Environmental Matters and Disability Issues in Disney's Animations
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University of Szeged (SZTE) Doctoral School of English and American Literature and Culture Nóra Borthaiser Performing New Cosmoses: Environmental Matters and Disability Issues in Disney’s Animations between 1990–2010 PhD Dissertation Supervisors: Réka M. Cristian, PhD Zoltán Vajda, PhD Szeged Spring, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................................... iii Abstract / Összefoglaló ........................................................................................................................... iv 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 2. From Mickey Mouse to the Desk Lamp ............................................................................................ 15 2.1. Story-telling in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Animation as Medium of Morality ......................... 15 2.2. The Walt Disney Studios ............................................................................................................. 19 2.3. Pixar Animation Studios .............................................................................................................. 25 3. The Animation Macrocosm: The Environmental Turn ...................................................................... 30 3.1. Triggers of the Environmental Turn ............................................................................................ 32 3.2. Rural Visions: The Lion King (1994), Dinosaur (2000), Tarzan (1999), Brother Bear (2003) and Pocahontas (1995) .................................................................................................... 43 3.3. Disney Goes to the City ............................................................................................................... 62 3.3.1. “YOU ARE A T-O-O-O-Y!:” The Toy Story Trilogy (1995, 1999, 2010) ....................... 65 3.3.2. Think Green: Monsters, Inc. (2001) .................................................................................. 72 3.3.3. On the Road: Cars (2006) and Bolt (2008) ....................................................................... 78 4. The Animation Microcosm: Disabled Bodies .................................................................................... 88 4.1. The Ideal and the Disabled Body ................................................................................................. 88 4.2. Body Moralities: Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010) and Brother Bear (2003) ................................... 97 4.3. Extending Disability: Hercules (1997), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), the Toy Story Trilogy (1995, 1999, 2010), Cars (2006), Finding Nemo (2003) and Up! (2009) ........... 116 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 139 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 151 ii Acknowledgments The present work summarizes the results of my research carried out in the last some years at the University of Szeged. Throughout my studies and the preparation of this PhD dissertation, I have been blessed with the professional and emotional help, support and motivation of several people. I owe my deepest gratitude to my two supervisors, Réka M. Cristian and Zoltán Vajda, who both encouraged me in my research, let me pursue my professional interest to its full and were always available to discuss the proceedings of the work. Their insightful comments and critique on parts of the dissertation as well as their diplomatic mediation in my doctoral proceedings helped me immensely. I am also grateful for György Endre Szőnyi, the head of the Doctoral School of English and American Literature and Culture, who introduced the weekly PhD Research Seminar, in the framework of which I could discuss the results of my on-going research with our professors and my PhD colleagues. Zsolt Kelemen, Gabriella Tóth, Attila Mócza and Éva Thomas were excellent student partners, who were always ready to share their views on theoretical questions and with whom the often long research hours always seemed brighter. I am thankful for Alex Reczkowski, Katalin Tóth and Thomas LeCornu, who proofread the dissertation and commented on grammatically and stylistically dubious cases. Monika Högl and the complete team of LernQuadrat Schwechat as well as the Jurisits family understood the importance and urgency of the dissertation and were willing to re-consider my work-plan so that I could devote more time to writing. The present work could not have been completed without the constant support and help of my family and friends. I am immensely grateful for all the encouraging words I received from my parents, my larger family–in Szeged as well as in Graz–and my closest friends (Fruzsina Balogh, Lilla Németh, Katalin Szentendrei, Katalin Tóth and Katalin Vidák). I am particularly grateful to Lehel Balogh, a fellow PhD student and a true friend, for his professional, organizational and emotional support throughout the years of my PhD studies. My greatest gratitude as well as my deepest love is to my fiancé, Martin Gspaltl, who believed in me all the way, patiently listened to all my problems and dutifully distracted me from work when I forgot to have a break. iii Abstract/Összefoglaló Abstract In my doctoral dissertation, I analyze the subversion of binary systems in Disney animations in the context of the environment and body representations. The observed time-frame (1990-2010) is the period between the Disney Renaissance and the merge of Disney and Pixar Animation Studios (2006), as well as the years after the merge. I point out that the incorporation of technology–the modern magic–in the diegesis of the animations generates the re-interpretation of the macrocosm (environment) and the microcosm (body). The tension between the nature and technology brings about new categories of the environment and of corporeality, which deconstruct the traditional concepts of perfection. With the application of Enikő Bollobás’s subject theory (performative constructionism), I observe how these categories come into being in the context of performativity, and whether they are re-playing already existing social scripts (performance) or they create new ontologies (performative) in the diegesis of the animations. Although the ‘compulsory’ happy ending, for example, functions as a discursive normative, there are numerous newly-performed, subversive categories within the narration. The appearance of contemporary, urban-related environmental problems deconstructs the traditional Disney vision of an idyllic and untouched nature, which exists independently of humans. Environmental matters that have received wider media attention from the 1970s on have become so significant that they symptomatically re- appear in mainstream American animations. The most often represented environmental problems are the ones related to consumerist lifestyle, which is in accordance with the theses of environmental philosophy appearing from the 1970s on. In this respect, the environment is envisioned as an instable and constantly changing category, which is created out of the tension between nature and the ‘man-made’ magic – modern technology. The traditional image of the perfect nature untouched by humans is deconstructed in Disney animations produced between 1990 and 2010, as environmental awareness has become a significant social issue. The representation of the body has experienced similar changes. Similar to the ‘perfect’ nature, the concept of the ideal body goes through changes that count subversive in the Disney canon. Disney animations of the observed twenty years iv repeatedly experiment with the deconstruction of the norm of the body as young, proportionate and healthy. Mostly due to the power of the representational and narrative traditions as well as the generally conservative attitude of the studio, only the animations produced after 2000 introduce significant changes. First, the European fairy tale adaptations try to challenge the dimensions of the ideal body. In these stories, however, the typically reversible, magic-generated bodily changes (that is, the loss of the ideal body) function as the punishment for moral flaws. Such depictions of the ‘deviances’ of the ideal body become anachronistic and politically incorrect by the turn of the millennium. Around this time, Disney animations introduce bodily dimensions that are of biological ontology, irreversible and completely independent of the subject’s moralities. I discuss the deconstruction of the ideal body by applying contemporary theories of disability studies, which understand disabilities as socially-constructed, discursive entities. The category of the subject with disabilities appears as a performative construction in the social discourse. The animations describe the exclusive practice of the social thought, and they claim the need for change within the social discourse and not within the individuals with disabilities. All the dimensions (young, proportionate and healthy)