Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ...
Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits
This page features links to reviews of movies, documentaries and exhibits with a historical theme. Listings are in reverse chronological order. Descriptions are taken directly from the linked publication. If you have articles you think should be listed on the Pop Culture page, please send them to the editor editor@historynewsnetwork.org.
SOURCE: Roger Pulvers in Japan Times (5-20-07)
Over the coming months in this column, I will return a few times to a film titled "Ashita e no Yuigon (Best Wishes for Tomorrow)." I have been very fortunate to be able to write the script for this together with its director, Takashi Koizumi, whose last film, "Hakase no Aishita Sushiki (The Professor and his Beloved Equation)," was released in January 2006.
The film, which starts shooting on June 2, concerns the postwar trial, in Yokohama, of Lt. Gen. Tasuku Okada, former commander of the 13th Area Army in the Tokai region (the area centered on the prefectures of Aichi and Mie). Nineteen of the general's subordinates were also on trial with him.
The court proceedings stemmed from the last months of World War II, when giant American B-29s carried out relentless and indiscriminate bombings of the region, using high-explosives, napalm and other incendiary ordnance. Tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children, were burnt to death.
Thirty-eight...
Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 17:47
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SOURCE: AHA Blog (5-30-07)
The Aperture Foundation is sponsoring several major photograph exhibits of interest to historians and patrons of the arts in the New York City area during the summer of 2007. Two of these exhibits, New York Rises and The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History, will start touring in the fall of 2007 and will run until 2011. Both are looking for institutions willing to host them on their tour. For more information, or to inquire about hosting one of the exhibits, please contact Annette Rosenblatt, Apertures Exhibitions Coordinator, at (212) 946-7128, or e-mail: arosenblatt@aperture.org....
Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 17:46
SOURCE: http://www.indiantelevision.com (5-30-07)
MUMBAI: AETN All Asia Networks (AAAN), a joint venture of A&E Television Networks and Astro All Asia Networks, will launch The History Channel (THC) and Crime and Investigation Network in South East Asia on 15 June.
The channels will be launched in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand.
"We are going to launch both brands in additional territories in the region throughout the summer, and plan to deploy our brands and programming via VoD, mobile, and broadband," says A&E Television Networks senior VP international Sean Cohan.
THC and Crime and Investigation Network will be carried on Astro in Malaysia and Brunei. In Singapore, both channels will be carried on StarHub. In Thailand, The History Channel will be available on TrueVision. Additional distribution arrangements will be announced in the coming months.
The channels will be launched in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand.
"We are going to launch both brands in additional territories in the region throughout the summer, and plan to deploy our brands and programming via VoD, mobile, and broadband," says A&E Television Networks senior VP international Sean Cohan.
THC and Crime and Investigation Network will be carried on Astro in Malaysia and Brunei. In Singapore, both channels will be carried on StarHub. In Thailand, The History Channel will be available on TrueVision. Additional distribution arrangements will be announced in the coming months.
Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 16:14
SOURCE: http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk (5-30-07)
HE may look like a cartoon character but Andrew Marr has to be one of the most charismatic presenters on TV at the moment.
Since he left his post as the BBC's political correspondent, broadcasts from outside Number 10 haven't quite been the same.
Fans have been able to get a fix by getting up early on a Sunday morning but that has hardly been the best timeslot.
But now Andrew Marr is back and presenting a History of Modern Britain in his own inimitable style.
Marr has that great ability - so lacking in so many modern day presenters to both entertain and inform without resorting to any tricks or gurning incessantly at the camera.
This week his BBC2 series took us back the the Fifites, which Marr argued, wasn't the idyllic golden age as we are led to believe.
It was a black and white world of Suez, Harold Wilson and the birth of satire.
The great thing about this series is that you don't have to be a...
Since he left his post as the BBC's political correspondent, broadcasts from outside Number 10 haven't quite been the same.
Fans have been able to get a fix by getting up early on a Sunday morning but that has hardly been the best timeslot.
But now Andrew Marr is back and presenting a History of Modern Britain in his own inimitable style.
Marr has that great ability - so lacking in so many modern day presenters to both entertain and inform without resorting to any tricks or gurning incessantly at the camera.
