Barbie: Fairytopia vs. Disability Tropes
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
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Just wanted to compare this to the ending of Encanto where Mirabel doesn't recieve a magical gift at the end because she was the gift all along, and there was never anything wrong with her
Mirabel it's the conductor of the magic like abuela was, that's why when Mirabel fight against abuela the magic fell apart
@@marcaricosdasestacoes6316 Oh Yeah, for sure
@@dawntavishflynn8802 yeah. That is For Sure. Mirable is the new abuela
I would’ve rather had mirabel have a gift then Barbie getting wings that’s like making someone that can’t even walk be able to walk they’re not gonna know how to walk they’re gonna need to learn like physical therapy and all that I think
@@Jgumyjymghjvmhvj Mirabel getting a gift would ruin that movie utterly and entirely
Even if we pretend that the wings are assistive device it’s weird that she got it just now. It’s treated as a reward when it shouldn’t, because they are needs and not prizes to win.
Elina seems to live in a small community in a rural area away from the guardian fairies. Maybe this assistive device wasn't known to fairies in this area, and was only known from the guardian fairies. The guardian fairies didn't even know of Elina's existence to be able to help her, before she saved them. The first encounter was made when they were in danger! So she saved them, they encountered her and gave her the assistive device (aka the wings). The timing was just bad...
Actual magic seems like an exclusive skill or knowledge in the world of Fairytopia. We don't see anyone beside Azura and Laverna do anything magical in the first movie, in Mermaidia we see no one DO magic only use magical tools, and in the third movie we actually get an exclusive magic school for the guardian's apprentices.
@@pinkglitter93 but Topaz was the guardian of the magic meadow
@@missdeer_d1437 Yeah she was, but she probably didn't know every fairy personally,
@@missdeer_d1437 true but we don’t know if Selina ever spoke with Topaz. Just because you live in the same town as your mayor doesn’t mean you’re close with them. You may know where they live if something bad happened or know how to contact them but, that doesn’t always do much. My school had a principal who wanted to help special needs all the time but was never given the means of doing so because of a lack of information at the time.
They could have ended the movie with Barbie getting the necklace and, instead of wings, it gives her something like Rainbow Magic that can make bridging paths with for easier mobility? That way she would have kept her disability, reinforcing the weight of her big moment rejecting the villain's offer, while also making the rainbow in her eyes even more relevant. Getting the wings just feels like something that would please the kids because "ooo pretty wings! I wish _I_ had wings! wheee!" and doll marketing (because you _know_ they're not gonna try and sell a barbie from a fairy line that doesn't have wings. that's the whole gimmick of fairy dolls).
EDIT: Also, it really sucks that magic for giving a fairy wings was just...out there. And no one was gonna give those wings to Barbie because she hadn't "earned" them by saving the entire fairy population. If we _do_ call Barbie's new necklace wings an "accecibility device" then that means, in Fairyland, the only thing that makes you "worthy" of accessibility is crossing foreign and dangerous lands in order to save the entire world. Then and only then are you granted your medication/wheelchair/prosthetic/wings/whatever.
I honestly think Elina not getting wings could be more so seen as a systematic failure than having to risk your life to get them. It seems like Elina lives in a very small and rural community with little contact to higher ups, which might make it harder to even gain access or awareness that there are certain disability aids. I come from a small village and when I see the things some people from big cities can get (and for way cheaper than it would be here because big cities don't have as many monopolies) I'm often amazed about why we don't have that for elderly or disabled people around here. And I also realise how easily individuals can just slip through the system, now if you add that onto how Elina was perceived as "less than" for not having wings it honestly seems like a logistic nightmare for a wingless fairy to even learn about aids in the first place.
She actually gets that bright path magic thing on the 3rd movie by having magic classes and stuff. I honestly aways tought it was weird how she never learned that when younger since aparently she could just do that from the get go.
And she was teached by the guardians on the 3rd movie so lets not gloce over the fact that the guardian in charge of her town knew that magic and purposevely avoided teaching Barbie. Fun -_-
You are right, it does sound cruel.
Lol, too true though. Even though I have a disability as a kid when I watched this movie I was too busy admiring Elina's wings to think about the unfortunate implications. Like legit I was that kid that thought "ooh pretty wings! I wish I had wings!" haha.
I do completely agree with everything u said. When I got to the part in the vid talking abt her earning her wings I’m like wait a minute so she could have gotten wings from somewhere else if she wanted to but no one gave her that option
They could have made the wings artificial and detachable, weren't they detachable on the doll? That would have made kids who had prosthetic limbs feel better
Yeah it would of been nice if she took off the necklace afterwards and the wings came off. And said. "I'll keep these for when I need them."
