Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 589-609).

The Walt Disney Company has been producing feature films for almost a decade, allowing children as well as grown ups to enter their world of fairytales. Along the years there have been different ways to portray the characters, this can be seen in results from previous research. The purpose with our essay is to examine five female main characters in modern princess-movies from Disney; The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Brave, Frozen and finally Moana. With a base in the ideas of postfeminism, we wanted to investigate how the female characters were portrayed in terms of physical appearance, personality and stereotypical femininity. We made a semiotic analysis to discern signs in respective movie, we used Roland Barthes’s theory consisting of the idea of denotation, connotation and myths. Our analysis lead us to the conclusion that several changes can be seen. Instead of portraying female characters as innocent, love-seeking and in the need of rescue, the modern princesses are physically strong, determined and adventurous. The viewers are also being introduced to new kinds of relationships that differs from the previous heterosexual standards. Even though some gender roles and intersectional standards were remained visible, we found new stereotypical ways of portraying women in Disney.

Disney is known for their family animation movies with a non-western or indigenous cultural background. Nevertheless, Disney is basically very influential for the perception of cultures by a global audience. Many studies have proven that Disney’s depiction of a certain represented culture has not always been that clean. Of course two side notes are that Disney does make movies from an American dominant perspective and second, there is no such thing as a ‘real’ or ‘correct’ culture.   Now, with the movie Moana freshly released in 2016, Disney took a step in the indigenous Polynesian culture. This research uses a thorough Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse how Disney portrays Polynesia and the Polynesian culture inside four selected samples of the movie Moana. This analysis is combined with the theories and concepts of Americanisation, Disneyfication and cultural appropriation to find out mixtures of the portrayed Polynesian culture with American and Disney values.   Interesting findings were that Disney indeed portrays a hotchpotch of many cultures that can be found in Polynesia. Disney took care of highlighting the culture in the general storyline, in the characters and in the small details. Disney uses details of Polynesian mythology and the history around the ancient voyagers and wayfinding techniques for the storyline. What Disney emphasises is the importance of family, their history and their culture. Disney always portrays the culture with a certain emission of power and pride.   However, the American dominancy is still noticeable. For example, the depiction of the coconut and the plumeria flower are signs of Americanised Polynesia. The American and Disney values are all visible during the whole movie and can be found in quotes, gestures and behaviour of characters as Moana, the ocean and demigod Maui. Especially Maui is being portrayed as the ‘American dominant hero’ even though Maui is considered to be a honoured and popular Polynesian demigod.

abstract: This dissertation considers how adolescent identity is constructed and represented in commercial musical theatre for youth (e.g. Broadway and Disney Theatrical Group) by examining two commercial productions with adolescents in lead roles--Spring Awakening and Disney's High School Musical. My theoretical framework is intersectionality which creates a foundation for my research within the field of childhood studies, gender studies, and performance studies to illuminate current US American trends in youth oriented art and research. My framework extends into a case study methodology exploring the world of childhood and youth sexuality through a close read of the popular Broadway musical adaptation, Spring Awakening. In addition, a second investigation chronicles the world of Disney's High School Musical through my own intersectional tool, the Disney Industrial Complex. I claim that adolescence, as a constructed identity, exists as a multi-faceted intersectional category composed of multiple and conflicting intersections such as gender, race, sex, ethnicity, and so on. These intersections develop over the course of the period known as "adolescence" and "youth." The goal of this dissertation is to serve as a reference for other theatre educators and their work with young people creating art. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2012

I den här uppsatsen gör jag en komparativ analys av bröderna Grimms version av folksagan Snövit, Disneys film Snövit och de sju dvärgarna och en av Disneys senaste filmer, Frost. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur bilden av prinsessor har förändrats över tid, det vill säga vilka skillnader och likheter det finns mellan de kvinnliga karaktärerna. Fokus ligger alltså på Snövit i folksagan Snövit, Snövit i filmen Snövit och de sju dvärgarna och Elsa i filmen Frost. Analysen visar att när folksagan Snövit adapteras till film ändrades handlingen en del, filmen är mer barnvänlig och många scener är borttagna och ersatta med andra. Filmen precis som sagan handlar dock om Snövits skönhet och om drottningens avundsjuka. Snövit och de sju dvärgarna är Disneys första färglagda långfilm och Frost är en av de senaste. Förändringen av prinsessorna är stor. Snövit är passiv och klarar sig på grund av andra. Elsa är en självständig kvinna som klarar sig på egen hand, vilket speglar hur kvinnosynen förändrats.

