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True Love's Kiss

DISNEY ROMANCE FROM SNOW WHITE TO FROZEN

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The treatment of gender and romance in Disney “princess” films is explored in this debut essay collection.

The animated Disney film Frozen (2013) may seem like an expression of pure girl power, but can we really, as the song goes, “let it go” at that? Rustad doesn’t think so, noting “a certain insidiousness” to this popular and thus highly influential film. Following this provocative opener, Rustad provides some film theory overview: film offers both the pleasure of looking and ego identification. He then delves into the use of gender and romance in 14 Disney movies that he believes fall within the “Disney Princess film” genre, starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and including not-so-obvious choices, such as Hercules (1997). Giving each selection its own chapter, Rustad asserts that while early films had shallow romances and passive heroines, Disney’s later return to this genre, from The Little Mermaid (1989) onward, advanced on such origins with mixed results. He makes the case for the way Aladdin (1992) conveys “a very positive and healthy vision of romantic love,” yet Tangled (2010) disappoints with “pandering insincerity.” As for Frozen, the sneer put on Elsa at the end of her big song and Hans’ shift to villainy are among the “flaws which at first seem inconsequential next to so much quality work, but really drag the film down upon careful analysis.” An essay on Enchanted (2007), the only live-action selection and only film assessed out of release-date chronology, wraps up this collection, with Rustad praising it as “mature and balanced.” Debut author Rustad, who unfortunately never states his particular credentials, has written a series of engaging if not particularly groundbreaking essays that will be enjoyed by film buffs as well as parents feeding/tempering princess fever. Rustad quite rightly expresses concern about sneaky sexualization (e.g., Ariel’s arched back) and mixed-message merchandising, including Mulan’s warrior heroine “swooning on Shang’s shoulder on the cover of a glittered diary.” Yet he also credits “the ability of children to form their own judgments and values.” Overall, a thought-provoking, evenhanded examination.

Accessible, entertaining analysis via a feminist lens.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5084-1851-1

Page Count: 198

Publisher: New Element

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015

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INSIDE THE DREAM PALACE

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NEW YORK'S LEGENDARY CHELSEA HOTEL

A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.

A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.

Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.

A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.

Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013

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HUMANS OF NEW YORK

STORIES

A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.

Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.

Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.

A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.

Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4

Page Count: 432

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015

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