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Since its emergence in the 1930s Walt Disney productions, in print as well as in visual media, have become a major cultural institution in the USA and an American icon per se. Disney movies in particular have been both overtly praised and harshly criticized for representing a value system that perpetuates (idealized) mainstream American values without questioning the validity of their universalist and essentialist nature.Starting with a closer look at the historical context of the development of Disney Studios the course will focus on these questions by analyzing animated Disney movies in terms of constructions of the Other with regard to class, racial and ethnic as well as gender difference. Applying recent approaches of media criticism the course will investigate at the same time the specific narrative strategies underlying the cinematic constructions of cultural difference in selected family-oriented movies produced by Disney Studios in the past 20 years, such as Arielle, The Lion King, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast and Tarzan. The course will conclude with a comparative discussion of competing versions of cultural value production in recent animated movies in the USA, as for instance in Shrek by Dream-Works Studios.More detailed information on the syllabus and bibliography/webliography will be available on the American Studies Homepage at the end of March. |
