A Brief Rant About Disney Nerd-dom

I'd definitely consider myself a Disney nerd. Not your standard "I like Disney movies for nostalgic purposes," sort of thing, but instead "I'd give my left foot to work at Disney." I'd say it was probably my earliest fandom, for obvious reasons, but only recently did I get more into the culture of Disney, probably within the past two years or so.

Disney fandom is really unlike any other I've participated in. Because their movies are essentially made for children, and because people are first exposed to them at a very young age, it creates a very different atmosphere than say a fandom intended for adolescents or adults, or even a fandom that starts at childhood but is marketed mostly for adults (I'd say Star Wars was under this umbrella, for example.)

This makes the nostalgia factor really large. People have definite favorite movies and characters that they're very attached to. They like certain theme parks. They have large collections of merchandise, a lot of which they've kept since childhood. This can be a really cool thing. It's neat to discuss how your opinions of films have changed over the years, and it's a fandom easily shared with a large amount of people because everyone watched Disney movies as a kid.

The downside is, it can also cause some pretty stupid arguments and comments. Now, every fandom has people who hate certain characters or movies or what have you. But when things are tied to your childhood it stings a little bit more to have them blatantly insulted and also it makes people really stupidly picky about how certain characters are portrayed.

I've learned this mostly through being part of a few livejournal communities and also running my Princess Aurora Tumblr. And oh, do people have stupid things to say about Princess Aurora. An example of the pickiness I just talked about is I get at least one reblog on Tumblr a week that complains about Aurora's dress. It changes color in the movie, from pink to blue, and while it's primarily blue in the movie, the pink dress is used in merchandise and at the Disney parks. This is primarily because Cinderella is blonde and wears a blue dress, so diversifying the dress color helps people to distinguish between the two. Pretty simple solution, I think. But people are crazy about how her dress isn't blue. I've gotten angry messages about it, as though I had some sort of marketing control at Disney. I've seen page long rants about how much people hate Cinderella because she gets to wear a blue dress. These aren't written by ten year olds either, it's mostly fully grown adults (or at the very least teenagers) who are ranting about this sort of thing.

I'm not saying that I dislike the Disney fandom. I really enjoy talking to people about their favorite movies or looking at merchandise or seeing all the cool things to do at Disney parks. But sometimes, it would be nice if people took a step back and a deep breath and remembered that nitpicking marketing decisions isn't what this fandom is about. It's about beautiful movies, childhood memories, and putting just a little bit of magic in your life.