So.... Disney has a new heroine, and ....

The hype just drove me crazy. 'It's so ground-breaking', so I dunno...

I've written a couple of things about Disney films here, and I find the underlying message mostly insidious.

Where was the hype when they did Pocohantas, who we know was a Native American? Where was the extreme when they did Mulan, and the main figure was Asian?

And NOW, the nets go bonkers because the new movie features an African-American princess???? And, 'oooo, she will be such a role model for little kids'?????

Well, that is fine, and I am all for that... except....

I remember a very odd one they did called 'Song of the South', and I saw it as a child sometime in the last milennia.... When I took another look at it on the tee-vee some decades later, it shocked me, it was so racist.

And all I can think of is a parallel here. Dickens. Yes, I know, go ahead and yawn all you want. Oliver Twist. His famous character Fagin caused much upset in the community of people of Jewish faith at the time. 'The old Jew.' And later he enraged 'small people' with his portrait of a manicurist, I can't remember the name at the moment, but they were off the charts. That was in 'David Copperfield', and a very minor character.

In his last full novel, 'Our Mutual Friend', Dickens tried to correct the criticism he had gotten for decades and created two characters to go against the predjudices. One was a man of Jewish faith, who gets to instruct the beleaguered heroine, and is depicted so well, you could swear there was a halo hovering over his head the whole time. The other was a crippled dwarved doll-maker, who had a bigger role, but it was still grotesque.

(The rest of the novel was wonderful, believe me.)

Point is, in trying to rectify his predjudices, of which he had many, he totally fucked it up.

See the parallel?

I haven't seen this piece of confection yet, of course, but the way the media is going on about it... I get the shudders and can only imagine the worst.

To have the Disney people go to Oprah, and have her seal of approval on the subject matter? Tells me so much about how and what they are thinking, and what they FEAR. And despite, 'oh, how positive they are', they are still wishing for the days of Uncle Remus and 'Zipidee-do-da'.

Since the Christmas season is about to start on Sunday.... I hope the ghost of Charles Dickens comes back and haunts them till they finally wake the fuck up.