Brother Bear & Home on the Range
Jul. 24th, 2021 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWe’ve gotten into the weird early 2000 era of Disney films, and I’m going to double up some reviews because otherwise I may never get through. Today: Brother Bear and Home on the Range.
This double feature has only given more evidence for my thesis that “sassy old lady” is a Disney female archetype that occurs in its movies at least as often as “cackling villainess.” In Brother Bear this character is Tanana, the shaman of the tribe; in Home on the Range, it’s Pearl, the woman who owns the farm where our heroic trio of cows live. (One of the cows is named Mrs. Calloway and has an inexplicable British accent despite photographic evidence that she was born and raised on Pearl’s wild west farm. I love her.)
In Home on the Range, Pearl is going to lose her farm if she can’t raise the mortgage payment… but because her animals are her family, she refuses to sell any of them to save the farm. This is heartwarming until you think about it for two seconds, at which point it instantly becomes clear why Pearl’s farm is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. What are you raising those pigs for if not for slaughter, Pearl?
I suspect the reason that critics haven’t noticed this character type is that they share the cultural blindness they think they’re critiquing in Disney: they’re unable to see older women who don’t forcibly grab their attention by being evil.
This double feature has only given more evidence for my thesis that “sassy old lady” is a Disney female archetype that occurs in its movies at least as often as “cackling villainess.” In Brother Bear this character is Tanana, the shaman of the tribe; in Home on the Range, it’s Pearl, the woman who owns the farm where our heroic trio of cows live. (One of the cows is named Mrs. Calloway and has an inexplicable British accent despite photographic evidence that she was born and raised on Pearl’s wild west farm. I love her.)
In Home on the Range, Pearl is going to lose her farm if she can’t raise the mortgage payment… but because her animals are her family, she refuses to sell any of them to save the farm. This is heartwarming until you think about it for two seconds, at which point it instantly becomes clear why Pearl’s farm is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. What are you raising those pigs for if not for slaughter, Pearl?
I suspect the reason that critics haven’t noticed this character type is that they share the cultural blindness they think they’re critiquing in Disney: they’re unable to see older women who don’t forcibly grab their attention by being evil.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-24 05:57 pm (UTC)