@Chiinx_ Xo *absolutely.*
I think it was the implication behind getting them when the other fairy put the necklace on her if she take it off the wings are gone so kind of similar
@@ElfsArt24I thought so too!!!! thought she was going to take it off and realize she didn't need them to be strong. I was sooooo annoyed haha
As a kid, my biggest gripe with this movie was the fact that the ending really implied that the enchantress could have given her wings AT ANY POINT before that but just hadn't
me too
Exactly, which reminds me of another disabled experience, having to prove yourself to get help. In the real world, it's hard to get taken seriously, and in some cases, especially with medication, you have to prove that you're responsible with it to get more, and perhaps move onto the next step of a treatment plan or get another type of assistance. But from a story point, I never understood that. Like you just refused wings, why get them? She clearly didn't take on the adventure for a reward anyway.
Maybe she didn't know about Elina untill she saved the world
Yeah I remember when I first watched the movie when I was like seven, at the end I went “WHY DIDN’T SHE DO IT BEFORE???”
I didn't even realise that Elina is disabled in her world. This video has honestly opened my eyes and mad eme realise I have to learn to become more aware of how disability is portrayed in most media.
The ending was extremely disappointing to me because they could have easily given her something like the flower petal wings from barbie thumbelina which would quite clearly read as an assistive device but noo of course they had to "fix" her disability completely
That would have been cool. Like the fairy version of those ostrictch foot prostetics.
She is like an amputee that was given prostetics.
It is interesting how disability is a lot of a social construction.
Elina in our real world would have no problem and not be considered disabled, because our structures and society are built thinking if people like her.
But in HER world, the entire grid is made for people who can move freely on a 3D space, so she, who cant as easily move vertically, struggles.
It makes me think how much of the struggle that disabled people have to go trough is, at the end, completely unecessary.
I never knew the struggle either until my grandma lost her foot and ended up in a wheelchair. She had to move away to a retirement home, so she could go outside when she wants, instead of being trapped in her apartment. Even though she was "ground floor" its wasn't actually on the ground, and there were like 3 stair steps to get to her door.
She could call for this stair climbing thingy, but she had to call at least an hour in advance, so every time she wanted some fresh air had to be planned out in advance, and then it could be like 15 minutes late or early.
Which wasn't great when you're considering an old lady who can't handle if the weather gets chilly. Or, you know, she needed the bathroom.
Speaking of her bathroom wasn't accessible either. It was pretty tiny, and had a high threshold and narrow door. So she had to use this pottychair with a bucket and lid. And had to get transported to some facility to shower until she finally got a place at the retirement home.
But you never consider stuff like that when you can walk.
Tbh its kinda similiar to Scootaloo from mlp:fim. Basically she's a pegasus who's wings hadn't fully grown, making her unable to fly. There are other characters in the series that don't have wings, so in relation to those some would say she's not disabled, but well, she definitely is as a pegasus.
We have a saying in Dutch that has become one of my favourites: "In a land of blind people, the one-eyed person will be king". It very much shows how much what is a disability is based on the society you live in. There is also a Suske and Wiske story showing this really well, where they try to cheer up a boy who recently got wheelchair bound by creating a word that is fully wheelchair accessible, but suddenly the able bodied people can't get around in that world anymore, and constantly need the help of the previously-disabled boy that is now the most able-bodied person in the room, because the world is adapted to him and his wheelchair.
PS: I don't like the king part though. Anyone can be in charge no matter ability/disability.
@@fontanna888 What bugs me about Scootaloo though is that they made it her main personality trait to want to not be disabled. I get it if she had some desires and frustrations around flying, but making it her main personality trait drops her in the trope of her disability is her personality again. People have personalities next to their disabilities.
Reminds me of how the walking streets of China are built. They're narrow, smoothed, and have a lot of places to lean against to help your balance. And all because of the history of foot binding that crippled women for centuries so they couldn't walk without extensive mobility aids everywhere.
When I was a kid I also felt disappointed when she got her wings, I didn't know why at the time. Another instance of a wingless fairy but who doesn't get wings at the end is Disney's Rani (loved her).
Rani's story was honestly amazing, to be honest.