This week his BBC2 series took us back the the Fifites, which Marr argued, wasn't the idyllic golden age as we are led to believe.
It was a black and white world of Suez, Harold Wilson and the birth of satire.
The great thing about this series is that you don't have to be a...
Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 16:13
SOURCE: NYT (5-30-07)
TEHRAN, May 29 — When Shadi Ghadirian was 21, she got a student job printing old photographs at the small photography museum here. She was so drawn by the 19th-century pictures of women with thick black eyebrows wearing head scarves and short skirts over baggy pants that two years later, in 2000, she began incorporating the imagery into her own photography.
Using clothes from the late 1800s, she dressed female friends and posed them in front of painted backdrops to look like the women in the antique photos. But her women appeared with something modern: a newspaper, a tape recorder, a vacuum cleaner.
The shots became known as the Qajar series and made her one of Iran’s most famous female photographers.
“My pictures became a mirror reflecting how I felt: we are stuck between tradition and modernity,” she said in an interview here....
Using clothes from the late 1800s, she dressed female friends and posed them in front of painted backdrops to look like the women in the antique photos. But her women appeared with something modern: a newspaper, a tape recorder, a vacuum cleaner.
The shots became known as the Qajar series and made her one of Iran’s most famous female photographers.
“My pictures became a mirror reflecting how I felt: we are stuck between tradition and modernity,” she said in an interview here....
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 22:20
SOURCE: AFP (5-29-07)
The 100th birthday of artist and feminist icon Frida Kahlo will be honored with the largest-ever exhibit of her paintings, the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico said Tuesday.
"The 354 pieces will be the largest exposition of Frida Kahlo," director of the National Fine Arts Institute Teresa Franco told reporters.
It will also be Kahlo's first comprehensive exhibit in Mexico, she said: After Mexico proclaimed Rivera paintings to be national cultural heritage, foreign owners feared lending her work to Mexico.
Besides one-third of her artistic production, manuscripts and 50 letters that have not been displayed previously, she said.
Works are on loan from Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Nayoga, Japan.
Kahlo (1907-1954) twice married muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and was a close friend of Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky.
"The 354 pieces will be the largest exposition of Frida Kahlo," director of the National Fine Arts Institute Teresa Franco told reporters.
It will also be Kahlo's first comprehensive exhibit in Mexico, she said: After Mexico proclaimed Rivera paintings to be national cultural heritage, foreign owners feared lending her work to Mexico.
Besides one-third of her artistic production, manuscripts and 50 letters that have not been displayed previously, she said.
Works are on loan from Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Nayoga, Japan.
Kahlo (1907-1954) twice married muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and was a close friend of Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 22:14
SOURCE: Guardian (5-29-07)
Kei Kumai, who has died aged 76, was a distinguished Japanese film-maker whose work combined dramatic force with trenchant social criticism. He worked with many of Japan's most famous actors, and filmed a script left unrealised by world-renowned colleague Akira Kurosawa (obituary, September 7 1998). Yet he was neglected abroad, perhaps because he eschewed the fashionable experimentation of such New Wave contemporaries as Nagisa Oshima. Instead, he adopted a style of powerful simplicity, charting controversial themes with rare directness.
Born in the village of Azumino in mountainous Nagano prefecture, Kumai became interested in cinema while a student at Shinshu University. Upon graduation in 1953, he entered the industry as an assistant director. A decade-long apprenticeship at Nikkatsu studios preceded his directorial debut, The Long Death (1964), a thriller based on a notorious 1948 mass poisoning. Japanese Archipelago (1965), another thriller, dealt with the murder of...
Born in the village of Azumino in mountainous Nagano prefecture, Kumai became interested in cinema while a student at Shinshu University. Upon graduation in 1953, he entered the industry as an assistant director. A decade-long apprenticeship at Nikkatsu studios preceded his directorial debut, The Long Death (1964), a thriller based on a notorious 1948 mass poisoning. Japanese Archipelago (1965), another thriller, dealt with the murder of...
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 18:12
SOURCE: Press Release (5-29-07)
"Could the Jews of Europe have been saved?"
Documentary filmmaker Laurence Jarvik boldly confronts this question, exploring the actions and inaction of the Roosevelt Administration and American Jewish leaders and exposing the political tradeoffs that kept the doors closed to Jewish emigrants fleeing the Nazi regime. Requests were made to bomb Auschwitz, set up a Jewish army and construct rescue havens, yet no action was taken.
