to think critically about the films I grew up with.  Honestly, going into this class I really hadn’t thought much about villainy in Disney films.  Most of the time, I mainly paid attention to the protagonists.  So discussing the various ways Disney films portray villains, and how those portrayals have (or haven’t) changed over the years was really interesting.  This class also gave me the chance to look critically at a lot of issues I hadn’t really thought about in association with Disney films, like the portrayals of race and gender, and particularly how these issues intersect with the various Disney villains.  

I discovered there’s a lot more to these films than meets the eye.  They aren’t just pure and innocent movies, they are a product of the standards and biases of both the people who created the films and society as a whole when the films are made.  They have to be looked at critically with these factors in mind.  That doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy Disney and the films it produces.  It just means that I am armed with more knowledge about the negative and positive aspects of these films.

It’s also been interesting to approach Disney, which I have not really worked with in an academic context, from the perspective of academia and academic writing.  

Starting with films I knew and loved, I was able to build my writing skills, and have fun along the way.  Working with Big Hero 6 for the semester on my papers was also really fun.  I got to rewatch and analyze the movie in ways I hadn’t before, to look for the specific messages the films sends about villainy and grief.  BH6 is interesting because it’s a film where the hero actually comes close to crossing the line into villain territory.  The villain also starts out as a “good guy”.  It really shows how over the years Disney is moving toward a more nuanced portrayal of villainy.  Instead of the big, showy villains who are easily recognizable with their capes and horns and creepy snake staffs (looking at you, Jafar and Maleficent), Disney is trying to use their villains as ways to surprise viewers, to show that anyone can become dangerous or villainous, and that good and evil aren’t always black and white.  This also shows up in the last batch of films we watched.  Wreck It Ralph and Frozen both wait to reveal their villains till the end, and Maleficent takes arguably the most quintessential Disney villain and makes her into a (at times morally questionable, she still curses a child) good guy.

I also really liked our class discussions on the films and texts we read about the films.  I feel like hearing other people’s perspectives and interpretations really enhanced my understanding of these films and the messages they portray.  It’s been a great semester reading, writing, and discussing Disney.