Here’s the basics. The big villains of the disney movies have invited mickey and the crew to join them for halloween. Meanwhile, the villains have sent out ‘recruiters’ to get the guests to join the villain’s side!
Here are the recruiters, because they’re amazing and already are amassing a fanbase (plus I want to draw them). I’ve only got a few of their names, so I wrote the ones I knew.
Eight Foot Joe (Ursula):
Apple Poison (Evil Queen):
Jack of Hearts (Queen of Hearts):
(Cruella DeVille):
Malefi (Maleficent):
Veil (Frollo):
(Hades):
(Captain Hook):
(Scar):
(Jafar):
If y’all know any of the names I don’t, please put them!
Long before the Maleficent movie, Disney released a hilarious book called My Side of the Story where Maleficent and Aurora both told their respective sides of the story with some great illustrations. Maleficent claims of course she was only looking out for Aurora and Phillip’s best interests, despite those pesky fairies. And poor Phillip is constantly described by both sides as always being a total mess and “smelling like a horse.” (Also Aurora says he has dimples so deep you could ”plant corn in them” and “deep enough to mine for gold.”)
So, in the Frozen tie-in book, A Sister More Like Me, it’s mentioned that Elsa loves geometry.
While at first this seems like a throwaway piece of trivia about Elsa, her interest in geometry makes a ton of sense when you think about how she was able to construct her ice palace. At first, I didn’t put much thought into Elsa being able to construct a beautiful (and structurally sound) ice castle like it was nothing, but when you consider that bit about her love of geometry, it provides an actual answer as to how she was able to do it.
Geometry is used a lot in architecture and construction, as knowing what shapes to use plays an important role in making sure a building is structurally sound. The very first thing Elsa does when making her castle is creating a center point to ensure the structure will be balanced.
And when she actually begins to build the castle, we see a myriad of shapes being formed and used.
Finally, Elsa uses the term “fractals” in “Let it Go” (“My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around…”). A fractal is a geometric term that describes a set that displays a self-similar pattern and is often used to catalog snowflakes. The fact that Elsa knows and uses this word really speaks volumes about her knowledge of geometry.
Tl;dr– Elsa used math to build a sweet-ass ice castle.
Okay, but pause. Pause pause pause.
DISNEY PRINCESS, NAY, QUEEN, LOVES MATH
GIRLS ARE OFTEN DISCOURAGED OUT OF STEM FIELDS.
How many girls can we save from the assumption of “girls don’t do math?”
“You know, Queen Elsa likes math. A special kind, called geometry.”
“You know that one part in Let It Go where Elsa says her soul is in fractals? She’s talking about a kind of math used in measuring snowflakes.”
“Did you know Elsa uses math to build her castle in Frozen?”
How many girls want to be Elsa?
Keep this factoid stored away in your brains. USE IT.
Girls do so like math. Even higher math. Queen Elsa is one of them.
just casually excluding every PoC princess from Disney doll collections for no reason whatsoever…
and no it’s not about “demand” because
A) Demand for Jasmine, Tiana, Pocahontas and Mulan (a perpetual favorite of many) has always been at least as high as demand for Merida, for goodness sake
B) Clearly many customers are subbing in the dolls that aren’t included (AKA: demand), if the frequently bought together is any indication
Is a doll lineup the most hard hitting inadequacy plaguing society today? No, but obvious exclusion and the continual marketed concept that the most “classic” and “essential” princesses are the white ones, is a harmful micro aggression that speaks of larger concepts people are accepting without questioning
On this subject, I don’t know what upset me more at the time, thinking there weren’t any PoC dolls in the Sparkling Princess line or finding out Tiana and Jasmine were in it but were both left out of the commercials.
They didn’t include any PoC girls either, so the message is pretty clear.
As an aside, I have yet to find Tiana or Jasmine at any store, but I still see a million Meridas, all on deep clearance.
Apparently, Disney is shooting a film called The Queen of Katwe. The story is about a girl in Uganda training to be become a world chess champion. The film is directed by Mira Nair. Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo are the lead.
