Can’t We Just Enjoy A Good Wholesome Disney Movie?

Reaction to ‘Princess and the Frog’ shows just how politically correct we’ve become.











You could call it a return to Renaissance.

The Disney Renaissance era lasted ten years (1989-1999), a ‘golden age’ of sorts in which Disney had a slew of commercially successful animated films. Most of these were fairy tale stories featuring lavish musical numbers such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Tarzan.

The rising popularity of computer animation had brought an end to these hand-drawn films, and many computer animated films such as Shrek mocked the whole Disney formula. Going against convention became the new cool as many of these films turned traditional fairy tales upside down and inside out. However, by the third Shrek film, the mocking of traditional fairy tales had become tiresome. Mocking Disney was no longer going against convention. It had become the standard formula.

So this time Disney is the one going against convention with the release of The Princess and the Frog, a hand-drawn animated film about a traditional fairy tale story (with a few twists, of course) that places it in the same company as those films from the Disney Renaissance. While it may not quite measure up to the standards of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin, it nonetheless is a pleasantly enjoyable film that avoids the ultra-cute pop culture references and toilet humor that often pervade other animated fare. And its twists include Disney’s first African-American heroine and a 1920s New Orleans setting for the story.

The reviews for the film have been overwhelming positive. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 82% fresh rating. However, the negative reviews of the film are very telling. They reveal how cynical our society is becoming towards movies that are clean, wholesome and don’t try to push an agenda.

For example, reviewer Armond White writes, “…The Princess and the Frog actually refrains from expanding our social imagination. Based on the venerable The Frog Prince, it uses that fairy tale’s moral about seeking inner value and personal worth to exploit "post-racial" complaisance.”

I didn’t realize it was the job of a Disney movie to “expand our social imagination.” Didn’t we just elect our first African-American president? I think the 2008 election did more to “expand our social imagination” than any animated movie could hope to.

And let’s not forget that the story is a fairy-tale. Fairy tales usually have simplistic moral messages. If it was to get into complex civil rights issues, then it would no longer be a fairy tale. What should Disney have done? Shown a mob lynching? Somehow, I don’t think that would have qualified for a G rating. And why is the reviewer trying to assign sinister motives to Disney? Most likely, the intention is simply to tell a fun little story, not “exploit ‘post-racial’ complaisance.”

White also complains that the film’s black heroine, Tiana, is turned into a frog and “stays that way for 80 percent of the movie. This narrative allows Disney to maintain the primacy of its classic white fantasy heroines.”

More sinister motives assigned to Disney. Does anybody really believe that Disney decided to make Tiana a frog for most of the movie as a way to undercut the character? I can’t say for sure what went on behind the scenes, but most likely, the plot was dictated by the needs of the story. If keeping Tiana human for a longer duration would have made a better movie, Disney surely would have done that.

Another reviewer, Annie Young Frisbie, writes:

Even more disturbing is the way that both Tiana and spoiled rich girl Lottie end up trading their bodies for gain. Lottie wants to marry a prince so badly that she absolutely ignores everything else about her imposter Prince all the way up to the altar at her Mardi Gras wedding. And virtuous Tiana? Gives a kiss in exchange for money. Sure, it's for a good cause—her restaurant—but that doesn't change what she's done. So while Disney seems to be trying to counter some of its pervasive princess ideology, The Princess and the Frog is still showing women who can't get by without men.

A woman who badly wants to get married? Heaven forbid! Tiana and Lottie should have been man-hating feminists. That would have been great! Actually, one of the dumbest things you can do is assign liberal values to characters in stories that take place in the distant past. I don’t think today’s form of liberalism was around in the 1920s, much less the 1700s era of Beauty and the Beast or the BC era of Aladdin. Marriage was much more highly valued in the past than in western society today, so it makes sense that characters from earlier periods should reflect that sentiment.

Also, I don’t think kissing a frog in exchange for money ranks up there with prostitution. And the marriage that takes place at the end of the film doesn’t show that women “can’t get by without men.” It reflects a simple truth that people generally are happier when they are married, a notion that die-hard liberals and feminists can’t seem to handle. Besides, fairy tales usually end with weddings, do they not?

