“Their songs always inspired hope, though hope always inspired their songs.”

For my very first non-animated Disney movie I wanted to take a look at one of my very favorites, Lemonade Mouth. Lemonade Mouth came out in 2011 with a lot of great Disney movies surrounding it like, The Muppets, Cars 2, and one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Clearly it had a lot of competition and yet still stands out to me as one of the better Disney movies that were being made at the time.

Lemonade Mouth follows five separate stories of students that come together and form a band with all the troubles that follow that decision. Bonds are made, bonds are broken, songs are written, and people go to jail. I will start at the beginning, you have the lead singer, Olivia (pictured on the very right with her hand up) who is shy and deathly scared of sharing her voice and music. Then there’s Stella and Mo (pictured at the end holding guitars) who both are trying to be who they really want to be while also not disappointing their parents. Lastly the boys, Charlie and Wen each have separate issues with their parents, not fitting into a certain image and feeling left out from what really going on in the family.

(This link will take you too “Turn up the Music”)

I can say I have seen this movie more times than I can count and still love the scene were all individual characters come together to form this band that they didn’t even know was a possibility. They do the very cool trope of all making different sounds then magically coming together to make a song. I love the way the story progress as we see the band rise to the top preforming at the top their Halloween dance and entering a contest to breaking up as a group once one performance goes sideways.

“Push Until You Cant, then Demand More”

This Disney movie has amazing songs, honorable mentions being: Determinate, More Than A Band, Somebody, and She’s So Gone, all of these songs bring out sad, hopeful, and reminiscent emotions. They all fit exactly with the plot and even progress it further allowing the audience to get a peek into the feeling of the main characters we might not have seen before. The movie does end with them getting thrown into jail for protesting what made their band in the first place, but eventually they solve their issues with each other, their parents, and themselves.

(This link will take you to “Determinate”)

In Disney movies when we see conflict its usually a big over arcing enemy or thing that causes it. With Lemonade Mouth the conflict relied on the characters finding themselves and solving their conflicts with each other rather than with someone else. Now there is another band who they are competing against but that just plays a role into the inner conflict already going on.

Lemonade Mouth is one of the movies you could watch over and over again, and the outfits always bring me to the later 2000s. If you haven’t seen Lemonade Mouth I do recommend it but if musicals aren’t your taste then this one might not be your favorite!

“I am Moana of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea, and restore the heart of Te Fiti.”

Decidedly, this whole post is going to be me showing my whole heart because I just absolutely adore Moana in so many ways. If you haven’t seen Moana and don’t really like Disney movies it’s the perfect mix of reality with actual struggles we face everyday and that light-heartedness that comes with every Disney movie.

Moana follows the story of a young girl who is raised in a village who puts the community and each other over everything. They raise kids, farm, cook, grow, and thrive as one and Moana herself is the daughter of the village chief. From the very beginning of her life Moana has this huge thing expected of her. No matter what she has to stick by what the village has always done, and one of those things is to not travel out into the water. This first idea is what made me fall in love with the movie, we as students, kids, and adults have faced expectations from the people in our life. Expectations that we can feel the weight of everyday and yet still might find ourselves falling into a pattern of what people want us to do, rather then what we love.

(Baby Moana was so adorable)

Moana loves the sea, she has a special connection as its shown through song and scenes how much the ocean calls out to her. Her dad on the other has forbidden it and when things start to die in the village, plants going black, the soil drying out he sticks by what he has always known. Even now, older, watching Moana again for the hundredth time I can see where I become invested and frustrated with what’s happening in the movie. Why cant Moana’s dad just let her try? Why wont he support what she loves to do? Why does it seem like he doesn’t believe in her? Disney is taking these everyday problems that come up between parents and their children and framing it in such a way that captivates their audience and pulls on heartstrings.

(Te Fiti without her heart that was stolen)

As the movie progresses we see Moana start to struggle with herself internally, knowing that if she puts the heart of Te Fiti, a mystical stone that was calming an ancient god back that her village will be restored but to do that she has to turn her back on them first, by herself, and that might be one of the hardest things she has ever done. This journey of self exploration is what makes Moana such an important and loveable movie for kids of all ages and even adults can turn to it in those moments they might not know what to do. Seeing Moana learn to embrace the unknown and start her own journey, when she decides to sail a boat and restore the heart of Te Fiti, rather than the one that has always been expected of her might help someone out their own journey too.

“They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you.”

(The link will lead you to the song “Know Who You Are”)

I could write so much about this movie, how it challenges your idea of what to expect in an antagonist, how it highlights the importance of balance in family, and gives reassurance to those who might be lost with themselves. Moana is a movie I highly recommend anyone watch whether you are 5 or 25 years old, It has so many more moments and funny songs I haven’t even touched on here and can truly make you laugh or smile on a hard day.