Submitted by Jaqueline Duarte (1157279@mackenzie.br) on 2018-04-25T22:04:35Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Sheila Darcy Antonio Rodrigues.pdf: 5602212 bytes, checksum: c59de0a2c11682e90be6d1453a6f1116 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Eliana Barboza (eliana.silva1@mackenzie.br) on 2018-04-26T12:20:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Sheila Darcy Antonio Rodrigues.pdf: 5602212 bytes, checksum: c59de0a2c11682e90be6d1453a6f1116 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-26T12:20:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Sheila Darcy Antonio Rodrigues.pdf: 5602212 bytes, checksum: c59de0a2c11682e90be6d1453a6f1116 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / When we thinking about the production of the contemporary literature we can notice that a considerable part of the new releases, mainly those coming from the Unites States of America market, are part of great projects of the entertainment industry. Some of these projects may be called according to what was proposed by the researcher Henry Jenkins of transmedia storytelling and they are those types in which it is expanded the way of telling a story for the use of the most different types of existing media. One of the most successful cases of this kind of transmedia storytelling, which may even be considered a paradigm for this type of narrative is the case of Star Wars saga. Started in the year of 1976 with the release of Star Wars: from the adventures of Luke Skywalker, this saga have been developed for years and still is in the active. It has turned into a complex universe of films, cartoons, comics, ga mes and countless books that help to narrate the most diverses adventures, that happen in a galaxy, far, far away. Considering that the today revenue of the Star Wars saga is around fourty billion dollars and that of this amount, approximately, three billion dollars had came from the commercialization of books, it becomes interesting and necessary to investigate and to understand why there is the interest in a literature production, linked to this type of narrative, as well as to seek the knowledge of how to think about projects that are part of the entertainment industry, which encompass different media, and among them the literary media and that can become a success of audience. / Ao se pensar sobre produção literária contemporânea, pode-se observar que uma considerável parcela dos novos lançamentos, principalmente dos provenientes do mercado norte americano, fazem parte de grandes projetos da indústria do entretenimento. Alguns desses projetos podem ser denominados, de acordo com o proposto pelo pesquisador Henry Jenkins, de narrativas transmidiáticas (transmedia storytelling) e eles são aqueles nos quais se busca expandir a forma de se contar uma história para a utilização dos mais distintos tipos de mídias existentes. Um dos casos de maior sucesso desse tipo de narrativa transmidiática, que pode, até mesmo, ser considerado um paradigma para esse tipo de narrativa, é o da saga Star Wars. Iniciada em 1976 com o lançamento do livro Star Wars: from the adventures of Luke Skywalker, essa saga, desenvolvida durante anos e ainda na ativa, se transformou em um complexo universo do qual fazem parte filmes, desenhos animados, histórias em quadrinho, jogos e inúmeros livros que ajudam a narrar as mais diversas aventuras, que se passam em uma galáxia tão, tão distante. Considerando-se que hoje o faturamento da saga Star Wars se encontre em torno de quarenta bilhões de dólares e que deste montante quase três bilhões de dólares são provenientes da comercialização de livros, torna-se interessante e necessário que se busque pesquisar e compreender o porquê do interesse por uma produção de literatura, atrelada a esse tipo de narrativa, bem como buscar o conhecimento de como se pensar em projetos para a indústria do entretenimento, que englobem distintas mídias, e dentre elas a literária e que possam se converter em sucesso de público.

