The Psychosocial Implications of Disney Movies ed. by Lauren Dundes (review)

The walt Disney Company has reached great lengths in popular culture. Because of Disney's momentous role, a reflection and assessment on how their movies are viewed by, and influence, people around the globe was conducted in this book edition of the special issue of Social Sciences. This book is incredibly useful, pulling from authors in various fields such as education, communications, psychology, music, geography, human development, and children's literature, to provide well-informed analyses on the psychosocial implications of Disney movies.

The first two articles explore how Disney movies portray family dynamics and responses to challenging life events. Each article uses analysis of films from 1937 to 2018 to shed insight on children's ability to gain perspective of their own familial or challenging situations through parasocial relationships they form with the characters they viewed on screen. The results are as informative as they are delightful and interesting to read. Scholars in childhood psychology and human development will no doubt find useful information in these two articles, as would parents who have a difficult time explaining death or other familial dynamics to children.

The next two articles share an underlying theme of race, class, gender, and queerness. In the third article, author Katia Perea explores the use of otherness as a narrative drive and artistic styling in the films Dumbo (1941) and Lilo and Stitch (2002). Heather Harris praises Disney's portrayal of Africana royalty in the films The Princess and the Frog (2009), Queen of Katwe (2016), and Black Panther (2018). Both articles praise Disney for using terms that help create a space for individuals of each community, as well as characters they can relate to on a personal level. Each article provides a lot of information while also pairing well with the films they are discussing. Scholars and parents alike will find great resources for learning and understanding in these articles.

The next three articles focus on Disney's representation of its group commonly referred to as Disney Princesses through the lenses of geography, psychology, and children's literature. These articles use methodologies to help deduce how Disney influences the perceptions of being a girl, paying special attention to both traditional and modern versions of Disney Princesses. Michelle Anjierbag specifically analyzes the ways Disney has and has not approached multiculturalism, coloniality, and womanhood. Each article shares incredible insight not only into the respective fields of the authors, but also into the western hegemonic mediasphere, in which Disney holds a powerful position. Like the ones before, these articles enhance the viewing of the films discussed.

It would be difficult to compile a special issue on Disney films without also discussing the portrayal of music within those films. The following articles criticize the ways the Disney film Moana (2016) and Disney's EPCOT theme park each suffer from western ethnocentrism, often using a western frame for composers to work with. Both articles claim that Disney gives viewers a false sense of awareness of the cultures the company claims to represent, often implying a hierarchy in which western music sits at the top.

The next few articles analyze Disney's approach on gender, masculinity, and femininity, exploring the way the company replaces male leads with female counterparts in an attempt to update the stories for a more progressive viewership. Kailash Koushik and Abigail Reed criticize Disney for trying to profit off of feminist movements by changing roles in films to simply appear more feminist without actually being interested in the movement. Cassandra Primo focuses her article on a film she states is often overlooked in academic literature: Hercules (1997). Her analysis of the tropes, characters, and themes of the film are unparalleled, shedding important information useful to scholars and students, and entertaining for casual readers. These articles communicate with one another, exploring the ways Disney has failed to be progressive, has operated under the guise of progressive ideologies, and has slightly improved in the portrayal of biased...