Touching Queerness in Disney Films Dumbo and Lilo & Stitch

Disney’s influence as a cultural purveyor is difficult to overstate. From cinema screen to television programming, vacation theme parks to wardrobe, toys and books, Disney’s consistent ability to entertain children as well as adults has made it a mainstay of popular culture. This research will look at two Disney films, Dumbo (1941)1 and Lilo & Stitch (2002),2 both from distinctly different eras, and analyze the similarities in artistic styling, studio financial climate, and their narrative representation of otherness as it relates to Queer identity.

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Cantopop

Journal of Asian Pacific Communication ◽

10.1075/japc.12.2.03mci ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 217-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Bryce T. McIntyre ◽

Christine Wai Sum Cheng ◽

Zhang Weiyu

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Popular Culture ◽

Mainland China ◽

Chinese Characters ◽

Television Programming ◽

Mainland Chinese ◽

Cultural Form ◽

History Of ◽

British Colonial

In post-Handover Hong Kong, one sees an influx of cultural products from mainland China, from increased radio and television programming in Mandarin to the adoption of simplified Chinese characters in some publication venues. These are symbols of the resinicization of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Beijingers proudly assert that the Chinese capital is the cultural centre of China, and they look with a combination of curiosity and disdain on the popular culture of Hong Kong. With this steady influx into Hong Kong of culture emanating from the Chinese capital, and with the imperialistic attitude of Beijing elites, one might conclude that Cantonese popular culture is in serious decline. However, this is not the case. Through a descriptive study of Cantonese popular music or Cantopop, as it is known in the West this article argues that Cantonese culture is a unique and irrepressible cultural force in Greater China. Further, this article argues and this is the main point that Cantopop has served the role of a strategic cultural form to delineate a local Hong Kong identity, vis-à-vis the old British colonial and mainland Chinese identities. The article includes a brief history of Cantopop.

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Beyond nostalgia for the Soviet past: Interpreting documentaries on Russian television

European Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367549416682245 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 285-306 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Ekaterina Kalinina

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Symbolic Politics ◽

Television Programming ◽

Television Production ◽

Film And Television ◽

Soviet Film ◽

Film Clips ◽

Russian Media

The proliferation and recycling of Soviet popular culture and history is a central ingredient of post-Soviet film and television production, leading to accusations that the Russian media is nurturing nostalgia. Nostalgia can hardly account for the manifold uses of the Soviet past in contemporary Russian television programming. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the Crimean annexation, it became evident that nostalgia for a strong empire with a ‘strong ruling hand’ was part of Putin’s symbolic politics for several years. Keeping these considerations in mind, this article investigates how nostalgia extends into the domain of television and becomes an element of symbolic politics, employing a case study of two documentaries produced during Putin’s presidency to focus the analysis. This study also examines how contemporary Russian television uses footage and film clips from the socialist period and witness testimonies to ‘dismantle’ popular myths.

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The Bleak Romance of Taḥliya Street

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication ◽

10.1163/18739865-00602004 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 213-228 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pascal Menoret ◽

and Nadav Samin

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

English Translation ◽

Arabian Peninsula ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Abu Dhabi ◽

Musical Form ◽

Shopping Malls ◽

Theme Parks ◽

Same Sex ◽

Modern Cities

Popular culture in the oil-exporting countries of the Arabian Peninsula is often seen as being caught between religiosity and conspicuous consumption. Mosques and shopping malls populate stereotypical descriptions of modern cities in the region, from Mecca to Dubai and from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh. Yet popular culture cannot be reduced to theme parks and taped sermons, rollercoasters, and pilgrimages. This paper introduces a kasra, which is a popular musical form used by Saudi youth to voice their desires, dissatisfaction and protests. This particular song, entitled ‘At-Taḥliya’, draws its name from a famous avenue of the Saudi capital, and touches upon same-sex love, unemployment, and economic hardship. A detailed introduction is followed by the transliteration of the song and its English translation.

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Mirror, Mirror on Ourselves

10.1525/california/9780520291447.003.0018 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Stephanie Brehm ◽

Myev Rees

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Technological Progress ◽

Gender Norms ◽

Theme Parks ◽

Power Structures ◽

Top Down ◽

Nature Religion ◽

Mirror Mirror

This chapter analyzes Disney films and theme parks, which are taken as “texts” that can be examined or “read.” The analysis challenges the view that religion and popular culture are top-down power structures inflicting their agendas on passive individuals. Instead, it imagines Disney “texts” as places where that dialogue might be taking place. It focuses on two significant tensions revealed in Disney texts. The first tension is between the sacralization of futuristic technological progress and the idealized return to nature religion. The second tension is between initiatives to empower girls and women and the ambivalences and anxieties caused by dismantling “traditional” gender norms and systems.

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Televisual Tales From Across the Border: Mapping Neo-Global Flows in Media Peripheries

BioScope South Asian Screen Studies ◽

10.1177/0974927619897439 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 164-182

Author(s):

Ritika Pant

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Cultural Environment ◽

Television Industry ◽

Television Programming ◽

Television Content ◽

Global Flows ◽

Indian Tradition

Foreign programming on Indian television was largely dominated by American and British TV programmes until 2014, when a Hindi entertainment channel Zindagi, owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, began broadcasting syndicated television content from Pakistan. The channel’s tagline Jodey Dilon Ko (uniting hearts) shaped the possibility for peaceful reconciliation between the two political rivals, India and Pakistan, by offering ‘ sarhad paar ki kahaaniyaan’ (stories from across the border) to Indian audiences. The popularity of Pakistani serials in India may be observed against the backdrop of a television industry inundated with formulaic saas–bahu (mother-in-law/daughter-in-law) plotlines over the last decade. While Indian television and films have been a part of Pakistani popular culture for years, Pakistani serials like Humsafar (life partner, 2011) and Zindgai Gulzar Hai (life is a bed of roses, 2012) broadcast on Zindagi gave Indian audiences a peek into their neighbours’ socio-cultural environment. These serials dismantled the conventional mediatised image of the distanced ‘other’ and redefined the former perception of ‘foreign’ as essentially ‘Western’ in Indian television programming. Through an analysis of new trajectories of flows between media peripheries that I term ‘neo-global’ flows, this article argues that Pakistani dramas broadcast on Zindagi between 2014 and 2016 offered a ‘mediating space’ to Indian audiences by maintaining a balance between Indian tradition and Pakistani modernity.

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Forgotten Histories: Ephemeral Culture for Children and the Digital Archive

Media International Australia ◽

10.1177/1329878x1415000115 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 150 (1) ◽

pp. 66-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Leonie Rutherford

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Children's Television ◽

Digital Archive ◽

Digital Archives ◽

Digital Resources ◽

Television Programming ◽

Television Production ◽

Print Publication ◽

Children's Magazines ◽

History Of

The history of children's popular culture in Australia is still to be written. This article examines Australian print publication for children from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, together with radio and children's television programming from the 1950s to the 1970s. It presents new scholarship on the history of children's magazines and newspapers, sourced from digital archives such as Trove, and documents new sources for early works by Australian children's writers. The discussion covers early television production for children, mobilising digital resources that have hitherto not informed scholarship in the field.

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