When people think of the Walt  Disney company, they probably think of Michael Eisner, the Nine Old Men, or Walt and Roy themselves. These men may be the most famous in Disney history, but a lot of women have also helped paved the path towards  success for the company. Here are some Disney women that deserve to be recognized:  Unnamed Ink and Painters Due to stereotypes about women, originally they could only be found in secretarial roles or in the ink and paint department at the Walt Disney Studios. Women were believed to be detail-oriented (but not smart or creative enough for animating jobs) which is why they seemed like a perfect fit for ink and paint. Animators would draw the characters, but the ink and paint girls will fill in the colors. It was a very methodical job. The company even hired other employees to stand over the shoulders of the painters and time them to keep track of their progress. Even though the ink and paint ladies were often overlooked, th...

On the surface level, Pocahontas already seems like a great role model for girls. She is independent, confident and curious about the world around her. She never stops exploring and learning.  Like many Disney Princesses, Pocahontas does not have a mother. But she seeks guidance from the elderly figure Grandmother Willow. Pocahontas goes to Grandmother Willow for advice because she knows Grandmother Willow is the wisest woman she knows, and Grandmother Willow encourages Pocahontas to listen to her heart.   Pocahontas has a bittersweet ending. Instead of choosing to explore the other side of the world with the man she loves, she stays with the people she loves. It’s heartbreaking that she has to say goodbye to the only man she ever loved, but it’s empowering that she chooses to fulfil her destiny as a leader. Unfortunately, The movie has gotten a bad reputation for being racist because it inaccurately paints colonizer John Smith in a heroic light.  In reality, he could be ...

The 2010s was an exciting time of growth for the Walt Disney World parks.  In 2012, Magic Kingdom expanded Fantasyland with two new themed areas – Storybook Circus and The Enchanted Forest. Along with theming came a new dark ride, a new rollercoaster, a table service restaurant and a meet and greet area for the ever popular Princesses.  In 2017, Animal Kingdom not only opened the innovative alien land of Pandora, but added nighttime entertainment such as the Tree of Life Awakens and the Sunset Safari.  A year later Toy Story Land, followed by Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge upped the desire to go to Hollywood Studios.  It seemed as if all the parks were getting makeovers – Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios – but one park. Epcot and its Future World were stuck in the 2000s, and it was time for the park to move forward. With just a few more months of the decade left, Epcot’s makeover was announced at the 2019 D23 Expo. And it was clear that the Imagineers had sa...

Taylor Swift's early music catalog was bought by Shamrock Holdings. For over a year, Taylor has  been trying to buy her master's, which include her first six recorded albums, music videos, and album artwork. She was denied the opportunity to buy them, only for them to be bought by Hollywood's most callous manager . Recently, the master's were sold again to Shamrock Holdings.  A quick internet search will tell you that Shamrock Holdings is owned by none other than the Disney Family. Roy O. Disney founded the investment company and his granddaughter Abigail Disney is currently the Vice Chairman. Abigail Disney constantly speaks out against the Disney company's unethically greed and how current CEOs are not upholding Disney's morals.  According to their website, "Shamrock's tenet's are straightforward - invest and act with integrity, responsibility, and transparency." I have to laugh at the "integrity" part. Stealing another artis...

Everybody has their own opinions on what would make the perfect park for them. In the Disney Parks community, there is constant discourse on everything from which attractions should come back and which ones should be replaced to what type of music should play in the background or what type of coffee should be sold. If I was magically CEO for a day, here are some of the changes I would make to Magic Kingdom park. 1. Scrap that disastrous paint job and restore the castle to its silver and sky blue glory. Add more (temporary) sparkles for the 50th anniversary. 2. Upgrade the monorails and monorail tracks. Before the park closures, it seemed like a high number of breakdowns were being reported. 3. Put in more seating options on the ferry. I know that having people stand makes it possible to cram more people onto the ferry, but it also makes riding it almost unbearable. And courtesy always comes before efficiency! 4. Change up the menu at Tony’s. I personally love it but it seems food criti...

