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A Princess of Color amid Whitewashed Medievalisms in Disney's Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor
- from I - Medievalism and Authenticity
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- By Elan Justice Pavlinich, PhD Candidate and Presidential Fellow at the University of South Florida.
- Edited by Karl Fugelso
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- Book:
- Studies in Medievalism XXVII
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 05 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 17 May 2018, pp 43-52
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- Chapter
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Summary
History authenticates subjects. But history is culturally constructed and authenticates some people while marginalizing others. In fact, The Public Medievalist has had no shortage of material for its extensive and ongoing series titled “Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages,” which addresses the “[r]acist and white supremacist ideas about the past [that] have lingered in our culture.” One reason for that unfortunate abundance, as noted by The Public Medievalist, is that representations of the Middle Ages, “can seem natural and normal[, which] makes them a fundamental part of institutionalized racism as it exists today, since the past forms and informs the foundations of the present.” Yet, even when these narratives lack historical foundations, they are still capable of generating a mythology that incites people to act, as suggested by white supremacists donning medieval paraphernalia in 2017 while protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from a park in Charlottesville, Virginia. These outliers’ image of an all-white European Middle Ages is false, but in their eyes as well as those of many people outside the group, including many of the supremacists’ opponents, that image has gained authenticity from widespread concordant representations in mainstream media. Though medievalisms do not need to be authentic to be influential, that perception can, in turn, help authenticate narratives that inform cultural memory, and as part of that power, pervasive historical fictions and inaccuracies among them can misauthenticate subjects and ideologies to the detriment of historical evidence and social justice. Inauthentic depictions can become believable through repetition, and even playful medievalisms intended for children, like those produced by Disney, can have deep and long-lasting political consequences. Indeed, through their very appearance of innocence, Disney's medievalisms may be particularly influential on cultural values, apparent norms, and collective expectations.
In light of that power, this essay argues that Disney's recent television productions Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor are two of the many historical fictions that create a false sense of authenticity through repetition and exposure via mainstream media, and that this authenticity is dangerous insofar as it reifies historical inaccuracies and apparatuses of oppression in cultural memory. These two shows are particularly problematic in their disparity between a white princess who maintains notions of a predominantly white Middle Ages, and a princess of color who challenges these inaccuracies.
Modernity in the Middle: The Medieval Fantasy of (Coopted) Feminism in Disney's Maleficent
- from II - Interpretations
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- By Elan Justice Pavlinich, presidential doctoral fellow at University of South Florida's Department of English
- Edited by Karl Fugelso
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- Book:
- Studies in Medievalism XXVI
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 15 September 2017
- Print publication:
- 21 April 2017, pp 143-160
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- Chapter
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Summary
In 2014, Maleficent revisited the 1959 Disney animated classic Sleeping Beauty. An early production for the emerging company, Sleeping Beauty is foundational to the Disney corpus; it represents the values upon which the Disney kingdom is constructed. Maleficent, released over half a century later, signifies Disney's introspective turn toward its own heritage, a heritage rooted in medieval fantasy. Challenging audiences’ familiarity with popular fairy tales and the Disney corpus, the narrator proposes, “Let us tell an old tale anew, and we will see how well you know it.” Maleficent suggests a progressive, feminist conclusion that clashes with audiences’ present circumstances, rendering modernity a “dark age” by comparison. Maleficent is a revision that inflects the older Sleeping Beauty with contemporary social concerns and the emerging progressive values of a more inclusive Disney kingdom.
The film opens with two opposing realms: the moors, which are a dense natural realm inhabited by diverse mythical creatures, versus the kingdom, which is composed of bleak dingy spaces, dimly lit by fire, and inhabited by humans. Within the moors, young Maleficent, played by Isobelle Molloy, is a happy fairy dressed in earth tones, with a pleasant smile and playful nature. Her immense wings carry her over edenic spaces with breakneck speed. She is a healer, maintaining the health and well-being of the moors. But there is an intruder here. Stefan, a human boy, has ventured into the wilderness that his people typically fear. During their exchange, we learn two things: Stefan has attempted to take a stone from the moors as a token, and fairies like Maleficent are burned by the touch of ironworks forged by humans. Maleficent and Stefan cultivate a relationship that verges on romance, but they are eventually separated as Stefan grows older and is overcome by ambition. Fearing the mythical creatures, and seeking to commodify the natural realm, the king of the humans, Henry, launches an assault against the moors, which is vanquished by Maleficent, now played by Angelina Jolie. King Henry decrees that any subject who slays Maleficent will succeed him to the throne.