Yes!! She was my favorite as a kid
Oh wow. Seeing Rani just unlocked memories
But there’s also Tinkerbell, who gets a disability for five second and then gets cured by the magic of twins
What show is Rani from?
also love how bc they just make Barbie able to fly, the later films are full of places that would have been a nightmare for her to access without wings, meaning the fairy world is still a deathtrap for non fliers. While nobody should have to save the world to get accessability it could have been nice if the whole not being able to fly for a while thing had made the fairies take a second look at how they build their homes and cities and as a side result Barbie now could go places without worrying about falling to her death, would have been at least a lot nicer than them just stapling some wings to her back and calling it good
There's also another disabled fairy in barbie movies. In "Barbie Mariposa and the fairy princess", princess Katania had her wings injured as a child and therefore could not fly. It was an interesting story, but of course, in the end Katania magically recovers and just. flies again. with no magic. She just 'had to try herd enough '. If you would be willing, I'd be curious to see your take on this movie,and especially Katania.
Ouch, I actually remember that one… x)
It’s almost even more insulting than the Fairytopia movie.
From what I remember, Katania's wings had healed a long time ago but ever since the accident she'd been too scared to fly again
That was more of a fear than a actual disability.
It's more of a rehab analogy tbh. Obviously it should take more time but I think Mariposa 2 is like an hour long or so? So I guess the writer just didn't really set the timing right
Well I mean it's a world of fairies and magic. Disabilities such as that wouldn't be hard to fix because magic exists
You know what would have been better than her own set of wings at the ending in my opinion? An actual mechanical flying or glider device, that can be removed at will but used to reach difficult spots. And it's explicitly not magic and referred to as a prosthetic or device. It would reflect the real world at a comfortable level at my opinion. It's more akin to being born without one leg and using a prosthetic leg or cane rather than magically regrowing a limb that wasn't there. (Btw I am able bodied so if this take is insensitive please let me know)
I don’t think mechanics exist in that world, it’s more of magic and big flowers. So maybe they can make a type of gliding gears made out of flower petals or leaves like they did in thumbelina. In terms of physics, I don’t think the gear would help her fly up but more of safely and slowly land on the ground.
yeah that plus everyone getting together to build stairs and elevators and other accessibility stuff. cause now they know what it's like to not be able to just fly up to your house that hangs from a giant tree. and if Barbie could be born without wings, or magic curses can take your ability to fly away, who's to say it'll never happen to another fairy.
Reminds me of the gliders in genshin
Like the avatars glider would be cool
Similar idea: why not give her the service of a companion butterfly or moth to ride on? Like Hue?
while i never thought about this from a disability perspective and didn't bat an eye at elina being given wings (i was only a little confused because why are they treated as better than whatever laverna was promising), i definitely found it a little lame and cheap how she got a new pair of wings in every movie. it made so much of what made the first movie so distinct go down the drain. not to mention how the main conflict of either sequel wouldn't change if she remained wingless
Nah with regards to the third one there is a direct consequence. Elina wouldnt have been able to participate in the ritual which does require flying. The second maybe less but flying was something elina desired for long so her giving up her lifelong dream which she got just a few days or even hours ago was a big thing.
@@msk-qp6fn i get what you're saying, but in second movie the main problem isn't about her no longer having wings, it's about her no longer being able to go home. she doesn't even spend much time flying around, so that would be an easy change.
third movie would definitely be harder to tweak, but you could still swap out flying class for something else. or let elina find an unique way to pass it. if i recall, the whole point of the climax was that disciples had to step up and work together to save their land.
also, please don't get me wrong, fairytopia (the first movie) was probably my favourite barbie movie up until charm school came out. i still enjoy it, but i don't think that wings were this necessary unavoidable addition
@@chekhovs_gundam i mean they sell dolls for it thats why i think they made barbie always have this transformation moment to promote a doll.
First movie: First set was given by the enchantress through a magical amulet. Comparable to an amputee being given prostetics.
Second movie: She was basically mutated by that magic fruit, her wings kinda resemble fish scales
Third movie: Her wings were mutated by receiving tons of magic from other fairies.
5:00
As a Jewish person myself, my take on these fungus dudes are pretty benign. These just look like generic goblins, and without specific references to stereotypical shit like banking (I'm looking at you Harry Potter) there's nothing wrong with ugly goblins.
Loved your video! Glad to get your perspective content like this. :>
... you just opened my eyes on the harry potter ones i forgot about them
@@alessiaagazzi8605 yeah that's fucked
wait... whut...
goblins = jews?
My god why did i never know know/ see that. That makes too much sense now i think about it.... wow.....
@@ElynevanOpzeeland definitely wouldn't say that. to clarify, i personally think most goblins are fine. I'd only say nazi depictions of jews as goblins are the only universially bad goblins. there's a strong argument to be made that having your goblins be shrewd, spectacle, bankers is a fairly clear reference to those nazi stereotypes.
-goblinlover42
i hate when people see a character with a big nose and immediately think 'jewish stereotype' like, you're the one being antisemitic for thinking that right away the hell 😭
For me, Bibble was my favorite character *only* because he was annoying.
