The story is that a sweet forest girl named Giselle (Amy Adams) meets her true love, Prince Edward (James Marsden), while he is taking down a giant. Edward's evil mother, in the form of an old hag, pushes Giselle down a well into "a place of no love and no happy endings." Once in New York City, Giselle is greeted by sarcasm and hate until Robert (Dr. McDreamy) allows her to stay in his house for a night. I'll end my summary here, so I don't spoil the predictable plot.Enchanted is cleverly written and beautifully animated. Obnoxious songs pepper the film, but since the premise is "Disney making fun of Disney," the soundtrack works. Amy Adams plays the role of a ditzy and naive princess-to-be flawlessly and James Marsden executes the part of a dumber than dirt prince without a hitch. Patrick Dempsey...well he's gorgeous as always. It's from the feminist standpoint that this movie begins to fail.
Disney has a long tradition of giving twisted ideals of women. All the Disney Princesses have a waist size of about 4 inches and a cup size of D, D for Disney, and most Princesses were either trapped in some situation and could only be freed by a prince, loved to clean, or sewed in their free time. Their newest movie is no exception since the women are either entirely clueless or evil and ugly, while the men are all hunk-a-licious and brave. While Disney puts in a few clever pro-women twists (like having Giselle attempt to save Robert at the end, or making the heroic Prince Edwards have an IQ of 80), overall, Enchanted fails the feminist test, making Enchanted just another notch in Disney's patronizing belt.
Movie Rating: ♀♀♀
Feminist Rating: ♀
7 comments:
I would give this an additional half ♀ in the FemRating for the ending.
However, that "How Does She Know" song went on and on for upwards of ten minutes. That could be grounds for removal.
Yeah, that song was a wee bit long. The choreography was brilliant though. I haven't seen a gigantic dance routine like that since... well since High School Musical 2, but I refuse to give that "movie" any credit.
But I love High School Musical 2! However, I will not be seeing Enchanted. James Marsden is a talent, and Patrick Dempsey is dreamy, but the movie reinforces the same stereotypes that it is mocking.
that was such a good movie! and the dresses she made were to die for, and the singing really amazing. i have to disagree about how you said it was anti-feministic. disney was clearly making fun of sexist fairytales. Giselle in the end realised how her former life had been wrong and stood up for herself. and plus, Robert was feeding his daughter stories of, not classic fairytales, but empowered women.
Anonymous, I did LOVE the part where Dempsey gave his daughter a book of powerfull women! It made me sad how the girl rejected it, but I was happy with the director when she brought it back in by having Giselle read it. (maybe to influence her transition into being more powerful)
well, I just like the dresses Giselle made...
Thank you for getting part of it, but how is no one talking about the psychological feminist perspective! There is blatant Electra complex stuff going on here, and if the movie weren't being comedic and tongue-in-cheek about Disney princesses, Giselle's childishness would get really creepy, really fast. It was creepy to me, even as a comedy.
Someone said in another review that they were oddly disappointed that Giselle didn't end up with Edward, thought they weren't sure quite why.
I think I know the reason. Cause Edward is actually kind of her peer compared to Dr. McDaddyIssues.
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