Containing previously classified information, contemporary interviews and rare newsreel footage, this film is a unique chronicle of important decisions made by the American political and Jewish establishments during World War II. "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? provides a much needed history lesson for all who are either too young to know, or who were never told the facts." (Neil Barsky, Jewish Students Press Service).
Documentary filmmaker Laurence Jarvik boldly confronts this question, exploring the actions and inaction of the Roosevelt Administration and American Jewish leaders and exposing the political tradeoffs that kept the doors closed to Jewish emigrants fleeing the Nazi regime. Requests were made to bomb Auschwitz, set up a Jewish army and construct rescue havens, yet no action was taken.
Containing previously classified information, contemporary interviews and rare newsreel footage, this film is a unique chronicle of important decisions made by the American political and Jewish establishments during World War II. "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? provides a much needed history lesson for all who are either too young to know, or who were never told the facts." (Neil Barsky, Jewish Students Press Service).
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 16:55
SOURCE: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk (5-29-07)
ISLAMABAD: An exhibition of photographs on Russian space history that opened here on Monday features a string of interesting images, among them Laika the dog on board the second satellite launched from earth in 1957.
Russian Ambassador Sergey Peskov inaugurated the five-day exhibition at the Institute of Space Technology (IST).
The 57 photographs put up for display document Russian space history with images that include the maiden earth orbiting satellite, Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space and cosmonaut Yuruy Romanenko seen on a treadmill aboard the Mir Space Station.
Also among the photographs, some of which are in black and white, is that of the Souyz TM 32 spacecraft crew along with the first space tourist Dennis Tito.
IST Vice Chancellor Imran Rahman told Daily Times that Russians had done really well in space programmes and that it was important that Pakistani students learnt from them. “As far as I am concerned,...
Russian Ambassador Sergey Peskov inaugurated the five-day exhibition at the Institute of Space Technology (IST).
The 57 photographs put up for display document Russian space history with images that include the maiden earth orbiting satellite, Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space and cosmonaut Yuruy Romanenko seen on a treadmill aboard the Mir Space Station.
Also among the photographs, some of which are in black and white, is that of the Souyz TM 32 spacecraft crew along with the first space tourist Dennis Tito.
IST Vice Chancellor Imran Rahman told Daily Times that Russians had done really well in space programmes and that it was important that Pakistani students learnt from them. “As far as I am concerned,...
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 15:02
SOURCE: New Yorker (6-4-07)
The social and political upheavals of the nineteen-sixties are the subject of an extraordinary trio of new releases—a pair of documentaries [ “American Revolution 2” and “The Murder of Fred Hampton”] by Mike Gray and Howard Alk, made in Chicago in the heat of the moment and released by Facets, and “The Hours and Times” (Choices), a 1991 drama directed by Christopher Münch.
Monday, May 28, 2007 - 16:31
SOURCE: Sacramento Bee (5-27-07)
It was 40 years ago this week -- to be precise, June 1, 1967, in Britain, a day later in the former colonies of America -- that the Beatles changed the world.
Of course, the Beatles had changed the world many times before, but the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was different.
It was called "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization," one of its tunes ("She's Leaving Home") was credited with being one of the three great songs of the 20th century, and in the week after the album came out, "the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young."
Because those comments were made by, respectively, the Times of London's noted critic Kenneth Tynan, New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein and New Yorker writer Langdon Winner, they signified the acceptance and triumph of "Sgt. Pepper" and the Beatles in the arts -- and...
Of course, the Beatles had changed the world many times before, but the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was different.
It was called "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization," one of its tunes ("She's Leaving Home") was credited with being one of the three great songs of the 20th century, and in the week after the album came out, "the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young."
Because those comments were made by, respectively, the Times of London's noted critic Kenneth Tynan, New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein and New Yorker writer Langdon Winner, they signified the acceptance and triumph of "Sgt. Pepper" and the Beatles in the arts -- and...
Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 20:53
SOURCE: http://denver.yourhub.com (5-25-07)
It usually can't be said that an author is trying to do too much with a book. These days, writers manufacture manuscripts at super-phonic speeds.