Walt Disney World officially opened up again (with restrictions) this summer. And while many are enjoying being back, for many others visiting the parks will not be an option for months to come. In the meantime, I'd thought I'd share some of my favorite park memories. 1. Big Downpour Mountain        I was spending an afternoon at Magic Kingdom with one of my friends. One of our favorite rides is Big Thunder Mountain. As we were waiting in line, my friend noticed the clouds growing darker. I checked the weather app on my cell and assured her it was not supposed to rain for a few more hours, which gave us plenty of time to have fun before hunkering down in a gift shop or somewhere. So we stayed in line and continued down the stairs to the enclosed loading platform.       If you don't know, Big Thunder Mounta in starts indoors.  The  loading platform is all indoors, and the train enters a cave scene. ...

A Fun Queue Disney Parks have been updating their queues recently to be interactive and interesting to look at it while waiting. The Splash Mountain queue has some great Frontierland theming and look-throughs into the character’s homes. The queue could be gussied up a bit, especially since long wait times will be predicted once the re-theme is opened. I’m not exactly sure what I would want in the queue, but it needs to be updated from just brown cave walls.    New Animatronics Splash Mountain has always had plenty of frogs and alligators. These could easily be recycled for the re-theme, and save Disney some money. But I hope they completely change them out. The Splash animatronics look very dated, and that will only become more noticeable when they are placed next to updated ones. .  Charlotte Lottie is such a great character! She brings comedy, liveliness and fabulousness to the PATF ensemble. I hope she makes an appearance in the ride.   Ray and Evangeline The even...

I’ve struggled with a long time on how to defend Jasmine. If I’m being honest, she’s probably my least favorite Disney Princess. I don’t have much sentimentality for as Aladdin was never my go-to childhood movie. My stereotypical feminine toddler self much preferred Disney movies that featured cats or ball gowns over movies about streetrats.   Jasmine also has the unique position of being the only Disney Princess whose movie is not really about her. Aladdin is, well, about Aladdin. I could say that hinders me from doing a proper analysis of her character, but I easily unearthed much out of Aurora’s character when she only speaks 18 lines – and her movie is supposed to be about her!   Jasmine ranked so low in my personal ratings on the grounds that she doesn’t do anything. Maybe this is ironic coming from someone who passionately defends the “do-nothing” Princesses like Aurora and Snow White, but they do something . They walk the walk, whereas Jasmine just talks the talk. She...

At first, I thought it was just one of those April Fool’s-esque jokes, like when everyone was putting out articles that Cinderella’s castle would be changed to the Frozen castle.   But as I read it from multiple sources, I realized that it was true. And my initial, knee-jerk reaction when I heard of this iconic Disney attraction changing was “No!”.   But the more I thought about it, the more I excited I became for the re-theme.   I kind of low-key hate Splash Mountain. Not the drop. The drop is the best part. I hate the show rooms. I already have a slight fear of animatronics, but the ones on Splash are terrifying. The animatronics look very old and move rigidly. Despite the fact that it is refurbished every winter, the “show” never really works right. There are constant animatronic failure and ride breakdown reports. Whether that’s due to the wear and tear of the ride or just the presence of social media, we’ll never know. But we’ve been hearing horror stories of anima...

This is a continuation of the series where I examine each of the Disney Princesses as role models. Disney Princesses have received much backlash and debate over their worthiness of being feminist role models for young girls. I set out to examine the admirable qualities in each and clear up any distortions of their characters.  Belle is a beloved Princess, often regarded as the "strongest", "smartest" or "most feminist".  Yet some  people like to simplify the character down to “read = smart”. But of course, it goes deeper than  that.  Based on the way the town citizens react to her reading (“and her nose stuck in a book/ what a  puzzle to the rest of us is Belle”) you can tell that not many people in the village are educated enough to  read, or even interested enough in becoming educated to read, let alone the women of the village.  Maybe they do not think education is important. Education is so important. I could rant forever a...