International Journal of Disney Studies - Current Issue

This article examines how Disney-Pixar’s Luca (2021) constructs identity alongside two filmic pillars: intertextuality and Italianicity. The three levels of analysis that emerge in this study – identity, intertextuality and Italianicity – are contextualized in interdisciplinary literature and the imagination at the centre of Disney’s filmography. First, this article examines identity formation in the film through its characters which supplies viewers with an opportunity for self-reflection. Next, it explores the intricate intertextuality of the film and posits these references, whether intentional or latent, as connective pieces to Luca’s filmic contexts. Finally, it examines the function of Italianicity on a variety of levels to galvanize how the film is chock-full of references that embrace and stage Italy. All of this considered, this article frames how these three pillars come together to teach Italian culture to viewers via the film.

This article explores the Power Rangers franchise, focusing on its unique production method of hybridaptation, which involves combining pre-existing footage with newly filmed scenes. The article argues that this method is inherently queer, creating a polysemiotic text through its destabilization and crossing of boundaries. The article specifically examines Power Rangers RPM (2009), the final season produced under Disney’s ownership. For transculturally knowledgeable fans of Power Rangers, RPM moved the franchise closer to its Japanese origins and to the norms and styles of Boys Love media, depicting emotionally intense relationships between male characters. RPM’s horror-inflected post-apocalyptic setting and found family dynamics offer rich material for queer readings. The article argues that RPM’s initial embrace of these queering elements was later overwritten by Disney’s intervention, which led to the disavowal of implicitly queer relationships with explicit heteronormative plot points. By analysing RPM, the article provides historical context to Disney’s ongoing negotiations with queer audiences and the complexities of glocalqueering. RPM is presented as an example of what was both possible and impossible for a Disney text at its specific historical moment. The article concludes by discussing the implications of Disney’s experiments with hybridaptation for ongoing issues of transcultural media production, consumption and representation.

In Disney’s animated movies, female protagonists are often depicted with less dynamism compared to male protagonists or female antagonists. Heroines tend to retain their gentleness, charm and grace, while heroes and villainesses exhibit a wide range of caricatured, exaggerated and comical expressions. Pixar’s Turning Red has broken this unspoken rule and significantly increased the visibility of comical exaggeration on the four young heroines (Meilin, Abby, Priya and Miriam). Many dynamic distortions and caricatures have been applied to these characters, and some even lead to ludicrous, grotesque depictions of facial expressions. This article examines these portrayals of comedic, exaggerated facial expressions within the context of animated female characters during puberty. The study applies theories around caricature, comedy, pubertal girls and the Halo/Horn effect. Through analysing examples of ‘funny faces’, the article explains how these unconventional images of young female protagonists contribute to new understandings of, and approaches to, visual narrative roles of gender in animation.

Although Mickey Mouse has remained a figurehead of The Walt Disney Company since the release of Steamboat Willie in 1928, there has been a distinct gap in literature surrounding Mickey Mouse’s and Donald Duck’s supporting characters, especially concerning Daisy Duck. This article analyses the appearances of Daisy Duck chronologically since her first appearance in 1937, contrasting her gendered portrayals shown through stereotypes and adherence to waves of feminism with the depictions of Minnie Mouse’s traditional femininity. Depictions of Daisy Duck show how, whereas initially Daisy was depicted with what were considered negative stereotypes of women, and despite the inconsistent image of her femininity, she followed successive waves of feminism as she starred in Disney cartoons, films and television shows as both a main and a supporting character. This trend reveals Daisy’s deeper significance to the Mickey Mouse cast whose femininity was purposefully designed to act not only as a flexible foil for other characters, but also as the member of the cast who has seen her femininity develop the most.

Coined the ‘dead-mother-plot’, Disney has been known to capitalize on the childhood experience of parental death by structuring its narratives around the death of mothers. While analyses have been conducted regarding the frequency of dead mothers in Disney films, little has been written about the specific choices Disney makes in presenting maternal death. As such, this article investigates the primary elements in Disney’s dead-mother-plot. A textual analysis of Disney’s notably traumatic maternal death in Bambi suggests that maternal loss is presented through traumatic frames. Specifically, the coding of maternal death according to three major narrative elements (maternal sacrifice, child development and homicide) may contribute to the audience identification of mediated, maternal deaths as traumatic – demonstrating how and when trauma and loss in Disney become explicitly paired with mothers.

Review of: Positioning Pooh: Edward Bear after 100 Years, Jennifer Harrison (ed.) (2021)

Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 240 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-49683-410-2, h/bk, USD 110.00

ISBN 978-1-49683-411-9, p/bk, USD 35.00