"The romantic subplot of The Hunger Games can make it seem like a
Twilight clone: a young woman torn between two men who are driven to
protect her, yet can’t seem to help endangering her. But scratch the
surface, and you’ll find that heroine Katniss is quite the opposite of
pallid, passive, lovesick Bella, and she’s got a lot to teach us about
the current culture wars."
"Sitcoms have always been zeitgeists of the era in which they were
created, clumsily tackling important issues with jokes while
simultaneously upholding the values of the time. The Mary Tyler Moore Show offered audiences an independent woman in the workplace after the rise of feminism in the late '60s, The Jeffersons
presented an African-American family finally "getting a piece of the
pie" by moving into a luxury apartment in Manhattan from a blue-collar
neighborhood in Queens and Bewitched confirmed what a dangerous decision it was for us to stop burning witches.
But when sitcoms so accurately reflect the collective climate of the time period in which they are created, you have to wonder why, then, networks decided the 1980s were a good time to start killing off moms."
We do know she doesn't have a nose from the front. So she represents girls without noses at least?
So, Today in Identity Crises of Fictional Characters; Disney's Princess Sofia. Whose ethnicity has been causing quite the tumult in the entertainment blog-o-news-o-sphere.
Sofia (voiced by Modern Family‘s Ariel Winter) is born a commoner but steps into the royal life when her mother (Grey’s Anatomy‘s Sara Ramirez) marries King Roland II of Enchancia (Ultimate Spider-Man‘s
Travis Willingham). Throughout the show and the movie, the young
princess is adjusting to life with her new step-siblings and in her new
school, Royal Prep. The TV movie features some familiar faces from
Disney classics; Cinderella, Fauna, Flora, and Merryweather all make an
appearance.
During a recent press tour of the Sofia the First production
offices, one blogger pointed out that in concept art, Sofia’s mother,
Miranda, the newly crowned queen of Enchancia, had a darker complexion
than the other characters. “She is Latina,” executive producer Jamie
Mitchell said of the character, acknowledging that this makes Sofia the
first Latina princess to appear in a Disney animation project.
“We never actually call it out,” said Joe D’Ambrosia, vice president
of Disney Junior original programming. “When we go into schools [to talk
to young students about the show], what I find fascinating is that
every girl thinks that they’re Sofia.”
Mitchell added, “It’s sort of a matter-of-fact situation rather than an overt thing.”
It’s also not as much of a clear-cut milestone as the introduction of
Tiana to the Disney family. Tiana is African-American, and she lives in
New Orleans, a real place. Sofia is half-Enchancian and half-Galdizian.
The two kingdoms are in a world where a few real countries like France
exist, but they’re still fictional, making words like Latina and
Hispanic less clearly applicable.
So, a girl who is of a mixed fictional identity is having identity problems? I'm sure that no modern young lady can relate to an ethnic and cultural identity crisis. That is as valid a character choice as a girl who is purely Latina, which is of course, a complex multicultural and fascinating starting point to begin with.
Mashable's coverage of the controversy is probably my favorite, in that like most Internet conversations you can find both sides of the argument somewhere and don't have to report just one side.
Of course, the simplicity of describing a race to begin with is compounded by the races being described being in fictional kingdoms, but, once headlines come out, of course the outrage, points and counterpoints become more important than the content (and let's face it, no one has seen this story publicly to begin with, so comments and conjecture are what we have.)
When Disney first announced they were unveiling their first Latina princess named Sofia on November 18, Hispanic audiences immediately voiced their concerns.
While many celebrated the network’s attempt to create a Latina royal
who does not bear a stereotypical dark complexion, many used social
media to express their outrage toward the news. Some insisted Sofia
looks “too white” to actually be Latina, while others were angry toward
Disney’s decision not to emphasize Princess Sofia’s Hispanic roots.
Now, Disney is responding to the backlash.
Friday night, Senior Vice President of Original Programming for Disney Junior Worldwide Nancy Kanter, as well as Co-Executive Producer/Writer Craig Gerber, took to Princess Sofia’s Facebook profile to discuss the character’s controversial roots.