Anyway, the overall positive reviews for The Princess and the Frog show that our society as a whole has not become quite so cynical. It just gets annoying the way clean movies such as this one (and the High School Musical franchise) increasingly get attacked because they are too simplistic, yet movies with the most awful violence and fornication are often adorned with lavish praise.

Hopefully, The Princess and the Frog is the beginning of a new Disney Renaissance. Given the current state of Hollywood, I think we could really use one.

Book Review: Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall For Stupid Ideas

Author: Daniel J. Flynn
ISBN Number: 1-4000-5355-2
Publisher: Crown Forum
Genre/Market: Politics
Publication Date:
Book Length: 292 Pages
Price: $25.95
Hardcover
5 out of 5 points



If you’re curious to know the origins of all the radical far left movements in this country, then you simply must read Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall For Stupid Ideas by Daniel J. Flynn.

This is a fantastic book which breaks down all the propaganda that has been created to promote the left’s causes over the past several decades. What you’ll learn is simply stunning:

The intolerance and political correctness that the left display in our society today can be traced back to Herbert Marcuse. He preached that truth is falsehood, freedom is totalitarianism, tolerance is intolerance, education is indoctrination, and that sex is better than work. If this all sounds absurd, it is, but that’s never stopped the far left before. Marcuse advocated tolerance for ideas from the left but intolerance for ideas from the right. Clearly, he knew that his side couldn’t win in a legitimate debate.

The sexual revolution was started by Alfred Kinsey, a “scientist” who was actually a pedophile. He authored studies in the 1940s and 1950s claiming that a large percentage of Americans engaged in premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality. This started the idea that the conservative mores of society that kept sexuality private and monogamous were old-fashioned, out-of-date, as well as hypocritical. It came out too late all of Kinsey’s studies were fraudulent. Take a look at the hyper-sexualization of today’s society, and the end results of Kinsey’s legacy are clear.

The Feminist movement was started by Betty Friedan and her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique. She claimed that too many women led unfulfilling lives trapped as housewives raising a family. She portrayed herself as a typical stay-at-home mom, but she was actually a radical political activist who believed in Marxism. A recent study says that women today are less happy than they were thirty years ago is proof that radical feminism has done far more harm for women than good.

The environmental movement originated with Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich and his 1968 book The Population Bomb. In the book he claims that during the 1970s hundreds of millions of people would die from starvation due of overpopulation. He also said the United States would be literally dying from thirst. And that a new ice age might be upon us. And that meat prices would rise so rapidly that most of us would be forced to become vegetarians. And that a billion people would die from disease. And that nuclear war was likely. Of course, he was wrong. But all the environmental hysteria we see today can be directly traced back to Ehrlich.

The chapter on Ehrlich is probably the funniest in the entire book. It quickly becomes clear why Ehrlich took so many radical and ludicrous positions when you take a look at his proposed solutions. He wanted a bigger government to use heavy taxation to reduce Americans’ overall standard of living. Ehrlich, like so many others, advocated big government because he believed it could be used to force his own ideology on other people. And if he had to do it by dishonest means, that was irrelevant.

Intellectual Morons covers many other racial leftists including Naom Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Peter Singer, and Ann Rynd. I strongly recommend it. It is both fascinating and funny, stunning and at times horrifying. But you will learn a great deal about how the left in this country operates and why.

Book Review: How The Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy To Make You Think George Bush Was The Worst President In History

Author: John Gibson
ISBN: 978-0-06-179289-2
Publisher: Harper
Genre: Politics
Publication Date: December 1, 2009
Hardcover; 280 pages
Price: $26.99
4 out of 5 stars – Review by John Dorsey


After Republican challenger Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley for the Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat in January 2010 in one of the biggest upsets in modern political history, President Obama rationalized the stunning defeat as a result of generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

It’s still all about blaming George Bush. Even a year after he’s been out of office.

