Episode 134 - Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023) (with Robyn Muir)
Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
To celebrate Disney’s computer-animated film musical Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023) and the company’s recent centenary year, Chris and Alex are joined by Dr Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communication in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Robyn’s research is interested in how identity is constructed and interpreted within cultural phenomena, including images of femininity in the Disney Princess franchise. Her book The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis (2023) explores Disney’s princess films, merchandise, and consumer experiences to account for the cultural pervasiveness and political power of Disney princesses, and to map their wider representations within society. Robyn is also the founder and director of the Disney, Culture and Society Research Network, an international and interdisciplinary space for Disney Studies scholars, and co-founder and co-editor of The International Journal of Disney Studies. Listen as they discuss Wish’s identity as nostalgic evocation of Walt Disney animation and tie-ins with the recent Disney100 Exhibition and Once Upon a Studio (Dan Abraham & Trent Correy, 2023) cartoon short; magic, Magnifico, and tensions between community desire and individual wish fulfilment; the gendered exceptionality of Asha as a woman of colour; power and the ‘imagined community’ of Rosas; the film’s hybrid aesthetic of cel- and computer-animated techniques; and the role of fantasy in providing the schema to know what to wish for.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Brown, Wendy L. 2000. “Suffering Rights as Paradoxes.” Constellations 7, no. 2 (June): 208-229.
Davis, Amy M. 2006. Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation. Hertfordshire: John Libbey Publishing.
Davis, Amy M. 2013. Handsome Heroes & Vile Villains: Men in Disney’s Feature Animation. Hertfordshire: John Libbey Publishing.
Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.