Reading books by big name authors like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, and Patricia Cornwell can be like springtime: It's beautiful while it lasts, but then you have to wait through the whole year again for decent weather. And popular books are always fast reads.
An anomaly titled The Historian appeared on fiction best-seller lists in 2006. Written by Elizabeth Kostova, this historical horror novel holds a heavy 600 pages. It isn't a fast read at all.
And with all the time, trees, and ink that went into producing The Historian, an optimistic reader might hope it at least contained compelling characters or an intriguing plot. Unfortunately, those wishes would be wasted. Kostova just tried to do too much with one book.
The Historian is about three historians, who seek to prove Vlad Dracula...
Reading books by big name authors like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, and Patricia Cornwell can be like springtime: It's beautiful while it lasts, but then you have to wait through the whole year again for decent weather. And popular books are always fast reads.
An anomaly titled The Historian appeared on fiction best-seller lists in 2006. Written by Elizabeth Kostova, this historical horror novel holds a heavy 600 pages. It isn't a fast read at all.
And with all the time, trees, and ink that went into producing The Historian, an optimistic reader might hope it at least contained compelling characters or an intriguing plot. Unfortunately, those wishes would be wasted. Kostova just tried to do too much with one book.
The Historian is about three historians, who seek to prove Vlad Dracula...
Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 20:01
SOURCE: AP (5-27-07)
Jane Austen wrote some of English literature's most enduring romances, but she never enjoyed a passionate love affair of her own. Or did she?
A new film and biography suggest that the young writer of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility wasn't the solitary genius long imagined by historians but a free spirit whose imagination was fed by a passionate, ill-fated courtship.
The theory, presented by historian Jon Spence in his book Becoming Jane Austen, has been loosely adapted into a film (Becoming Jane) starring Anne Hathaway and Maggie Smith, one of seven Austen-inspired movies and TV miniseries due for release this year.
Audiences remain entranced by Austen's tales of love and loss, desire and disappointment, despite their seemingly outdated focus on the intricate courtship rituals of early 19th-century Britain.
But was Austen's ability to tap into these universal themes a product of her rich imagination, or was she inspired by...
A new film and biography suggest that the young writer of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility wasn't the solitary genius long imagined by historians but a free spirit whose imagination was fed by a passionate, ill-fated courtship.
The theory, presented by historian Jon Spence in his book Becoming Jane Austen, has been loosely adapted into a film (Becoming Jane) starring Anne Hathaway and Maggie Smith, one of seven Austen-inspired movies and TV miniseries due for release this year.
Audiences remain entranced by Austen's tales of love and loss, desire and disappointment, despite their seemingly outdated focus on the intricate courtship rituals of early 19th-century Britain.
But was Austen's ability to tap into these universal themes a product of her rich imagination, or was she inspired by...
Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 19:47
SOURCE: Charles Isherwood in the NYT (5-27-07)
ON June 10 “Journey’s End” is likely to become the first show in recent memory to come to the end of its journey on Broadway on the very same day it takes home a major Tony award. The production is the favorite to win the prize as the best play revival of the season and is nominated in several other categories. But the producers have already set Tony Sunday, the industry’s annual festive rites, as the closing date....
What gives? A clue might be found in the fate of “Letters From Iwo Jima,” the acclaimed Clint Eastwood movie from last year. Few films were more enthusiastically reviewed than the second half of Mr. Eastwood’s somber diptych about the fiercely fought battle between American and Japanese troops in the waning days of World War II. But audiences gave it a skip, despite all the critical hosannas and Mr. Eastwood’s status as a popular star turned bona fide artiste. The same fate had already greeted “Flags of Our Fathers,” which focused on the same battle from the...
What gives? A clue might be found in the fate of “Letters From Iwo Jima,” the acclaimed Clint Eastwood movie from last year. Few films were more enthusiastically reviewed than the second half of Mr. Eastwood’s somber diptych about the fiercely fought battle between American and Japanese troops in the waning days of World War II. But audiences gave it a skip, despite all the critical hosannas and Mr. Eastwood’s status as a popular star turned bona fide artiste. The same fate had already greeted “Flags of Our Fathers,” which focused on the same battle from the...
Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 17:15
SOURCE: NYT (5-24-07)
December 8, 1941, is not normally known as a day that will live in infamy. That phrase of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s usually refers to the preceding day, on which the American Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor was savaged by a surprise Japanese air raid. But “Pearl Harbor,” the war novel that is Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen’s latest foray into what they call “active history,” deliberately calls attention to the fact that Japan and Hawaii were on different sides of the International Date Line.
When the attack began, it was Dec. 7 at Pearl Harbor but Dec. 8 in Japan. The book is subtly subtitled “A Novel of December 8th” to signal its attention to the Japanese point of view. On the basis of that detail, you might expect a high level of fastidiousness from “Pearl Harbor.”
And you would be spectacularly wrong. Because you would find phrases like “to withdraw backward was impossible,” sounds like “wretching noises” to accompany vomiting, or constructions...
When the attack began, it was Dec. 7 at Pearl Harbor but Dec. 8 in Japan. The book is subtly subtitled “A Novel of December 8th” to signal its attention to the Japanese point of view. On the basis of that detail, you might expect a high level of fastidiousness from “Pearl Harbor.”
And you would be spectacularly wrong. Because you would find phrases like “to withdraw backward was impossible,” sounds like “wretching noises” to accompany vomiting, or constructions...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 17:37
SOURCE: NYT (5-25-07)
To walk through the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal is to step onto a real-life movie set. Cary Grant passes through it while escaping his would-be killers in “North by Northwest.” Jim Carrey grabs Kate Winslet’s hand and dashes across it in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” watching people vanish one by one as his memory is erased. Most tellingly, it is the site of a pivotal moment in “The Fisher King,” when Robin Williams, as a pure-hearted, emotionally unbalanced man, spots the quite plain woman of his dreams heading for her train. Suddenly everyone in the room breaks into a waltz, as this grimy, everyday place becomes a scene of glittering romance.
Its magical role on screen makes Grand Central the ideal location for “Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies,” an ambitious exhibition of films, photographs and sets that begins today in Vanderbilt Hall, adjacent to the main concourse. The project was put together by James Sanders, based on his 2001 book...
Its magical role on screen makes Grand Central the ideal location for “Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies,” an ambitious exhibition of films, photographs and sets that begins today in Vanderbilt Hall, adjacent to the main concourse. The project was put together by James Sanders, based on his 2001 book...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 17:25
SOURCE: Edward Rothstein in the NYT (5-24-07)
The entrance gates here are topped with metallic Stegosauruses. The grounds include a giant tyrannosaur standing amid the trees, and a stone-lined lobby sports varied sauropods. It could be like any other natural history museum, luring families with the promise of immense fossils and dinosaur adventures.
But step a little farther into the entrance hall, and you come upon a pastoral scene undreamt of by any natural history museum. Two prehistoric children play near a burbling waterfall, thoroughly at home in the natural world. Dinosaurs cavort nearby, their animatronic mechanisms turning them into alluring companions, their gaping mouths seeming not threatening, but almost welcoming, as an Apatosaurus munches on leaves a few yards away.
What is this, then? A reproduction of a childhood fantasy in which dinosaurs are friends of inquisitive youngsters? The kind of fantasy that doesn’t care that human beings and these prefossilized thunder-lizards are usually...
But step a little farther into the entrance hall, and you come upon a pastoral scene undreamt of by any natural history museum. Two prehistoric children play near a burbling waterfall, thoroughly at home in the natural world. Dinosaurs cavort nearby, their animatronic mechanisms turning them into alluring companions, their gaping mouths seeming not threatening, but almost welcoming, as an Apatosaurus munches on leaves a few yards away.
What is this, then? A reproduction of a childhood fantasy in which dinosaurs are friends of inquisitive youngsters? The kind of fantasy that doesn’t care that human beings and these prefossilized thunder-lizards are usually...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 15:31
SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (5-25-07)
When you can get ideological opposites like Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich to agree, you know you must have something that will stand the test of time.
That is what George Lucas managed to do with "Star Wars."
The current and former House speakers are just a couple of the two dozen fans and critics who offer their insights into the 30-year "Star Wars" phenomenon in a new documentary, "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed," airing at 9 p.m. Monday on the History Channel.
