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| Eugene Lee Yang via youtube.com | Disney |
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How Accurate was Buzzfeed's "Historically Accurate Disney Princesses"?
Back in February Buzzfeed posted a video and an accompanying article that attempted to illustrate the differences between Disney's portrayal of women and historical reality. At first I loved the video - I thought the concept was great, I liked the music, and I even tolerated the jerky editing. I was in the overwhelming majority of viewers that liked and shared the video.
But the more I thought about it - and re-watched it - the more it started to nag at me. I knew at least one of their princesses was way off and I just couldn't understand their basis for the claim. That's when I found the article and, after reading its scant bullet points, I was suddenly consumed in nerd rage. There was a ridiculously minuscule, almost non-existent amount of research done -- or else they just couldn't have been bothered to provide the evidence of their work.
Now I understand Buzzfeed isn't actually a news source regardless of how they label their writers. The powerhouse of click-bait image memes and eternally popular "ten things you didn't know about lists" article format has come under a lot of criticism for damaging the profession of journalism. Despite their announced intentions to become a serious news media outlet they persist in producing some of the laziest and vapid collection of words on the internet.
Even though I know this it continued to bug the hell out of me. Part of it is because of how lauded the video has become, re-posted and reported on by other media sources as the accurate portrayal of women in history we've all been waiting for. Other sources (through their own incredible laziness) didn't bother to verify Buzzfeed's claims before they backed it up, waving it like a flag in the face of Disney's race and gender politics. And that just annoyed me.
So I've decided to write a series of posts examining each princess that was presented in the video. And just like Buzzfeed's lazy intern I'm not going to crack open a single book unless it's digital and accessible without a login. I'm even going to use Wikipedia - that flawless (please note the sarcasm) fount of all human knowledge and bane of every English teacher in America. I'm going to do this not because I don't have access to a library (I do), or the inclination (I definitely do), but because I want to prove that even when employing the same methods the smallest amount of effort would have turned up better, more accurate results.
Or not. Maybe, just maybe, Buzzfeed was mostly right about this one and I'm just all nerd-rage and butt-hurt for nothing. I think that's something worth finding out.
But the more I thought about it - and re-watched it - the more it started to nag at me. I knew at least one of their princesses was way off and I just couldn't understand their basis for the claim. That's when I found the article and, after reading its scant bullet points, I was suddenly consumed in nerd rage. There was a ridiculously minuscule, almost non-existent amount of research done -- or else they just couldn't have been bothered to provide the evidence of their work.
Now I understand Buzzfeed isn't actually a news source regardless of how they label their writers. The powerhouse of click-bait image memes and eternally popular "ten things you didn't know about lists" article format has come under a lot of criticism for damaging the profession of journalism. Despite their announced intentions to become a serious news media outlet they persist in producing some of the laziest and vapid collection of words on the internet.
Even though I know this it continued to bug the hell out of me. Part of it is because of how lauded the video has become, re-posted and reported on by other media sources as the accurate portrayal of women in history we've all been waiting for. Other sources (through their own incredible laziness) didn't bother to verify Buzzfeed's claims before they backed it up, waving it like a flag in the face of Disney's race and gender politics. And that just annoyed me.
So I've decided to write a series of posts examining each princess that was presented in the video. And just like Buzzfeed's lazy intern I'm not going to crack open a single book unless it's digital and accessible without a login. I'm even going to use Wikipedia - that flawless (please note the sarcasm) fount of all human knowledge and bane of every English teacher in America. I'm going to do this not because I don't have access to a library (I do), or the inclination (I definitely do), but because I want to prove that even when employing the same methods the smallest amount of effort would have turned up better, more accurate results.
Or not. Maybe, just maybe, Buzzfeed was mostly right about this one and I'm just all nerd-rage and butt-hurt for nothing. I think that's something worth finding out.
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