| Disney seems to be changing the values it promotes through its films. While Disney's messages about gender roles, class, and race have remained stagnant for a good forty years, it has begun to shift its focus. Though a bit exaggerated, movies such as Mulan, Aladdin, and Brother Bear have worked to respect other cultures in different time periods. Lilo and Stitch and Monsters University presented alternative family situations and socioeconomic statuses of their main characters. Frozen and Tangled also gave girls role models who were assertive and concerned less with their love interests (though there are still love interests) and more concerned with self-realization. I guess as a form of media, Disney movies are adapting to the culture they represent. |
But Disney and Pixar truly outdid themselves with their most recently released movie, Big Hero Six. Through the point of view of a 14-year-old robotics genius Hiro Hamada, this movie creatively represented certain cultures not often found in mainstream media. Hiro is a Japanese-American boy living in San Frantokyo (mix between San Francisco and Tokyo) with his older brother and aunt. He ends up getting roped into a technology conference where the public can present brilliant ideas at the local innovative technology school Hiro's brother Tadashi attends. And of course in the expedition, stuff goes down as *spoiler* the conference hall is set on fire and both Hiro's invention called "microbots" and Tadashi are eaten by the fire. After a long mourning period, Hiro ends up discovering that the project his brother was working on, a healthcare robot named Baymax, is still functioning and ready to serve on Tadashi's side of their room.
This turns into the main plot line as Hiro works to find out who killed Tadashi. Baymax tags along on the adventures in order to improve Hiro's mental health. This includes finding a masked figure that evidently stole Hiro's invention from the convention after finding hundreds of barrels of the microbots. Hiro and Baymax team up with Tadashi's college friends who have varying knowledge of mechanics and chemistry, to create superhero-like costumes and powers with the inventions they had at school. Subsequently, they become Big Hero 6, the 6-member superhero team everyone expected from this movie.
This turns into the main plot line as Hiro works to find out who killed Tadashi. Baymax tags along on the adventures in order to improve Hiro's mental health. This includes finding a masked figure that evidently stole Hiro's invention from the convention after finding hundreds of barrels of the microbots. Hiro and Baymax team up with Tadashi's college friends who have varying knowledge of mechanics and chemistry, to create superhero-like costumes and powers with the inventions they had at school. Subsequently, they become Big Hero 6, the 6-member superhero team everyone expected from this movie.
I found that the movie satisfied my requirements for an innovative expression of culture. The setting was a flawless blend of Pacific American culture and Japanese pop culture. The mix between modern San Franciscan and Tokyo monuments (as seen above) as well as classic Japanese culture like the style of buildings and food presented in an Americanized fashion were some of the mixtures Disney created out of these two cultures. It also presented two Japanese American protagonists that weren't racially stereotyped. Even though Hiro and Tadashi were both very smart in science and technology, this wasn't attributed to their ethnicity.Characters with Latin-American, African American, and other ethnic backgrounds had brains and personalities not centered around the color of their skin. These were just incredibly smart kids dealing with too much pain and menace for their ages. After all, it is a Disney movie.
Big Hero 6 also made science and technology seem exciting and creative. Typically these subjects and the people who practice them are construed as socially awkward, weird, nerdy, etc. as seen, for example, in The Big Bang Theory and Bones. Tadashi and Hiro's friends were approachable with skills and three-dimensional personalities indespensible to the plot. Whether fast and furious like Gogo Tomago or slow and cautious like the character Wasabi, their love for technology and their friends propelled the team to great heights. I saw branches of engineering in each of the characters. Gogo's electromagnetically suspended bicycle wheels greatly reminded me of mechanical/aeronautical engineering. The expertise of Honey Lemon and her pods of chemical reactions was an obvious allusion to chemical engineering. And the most prized invention, Baymax, was made by Tadashi in order to heal people. He designed Baymax to be approachable as well as medically viable with built-in equipment like defibrillators. It was Hiro who converted Baymax into a flying, karate-fighting defender of the good. Technology is revered and empowering as presented in Big Hero 6. Unlike your typical media, this movie made brains and innovation a desirable characteristic rather than a character flaw.