From the outset, the documentary proves to be somewhat different from the usual History Channel fare. Comedian Stephen Colbert and filmmaker Kevin Smith start the discussion by revealing how "Star Wars" defined their childhood and how "life would never be the same" after they saw the original film.
From there, the documentary expands the "Star Wars" legacy from a childhood fantasy into an enduring yet thoroughly...
That is what George Lucas managed to do with "Star Wars."
The current and former House speakers are just a couple of the two dozen fans and critics who offer their insights into the 30-year "Star Wars" phenomenon in a new documentary, "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed," airing at 9 p.m. Monday on the History Channel.
From the outset, the documentary proves to be somewhat different from the usual History Channel fare. Comedian Stephen Colbert and filmmaker Kevin Smith start the discussion by revealing how "Star Wars" defined their childhood and how "life would never be the same" after they saw the original film.
From there, the documentary expands the "Star Wars" legacy from a childhood fantasy into an enduring yet thoroughly...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 14:58
SOURCE: USA Today (5-24-07)
When he first read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dick Wolf says "it shook me to my core."
"I had been watching cowboy and Indian movies growing up, and this was a completely different view of history -- the first point of view from Indians," says Wolf, executive producer of NBC's Law & Order franchise and spinoffs.
So when Wolf was approached by HBO to produce historian Dee Brown's seminal 1970 work about the displacement and slaughter of the late-19th-century American Indian for the screen, he says he jumped at the opportunity. Six years in the making, the film airs Sunday (9 ET/PT).
Brown's book was not easy to adapt to the screen, and Sunday's premiere is vastly cut back from the big-budget, six-hour miniseries originally envisioned. Wounded Knee cost "well south" of $20 million, Wolf says, and took 39 days to shoot. The story starts in 1876, after the Sioux annihilated Gen. George Custer's troops in the...
"I had been watching cowboy and Indian movies growing up, and this was a completely different view of history -- the first point of view from Indians," says Wolf, executive producer of NBC's Law & Order franchise and spinoffs.
So when Wolf was approached by HBO to produce historian Dee Brown's seminal 1970 work about the displacement and slaughter of the late-19th-century American Indian for the screen, he says he jumped at the opportunity. Six years in the making, the film airs Sunday (9 ET/PT).
Brown's book was not easy to adapt to the screen, and Sunday's premiere is vastly cut back from the big-budget, six-hour miniseries originally envisioned. Wounded Knee cost "well south" of $20 million, Wolf says, and took 39 days to shoot. The story starts in 1876, after the Sioux annihilated Gen. George Custer's troops in the...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 14:27
SOURCE: The Guardian (student newspaper, UC San Diego) (5-24-07)
"Blacks were never subservient to whites?" Kids say the darndest things.
At least, they will after viewing Disney's upcoming "The Princess and the Frog," the unwittingly controversial introduction of Disney's first black princess. Alas, nobody warned Mickey about portraying pre-Civil Rights Act blacks in today's Don Imus world. Now the company has a political nightmare on its hands, and in its continuing efforts to mollify the race police, Disney has rewritten American history against the interests of our nation's children.
In the past, Disney has smartly stuck to the safe territory of retelling European fairy tales, exploring the secret lives of animals and personifying objects. These stories easily avoided controversy. Mickey and Minnie were mice but never multiplied like mice; Aladdin and Co. were all the same race; and the beast didn't eat the beauty.
The backdrop for Disney's newest fable, though, is much different. The...
At least, they will after viewing Disney's upcoming "The Princess and the Frog," the unwittingly controversial introduction of Disney's first black princess. Alas, nobody warned Mickey about portraying pre-Civil Rights Act blacks in today's Don Imus world. Now the company has a political nightmare on its hands, and in its continuing efforts to mollify the race police, Disney has rewritten American history against the interests of our nation's children.
In the past, Disney has smartly stuck to the safe territory of retelling European fairy tales, exploring the secret lives of animals and personifying objects. These stories easily avoided controversy. Mickey and Minnie were mice but never multiplied like mice; Aladdin and Co. were all the same race; and the beast didn't eat the beauty.
The backdrop for Disney's newest fable, though, is much different. The...
Friday, May 25, 2007 - 14:11