Denna uppsats syfte är att med hjälp av bildanalys och narrativ analys undersöka fyra karaktärer från tre Disneyfilmer. Karaktärerna som undersöks är Ursula från Den Lilla Sjöjungfrun (1989), Scar från Lejonkungen (1994) och Hans och hertigen av Vessleby från Frost (2013). Dessa karaktärer analyseras för att ta reda på hur Disney-skurkar porträtteras och vilken narrativ funktion de har. Alltså hur ondska ser ut i tecknad film. Resultaten visar att skurkarna är utsatta för utseendemässig andrefiering. De skiljer sig alltså från de diegetiska normer som etableras i filmen. Dessa karaktärers utseenden har dock ingen narrativ funktion. Analysen kommer fram till att det är handlingarna som är det som avgör en karaktärs ondska. Att Disney-filmer, som klassas som barnfilm, har använt sig av så pass svart-vita föreställningar om moral är därför problematiskt. Än mer problematiskt att vissa drag hus skurkarna upplevs xenofoba. Från en filmskapares perspektiv visar detta att man inte behöver göra det lätt för sin publik när det kommer till att etablera vem som är ond och god.

Film har påvisats vara en populär metod för effektiv inlärning men inga tidigare undersökningar berör hur den visuella stilen av film i undervisning kan påverka inlärningen. Denna studie går därför ut på att undersöka skillnaderna mellan en saklig, informativ animerad film och en cartoon-animerad film i hur de fungerar och uppfattas i ett lärandesammanhang. Studien innefattar en litteratursökning kring multimediainlärning, kommunikation i film och animationsprinciper som sedan mynnat ut i två animerade filmer, en saklig och en med cartoon-karaktär. Dessa filmer har jämförts i kvalitativa användartester med en högstadieklass för att undersöka förståelsen och uppfattningen kring filmerna. Slutsatserna från studien är att båda filmerna skulle passa i ett lärandesammanhang, dock krävs en djupare och större undersökning för att förstå hur de olika filmerna påverkat inlärningen. Den största skillnaden mellan filmerna ligger i hur underhållande de upplevs, den cartoon-animerade filmen upplevs vara roligare och väcker intresset hos många av testpersonerna, dock upplevde flera att den även var distraherande och att de fokuserade mer på underhållningen än faktan som presenterades. För att fullt svara på syftet krävs en fortsatt studie kring ämnet.

Disney animation represents a powerful source of economic and cultural production. However, following the death of Walt Disney, the animation division found itself struggling to survive. It was not until the 1989 release of the hugely successful animated film The Little Mermaid that Disney would reclaim its domination among children's cultural producers. Additionally, The Little Mermaid inaugurated a shift in Disney's portrayals of gender as the company replaced the docile passive princess characteristic of its previous animated films with a physically active and strong willed ambitious heroine. Grounded in an understanding of Disney's cultural significance as dominant storyteller, the present study explores gender in The Little Mermaid by means of narrative performativity. Specifically, I analyze the film's songs "Part of Your World," "Under the Sea," and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" as metonymic narrative performances of gender that are (1) embodied, (2) materially situated, (3) discursively embedded and (4) capable of legitimating and critiquing existing power relations.

Denna uppsats undersöker förändringar som sker inom filmserien Pirates of the Caribbean med fokus på hur de tre inriktningarna: Klass, genus och frihet utvecklar sig genom filmerna. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur de tre ideologiska samhällsstrukturerna utvecklas genom filmserien för att förhoppningsvis kunna dra en slutsats gällande kopplingen mellan strukturernas utveckling och filmseriens fallande betyg på Rotten Tomatoes. I analysen har filmerna noggrant analyserats utifrån de tre ideologiska inriktningarna för att se hur de utvecklat sig i seriens uppföljare. Resultatet gav tydliga tendenser av att var film i serien tappat kontakt med någon av de strukturer som tidigare presenterats. Vissa strukturer utvecklas genom filmens handling medan andra försvinner utan förklaring. Utan att kunna dra en säker slutsats misstänker uppsatsförfattaren att diskontinuitet som skapats vid osammanhängande utveckling av samhällsstrukturerna i filmen kan vara en bidragande orsak till att filmerna fått ett lägre omdöme för var film som släppts i serien.