Post by That Duckfan on Feb 13, 2021 12:54:39 GMT
Yes, Eilonwy doesn't get as much of a role as she deserves, but I do still like her as a character. On the others you name: I have yet to see The Aristocats, and I don't count Mary Poppins as an animated feature. Alice, well, sure, I suppose, it's interesting that I'll think of a cute little mouse (two cute mice!) before I'll think of Alice. I think you described the issues well in your review of Alice in Wonderland. She's a solid and attractive character on her own, but she gets swallowed up in a welter of fantastic sequences, one dream-logic obstacle after another, until you're detached from Alice's predicament. I don't have any sense of caring about Alice at all. But then, I didn't much like the Carroll books, either, except for the wordplay, the poems and the great one-liners.
Disney is definitely more boy-oriented. Pinocchio, one of the very best movies in the canon, probably has the worst male/female ratio of any Disney movie: the only women in it are Gepetto's pet cat and fish!
I don't blame you for forgetting about Alice, her movie is pretty much designed for her to be the least interesting thing in it. I take a more meta level: everything we see in the movie is a figment of Alice's imagination. We can see her dreaming near the end of the movie, and if I'm not mistaken she actually sings about some of the character in her song "In a World of My Own". That makes possibly the most imaginative character in all the Disney movies, even if we see it from a different angle.
I skipped over Peter Pan because it has all the wrong messages, but I do think Tiger Lily's got spunk. If only she had more a role. Jury's out on Tinkerbell.
I'll have to re-watch Lady and the Tramp sometime with a particular attention to Lady as a character. She doesn't stick in my mind at all in terms of her individual attributes. Tramp is a well-rounded individual, but I find I can't describe Lady except as a civilizing influence.
I completely skipped over One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but I rate the meet cute between Roger and Anita Radcliffe very highly. She doesn't get a lot of screentime, but she's a bookworm and I like her attitude. (And unlike Belle, we do actually see her reading.)
So yeah, after all that time, Miss Bianca is certainly a fresh wind. Of course, Eva Gabor had already played Duchess at that point, but Miss Bianca plays more to her type's strengths. Olivia is not a character I recall easily, much like Penny (and the upcoming Jenny), she's a young girl voiced by a young girl, and we still haven't reached the era where Disney's child actors are actually convincing.