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Social Order and Authority in Disney and Pixar Films
Edited by Kellie Deys and Denise F. Parrillo
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Book Presentation:
Social Order and Authority in Disney and Pixar Films contributes to an essential, ongoing conversation about how power dynamics are questioned, reinforced, and disrupted in the stories Disney tells. Whether these films challenge or perpetuate traditional structures (or do both), their considerable influence warrants careful examination. This collection addresses the vast reach of the Disneyverse, contextualizing its films within larger conversations about power relations. The depictions of surveillance, racial segregation, othering, and ableism represent real issues that impact people and their lived experiences. Unfortunately, storytellers often oversimplify or mischaracterize complex matters on screen. To counter this, contributors investigate these unspoken and sometimes unintended meanings. By applying the lenses of various theoretical approaches, including ecofeminism, critiques of exceptionalism, and gender, queer, and disability studies, authors uncover underlying ideologies. These discussions help readers understand how Disney’s output both reflects and impacts contemporary cultural conditions.
About the authors:
Kellie Deys is associate professor of English at Nichols College, where she chairs the English department and the Honors program. Denise F. Parrillo is associate professor of English at the Community College of Rhode Island.
Press Reviews:
Kellie Deys and Denise F. Parrillo’s anthology—the first in Lexington Books’ Studies in Disney and Culture series—is a timely and welcome addition to the scholarly literature on the ‘Disneyverse.’ Its chapters explore power dynamics, obedience/resistance to authority, and related topics as represented in Disney and Pixar films from the 1990s through today. In clear and compelling terms, this book illustrates the importance of reading Disney/Pixar films ‘against the grain.’ It is an essential text for anyone interested in Disney’s longstanding cultural influence.
-- Martin F. Norden, University of Massachusetts Amherst
The editors of Social Order and Authority in Disney and Pixar Films have done a fantastic job of assembling a collection of eclectic essays that, taken together, tell the story of Disney’s cultural influence, both the conventional and the disruptive. The essays in this collection contextualize how Disney and Pixar have affected and been affected by American culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
-- Sam Morris, University of South Carolina Beaufort
Deys and Parrillo’s collection stands out in the body of Disney critique by examining both classic and modern works as well as the Pixar catalog. The timing for this compilation is perfect given the rapid growth of Disney+. This collection would complement curricula and research in critical studies and media analysis through its examination of a wide range of content through the Disney/Pixar lens, such as gender, queer, and disability studies.
-- Amy R. Franzini, Widener University
Disney archetypes include princesses, princes, heroes, heroines, and villains. Those archetypes, however, exist in hierarchies and power dynamics within the films, and those ideas are imparted to audiences. Our current spotlight on inequalities and power relations, as well as human rights atrocities around the globe, makes Social Order and Authority in Disney and Pixar Films both timely and necessary. Essays look beyond usual approaches to examine relationships. Deys’s Beast/Hunchback essay looks beyond disability tropes to interrogate the idea of insurrection. Ayo’s essay moves beyond feminist critiques of Frozen to unearth parental expectations. Essays often contextualize films within real-world events such as McCarthyism, the murder of Vincent Chin, and 9/11. This collection reminds us of the influence that Disney/Pixar, and its global reach, can have on our belief systems, on our lives.
-- Johnson Cheu, Michigan State University
Even when it seems that Disney and Pixar always enforce the prevailing social order, the quality of discussions in the volume remains exceptional. Students of media and popular culture will find a solid addition to the ways in which contemporary culture enforces and resists the false omnipresent.
― Journal of Popular Culture
See the publisher website: Lexington Books
> From the same authors:
Class, Identity, and Finding the Right Wine in Schitt's Creek (2024)
A Place to Love
Dir. James Deys, Kellie Deys and Nikki Anderson
Subject: One Film > Schitt's Creek (TV Series)
> On a related topic:
Contemporary Hollywood Animation (2023)
Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology Since the 1990s
by Noel Brown
Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination (2017)
Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture
by Eric Herhuth
The Art of Pixar (2014)
The Complete Colorscripts and Select Art from 25 Years of Animation
by Amid Amidi
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