Introduction

Like most children in today’s society, Disney was a gigantic part of my childhood. From owning a Buzz Lightyear costume, to visiting Disney world in Orlando Florida, I took on the fandom with a full heart. At the time, the Disney movies were unbelievably entertaining. I loved watching Simba, Hercules, Mr. Incredible, and so many more of those heroes save the day. When Simba beats Scar I still jump out of my seat and go crazy. To be brutally honest, I loved the princess movies too; Cinderella, Princess Ariel, and (to get a little more recent) Elsa were all terrific characters with great story lines. Despite my fascination with Disney movies as a child, I still do not know most of the intricate underlying themes that make these movies so great. As a kid, I generally got the life lesson that the movies portrayed (i.e. Finding Nemo taught me to never give up hope, Beauty and the Beast taught me that true beauty lies within, etc.), but there is so much more to discover under the surface of these great films. That’s why I took this class: to delve deeper into the movies and characters I adore(d) so much. Also who wouldn’t want to take a writing class about Disney??

In this class, I hope to look into the pivotal characters within many different movies to analyze their personalities, relationships, decisions, motives, and so much more. I want to understand why each hero/princess was given the attributes they were and how each villain was crafted to perfectly counter their respective movie’s procrastinator. I also want to look into Walt Disney himself and evaluate how his belief system went into the Disney franchise. Walt Disney was a brilliant man to say the least, but he had his flaws and I’m curious to see if those showed up in any movies or even old school Disney cartoons.