Change Your Image
etfelix
Reviews
Anders als die Andern (1919)
Queer Film History
Though many historians agree that Anders als die Andern was the first Gay feature film, a few have come before it. If interested in early images of Queerness, we can look all the way back to Dickson Experimental Sound Film from 1894! Though only a few moments long, the film is also arguably the very first sound film. Though many have contested that the film may not have been "purposefully" gay, the image of two men dancing together is definitely an image seldom seen or repeated for many years. Sadly, images of queer women seem to be completely lacking in early film (though of course I'd love to be proved wrong). Yet, Anders als die Andern continues to be an important precedent, a treasure that has been able to come out of the vault.
Chicken Little (2005)
Nativism and Exclusion core to "Little" movie
If you are uninterested in an academic critical look at this animated feature, please don't bother reacting the following*.
"The one strong constant and goad in Chicken Little to themes of otherness is ignorance, represented in this feature as misunderstanding. Throughout the feature, it is apparent that this ignorance creates the manifestation of otherness or representation of "other." Chicken Little's sullied reputation and the alien "invasion" are direct results of ignorance: the distance between perception and what actually exists. What is shocking about this feature is how rampant it depicts outcasts while it simultaneously neglects to address society's implications and responsibility for creating them. Chicken Little must ameliorate his loss of credit by adapting to societal expectations of "normal," "good," and "popular" when it was society who lost him his status initially. The townspeople make peace with the aliens only when the aliens reveal their true appearance as cute, cuddly, and non-threatening. It is not the ignorance of the individual that is to blame for all the misfortune in this tale, it is Society's. Societal assumptions are what define otherness. Chicken Little was not considered "other" in the original fable, only a simple-minded individual, responsible for his own actions; yet with the way Chicken Little's identity is constructed in Disney's adaptation as town pariah, we can no longer force individual morals of responsibility on the character because the tale has changed in scope. It takes a group to create a pariah, thus the moral must address society in general. Identity construed by societal assumptions is often far from how the group or individual would define itself. As history has shown us, these societal assumptions have led to horrible implications such as mistrust, avoidance, exclusion, and yes, even mass "vaporizations" of groups considered "other." Far from addressing these problems, Chicken Little teaches children that what happens as a result of mass ignorance is laughable and forgivable."
*this is excerpted from an essay I wrote entitled "Chicken Fried Chicken" and may not be used or reproduced without consent