CTSJ 212 Deconstructing Disney

Using critical theory and film analysis, students in this course will interrogate Disney Corporation’s feature-length animated motion pictures. Analysis will include themes and explorations related to gender, race, class, nation, and empire.  In this class, these films will be approached as both a textual, cultural, and historical practice.  As such, students will develop and hone "close reading" skills in relation to the cultural impacts of texts on children.  Additionally, we will focus on the American values and beliefs as they are presented in the films, endeavoring to make the f"strange familiar and the familiar strange" (Spiro, 1990). Along the way, we will discuss some of the most influential and productive critical schools of thought informing film analysis today, including realism, auteurism, feminism, postmodernism, and others. Screenings are mandatory.