Clearly, the left in America wants to continue to blame all our problems and all their failures on George Bush. But how much blame should be placed on him? Bush has been greatly maligned over the past 9 years ever since his controversial election in 2000. A new book by Fox News host John Gibson called How The Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy To Make You Think George Bush Was The Worst President In History goes a long way towards setting the record straight and sifting through all the left’s propaganda to reveal what was true and wasn’t.

Of course, the word “swiftboat” comes from the 2004 election when the Swiftboat Veterans ran ads questioning John Kerry’s war record and achievements. As a result, “swiftboating” has become a word, meaning to undermine character and credibility. And this is what the left has done viciously and mercilessly to George Bush.

Gibson argues that there were two media people with tremendous influence that led the charge to discredit Bush. The first was John Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. The second was New York Times columnist Frank Rich. Gibson makes a fairly good case for Stewart being a fairly big influence, as Stewart used his comedic news to distort everything Bush did, getting away with it by having the excuse that he is an entertainer, not a journalist. However, Gibson does not succeed as well with Rich. True, Rich was incredibly vicious towards Bush, but so were many columnists throughout the country. I’m not sure he stands out much more than any of the others.

It has been argued by the far left that the Iraq war has been a complete waste of time with zero rewards for the United States. Gibson points out the positive results that most people simply aren’t aware of, such as how Libya was well on its way to developing a nuclear program but voluntarily gave it up when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

Perhaps the biggest piece of propaganda has been the assertion that Bush knew there were no WMDs in Iraq and lied to the American people. In reality, it was simply an intelligence failure. Many intelligence agencies across the world believed Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, not just our own. Saddam wanted to world to believe he had WMDs because that may have been the only thing that prevented Iran, perhaps his biggest enemy, from invading. So Bush made a mistake, but a somewhat understandable one. He did not lie.

And while Saddam wasn’t directly linked to 9/11, the whole point of invading Iraq was to prevent the next 9/11, a fact that many people have forgotten. Saddam may have not had WMDs, but he certainly intended to develop them once he got the UN sanctions lifted. By removing him from power, we were cutting the snake’s head off before it had a chance to strike.

Fortunately, the book exposes all of the left’s propaganda for what it is. The 2000 election, Valerie Plame, Hurricane Katrina, Abu Ghraib, the number of Iraqi casualties, the torture issue and the waterboarding of only three people (all of them top Al Qaeda leaders) in six years – All of these issues are discussed in detail.

But Gibson doesn’t gush over Bush. He is critical where warranted, and one of his biggest criticisms of Bush is one that I also share: That Bush didn’t do enough to defend himself from all the attacks against him. A common mistake that honest people make is they believe that simply stating the truth is enough. The problem is that most people in this world are not interested in truth. They are only interested in gain, profit, winning, etc. To them, truth is often a danger because it threatens their whole position. So it isn’t enough to simply state the truth. You have to really reinforce it and back it up, because your opponents will do everything they can to label it as being false.

Bush failed to do this, and I believe I know why. Fox news host Bill O’Reilly has said that he once privately told Bush that he should take a stronger stand against the people attacking him, to go after them and call them out. His response was, “That’s not what a president should do.” Apparently, in Bush’s mind, he was taking the high ground, staying above the fray. That’s all well and good, but it allowed his opponents to frame the debate and consistently smear him without adequate response. The end result was the triumph of falsehood over truth, and it severely damaged the country, paving the way for total Democratic control of both Congress and the Presidency.

The final chapter of the book is probably the best. Gibson tells you how to win a debate about George Bush with anyone, listing all the typical Bush accusations and then providing clear, fact-based responses to each one.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. As a person who regularly follows the news, I was already aware of a lot of what Gibson was talking about, but there is still a lot of things in the book I didn’t know that I found fascinating, such as the history of MSNBC and the background of Keith Olbermann (and all the temper tantrums he throws). There are many specific examples given of attacks on Bush that I hadn’t heard before, some amusing and some just disgusting. But it all serves well as a reminder to just how dishonest and untrustworthy the liberal media has become.