Disney characters haven't always made their audience aspire to be someone more than a pretty girl or masculine man (see http://laurengissell.weebly.com/the-disney-princess-impact.html). I myself have heard people joke that The Little Mermaid should really be called "Change for your Man" and that Beauty in the Beast should be called "Stockholm Syndrome". And these sentiments are justified by decades of reinforcement. Big Hero 6 was a big change for Disney. It didn't attach a bad stigma to technological and science fields, and it didn't under-represent Asian culture in American media. Kids can see this movie and see completely normal characters of Asian descent as well as members of the technology field that are really cool and creative. Big Hero 6 seemed to be part of a trend in some parts of pop culture such as Taylor Swift's recent coming-out as a feminist and the celebrity endorsement of anti-sexual assault campaigns are some examples of a healthier and more positive pop culture. And as for members of under-represented groups in the media, especially those reading this who are technology majors at Clarkson, be proud that this Disney movie is helping to change the public's perception of different cultures and careers.
The Social Scientific Method will be updated once a week with posts involving the happenings on campus, in the HSS department, and my experience as a student. Please comment, share, and enjoy for many weeks to come!
Review of Big Hero 6:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/japan-america-meet-big-hero-6
Disney Princess Fallacies:
http://laurengissell.weebly.com/the-disney-princess-impact.html
Big Hero 6's website: http://movies.disney.com/big-hero-6/
Note that any writing or opinions on this blog do not reflect the views of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences or Clarkson University.
Big Hero 6 also made science and technology seem exciting and creative. Typically these subjects and the people who practice them are construed as socially awkward, weird, nerdy, etc. as seen, for example, in The Big Bang Theory and Bones. Tadashi and Hiro's friends were approachable with skills and three-dimensional personalities indespensible to the plot. Whether fast and furious like Gogo Tomago or slow and cautious like the character Wasabi, their love for technology and their friends propelled the team to great heights. I saw branches of engineering in each of the characters. Gogo's electromagnetically suspended bicycle wheels greatly reminded me of mechanical/aeronautical engineering. The expertise of Honey Lemon and her pods of chemical reactions was an obvious allusion to chemical engineering. And the most prized invention, Baymax, was made by Tadashi in order to heal people. He designed Baymax to be approachable as well as medically viable with built-in equipment like defibrillators. It was Hiro who converted Baymax into a flying, karate-fighting defender of the good. Technology is revered and empowering as presented in Big Hero 6. Unlike your typical media, this movie made brains and innovation a desirable characteristic rather than a character flaw.
Disney characters haven't always made their audience aspire to be someone more than a pretty girl or masculine man (see http://laurengissell.weebly.com/the-disney-princess-impact.html). I myself have heard people joke that The Little Mermaid should really be called "Change for your Man" and that Beauty in the Beast should be called "Stockholm Syndrome". And these sentiments are justified by decades of reinforcement. Big Hero 6 was a big change for Disney. It didn't attach a bad stigma to technological and science fields, and it didn't under-represent Asian culture in American media. Kids can see this movie and see completely normal characters of Asian descent as well as members of the technology field that are really cool and creative. Big Hero 6 seemed to be part of a trend in some parts of pop culture such as Taylor Swift's recent coming-out as a feminist and the celebrity endorsement of anti-sexual assault campaigns are some examples of a healthier and more positive pop culture. And as for members of under-represented groups in the media, especially those reading this who are technology majors at Clarkson, be proud that this Disney movie is helping to change the public's perception of different cultures and careers.
The Social Scientific Method will be updated once a week with posts involving the happenings on campus, in the HSS department, and my experience as a student. Please comment, share, and enjoy for many weeks to come!
Review of Big Hero 6:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/japan-america-meet-big-hero-6
Disney Princess Fallacies:
http://laurengissell.weebly.com/the-disney-princess-impact.html
Big Hero 6's website: http://movies.disney.com/big-hero-6/
Note that any writing or opinions on this blog do not reflect the views of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences or Clarkson University.