Mulan is one of the greatest Disney movies that was made in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. For it’s time it was revolutionary, inventive and all around a heartwarming movie that taught so many lessons in it but I’m going to try an address a few of them in this blog. Usually I focus on Disney movies that didn’t turn out how they wanted it too, but this week I wanted to shine a light on one of my favorites.

Mulan is a young girl who’s living in a country fraught with war all around her. She has grown up with certain expectations of her, when she will marry, when will she grow up and start to become more a “woman” (whatever that means at the time) and yet she can’t help but feel that she wants- no needs more in life. Disney from the beginning with Mulan gives us a character that young girls can relate with, mostly every girl around the world has felt like they were being pressured into a certain image or look a certain way for the people around her. She is struggling with her identity even more as the movie progresses, the war getting closer and the expectations of her growing. Disney gives us one of the most amazing songs, “Reflection” as Mulan battles internally not knowing if who she is anymore is for the people around her or who she really is.

In Chinese culture cutting your hair can signify a huge change, or the loss of something.

Mulan, like most of us, does everything she can to find herself and with that comes in taking her dad’s place in the war disguising herself as a man and determined to fight for her family no matter what. The way Disney weaves in the lesson of how important family is and staying true to yourself is portrayed in the most amazing way. We are left rooting for Mulan and her journey of finding herself and also interested in how she is going to keep up the cover of pretending to be man surrounded by so many men while training.

Yessss

I know this blog is about breaking down the plot of Disney movies but I have to mention the song, “I’ll make a man out of you.” that beautifully shows through song how Mulan is figuring out who she is, fighting through doubts from herself and peers and even proving that she’s there for a reason and is going to show that. The way Disney uses the idea that being a man means being a certain way and switching it on its axis by Mulan doing what the rest of her peers couldn’t do was a rare thing for a movie at the time and really needs to be applauded.

I could go on and on about Mulan, every scene almost but in the end Mulan is a movie that Disney did right with. It showed her journey, her growth, her strength, and most importantly gave a beautiful representation for so many different types of people to look too.

What is Beauty and The Beast really about?

I want to start off by saying that this blog is not about absolutely demolishing Beauty and The Beast, it is a movie that even I watched as a kid. Though it was not my favorite when it came on the tv I didn’t turn the channel to something else. This instead, is about shedding light on certain messages that Disney doesn’t know they’re conveying, and in this movie it is all about how Belle is characterized in one way but then almost completely different towards the end of the movie.

Belle is a independent, headstrong, and stubborn women from a French village. She lives with her father and reads as she does chores around the town. The village people ridicule her as she refuses to marry or to stop reading the books she holds so dearly. In fact, Gaston, a man who has been trying to win her favor for what seems like a while proposes to her and she laughs in his face saying she would never marry him.

reallllyyyy, she falls in love with this man?

As the movie progresses we see Belle go to great lengths to save her father who had been captured by the Beast just for trying to grab a flower for Belle. She stands up to the Beast, trading places with her father and gets throw into a prison. The Beast essentially becomes her capturer, and makes sure she knows she is not going anywhere. Disney wants the story to be one of great love like all the rest of their movies but as the story unfolds it becomes more and more apparent that the way the Beast treats Belle she should never according to her character fall in love with him. In fact for more than half the movie Belle hates the Beast refusing to eat at dinners with him until he forces her, and doesn’t even speak to him for a lot of it.

This is how how Belle is portrayed and this is how children view her until she starts to fall in love with the Beast. Suddenly it seems like the Belle we’ve known throughout the movie transitions into someone different, a women that now that she is in love looses that part of herself because Disney needs the love story to be a certain way.

Belle herself will always be an icon for the way she stands up for herself and works against the societal pressures she faces for her time. I just wish Disney could have kept that fire alive even while she fell in love.

 The troubles of being indecisive

When brain-storming different ideas for my passion blog I struggled with whether or not it should reflect my more serious passions like mental health, or my more fun passions, like baking very hard desserts that never will turn out well. All I could think of was the Joker taunting Batman in the Dark Knight movie. I eventually, after several packages of cookies, decided on two topics for my passion blog that fall into the two categories. The first being “Am I crazy? Destigmatizing Mental Health,” and the second being “Disney Movies are really weird.”

Clearly they are way off from each other when it comes to how serious the topics is but for either one I would have so much to develop on.  For my more serious topic each week I would address a different mental health issue or develop on the one I had talked about the week before with the intent of trying to give a different perspective on a mental illness that might not be shown all of the time. I would love if I can help some people in the class understand depression, or bipolar disorder in a new light. When it comes to my more fun topic, each week I would look at a different Disney movie whether it be old or new and give my thoughts on how it may not be as appears and what strange lessons were given throughout it. I am horribly indecisive, should I go with the more fun topic, or deep dive into a more serious one? I wonder which the Joker would choose.