“Princess Sofia is a mixed-heritage princess in a fairy-tale world,”
explained Gerber. “Her mother is originally from an enchanted kingdom
inspired by Spain (Galdiz) and her birth father hailed from an enchanted
kingdom inspired by Scandinavia. Sofia was born and raised in
Enchancia, which is a make-believe ‘melting pot’ kingdom patterned on
the British Isles. Sofia considers herself a normal Enchancian girl like
any other. Her mixed heritage and blended family are a reflection of
what many children today experience.”
Fox News Latino
previously reported that the Disney team could have drawn inspiration
from real-life Queen Sofia of Spain, who bears similar light features as
Princess Sofia. There has been speculation that Disney princesses, like
The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas, could have been influenced by
real-life women.
Which is after a week or so of press finding ways to address the outrage that Sofia may be too light skinned, her hair too auburn, and of course, the fact that it's a slap in the face to Hispanics that she's a TV princess not a Film Princess.
"That decision doesn't bother Alex Nogales, President and CEO for the National Hispanic Media Coalition.
"That
really doesn't matter," he told me. "The Latino community is in a place
right where they need strong role models and doesn't matter whether it
comes from film or TV."
What does anger him is the way that Disney
is going about debuting Sofia. When asked directly, Disney officials
have confirmed Sofia's ethnicity, but, according to Entertainment Weekly, the Disney team is purposely downplaying that fact in its marketing, an approach that offends Nogales.
What if we actually look at these quotes and take out the words that were actually said, the controversy may reflect an interesting theme that actually comes up in the story that will be on screen. I'll certainly circle back to tell you all about that in November, what marketing materials I've found seem to imply that not only is Sofia from a mixed race family, she's actually becoming a princess for the first time because her mother married the king, so it's The Princess Diaries meet The Brady Bunch in a kingdom of highly diverse secondary characters ( I dare you to count the ethnic types in the trailer: I found 11 in the 90 second spot) and a greatest hits of other Disney Characters.
After all the discussion, it might be a disappointment if the topic ISN'T any part of the narrative. Of course, that's always a part of the production/roll-out process. Unless you do a lot of work to understand your themes and messages, you won't necessarily know what will resonate most. Even if you have, audiences may surprise you. Ultimately, it's probably a blessing that a discussion of multi-ethnic families would come up relating to a TV show, there's actually a production opportunity to address it if the TV Movie turns into a full-fledged series. If something about the experimental narrative of the televised movie resonates it can be identified and added in a way that might take less response time than say, an internationally released film with a full twisting marketing layout.
The LA Times asks the question: How far have we come if we still need our female superheroes to look this good in a bustier?
"She may stand for
peace and gender equality but she wears hot pants and a vaguely
fetish-like metal bodice. She also has a magic lasso, bullet-proof
bracelets and an invisible plane. And unlike most of her male
counterparts, she is not broken, did not emerge from a place of
darkness–whether you go with the original creation (from the clay
outside her city) or the later one that anointed her the child of
Hippolyta and Zeus, Wonder Woman was raised as an Amazon, fierce as she
is beautiful. Even her tiara is multi-tasking–one moment drawing the eye
to her flawless forehead, the next taking out a bad guy at his throat."
What do you think about Wonder Woman? Why don't we see her on screen in this new world of film heroes? Is it mysogeny or creativly laziness that has left so many reboots in development hell?
The super-insightful Laura Sterritt who writes Transchordian a blog on music and multi-platform executions, interactivity and the way musicians are exploring interdiciplinary forms shared this interesting interview with Bats for Lashes:
"The
way a lot of women are portrayed in the media is quite sexual and for
the male gaze. For me, this is more about representing more of a
multidimensional image that in it I could be powerful and strong, I
could be quite vulnerable or quite sad or quite sexual or quite sensual
or rescuing someone or [being] fed up with someone or having to carry
someone. I feel like there's a lot of different aspects to me as a woman
and I didn't want to just put forward a really one-dimensional thing
that I think you get a lot of in the media."