Yess, same
I LOVED BIBBLE and yes, the annoying part was the charm
I find Bibble more adorable than annoying lol
She should‘ve had either paralyzed, malformed, broken or stunted growth wings so they could have kept her disability and the punch of “I don’t need your wings” while also being able to please Mattel with a fairy toy line.
Yeah, it'd be like scootaloo from mlp, she has wings but they're small, too small to fly with, but she still has them. She's also a good kids show disabled character
Similarly I think of tinker bell and the secret of the wings
Spoiler
Something I alway think about
What if tinker bell never healed her wings. As someone disabled due to an accident as a child for a brief moment I saw myself in her more than I did at the earlier movies.
She would’ve used her ingenuity and creativity to move around easily
Tinker bell are my comfort movies growing up and now
Spoiler
But then continuity would have been ruined (as events of Tinkerbell movies happen before Peter Pan)
The Winter Lord fairy never "healed" though...
Because he didnt have a twin i guess 😂
The need to sell multiple Barbie dolls ruined the ending of this movie.
BIBBLE CULT SHALL NOT STAND FOR THIS INJUSTICE, WE WILL HAVE VENGEANCE!
What could have also worked as an ending is her accepting the necklace at first, but then considering it for a moment before taking it off completely and kindly telling the Queen she doesn't really want it, that she is comfortable with her way of life and perfectly happy the way she is because goddamnit she just saved an entire kingdom from its downfall by an evil sorceress without them, why would she need them now? Or have the necklace only activate her wings when she falls or needs to reach far away or high places, depicting it as a disability aid, as said in the video. Or just no wings at all, that works too.
Fairytopia's ending reminds me of that one Tinkerbell movie where at the end, Tink's wings freeze and break...but then because she has a twin, her wing is healed through magic twin wing powers. I always thought it would have been cool to keep Tink with a broken wing especially because as she's so technically-minded, she could probably create tons of assistive devices to get around Pixie Hollow. There's even is already a fairy with a broken wing who gets around on an owl!
While that would be cool, I don't think it wouldn't work for that movie and other titles were of her life before meeting Peter Pan and gang so sooner or later she'll have to fly with her wings again to remain consistent with the cannon of Peter pan.
Hay, idea. Can we please discuss the misrepresentation of people with ADHD in media? It's like people try to either play up for laughs, or never actually seen as a disorder. Media pushing the pills is all you need. One of the more recent examples is loud mouth. But Simpsons also did this in early years.
Omg as someone with ADD/ADHD-I, yes please!
@@shepherdbrooks7609 yeah, and to make it wrose there's only two reactions you get from adults where I live. They try to act like you only make up excuses or overly try to help making you feel dumb.
@@djsanbornsan1291 painfully accurate 😞
My friend recently figured out she has ADD and I've been diagnosed for years, so we do have a lot of fun with it.. I feel like there's a lot of humor to be found in any kinda disorder, but it's kinda annoying that it's only "I'm talking and ohh, look a butterfly.." I don't think there's anything wrong with doing jokes about it, but it'd be preferable if more media would laugh WITH the quirky bullshit we have to deal with and no AT it.. That being said, I never make jokes about ADD or ADHD to someone that's neurotypical, because I know it'd go over their heads..
My biggest tweak about the ending and her getting a necklace that gives her wings is the fridge logic that they could've just given her one to begin with. They show Fairytopia to have a functioning society, someone in their little meadow could have put in a request to whoever makes these special butterfly necklaces because a fairy was born without wings and solve it.
It's the handicap of limited mobility (for a fairy), but with a solution as stupidly easy as needing glasses if you're nearsighted.
There's a book called the night fairy where the protagonist is disabled. Can't believe it took me til now to remember.
But the protagonist wasn't just born without wings, a bat mistook her for a moth and violently bites them off sending the fairy falling down into a walled off garden. Where she's forced to survive. It's almost like fairy castaway but it's a garden instead of an island.
There's bit of strangeness in the beginning where she makes a comment about how they're sure to grow back, which never happens, but I think that can be explained away by her literally being a new born at the start of the book. Those wings are never coming back, kid.
Apparently fairies make really shitty parents so they grow up in the span of a few days.
I loved this book so much I was up all night reading it over and over. Like seriously it was short enough that I read it like three times that night.
I've never been able to find a book about fairies as good as it since. And trust me I've searched.
Eventually I'm gonna have to get over my reservations and just read the tinkerbell books. I've heard they're decent but I'm still sure they aren't what I'm looking for.
I HAVE THAT BOOK! IT'S REALLY GOOD!! LOVE IT!!!
@@littlestrawberryfaery x3 yay! I don't come across many people who even know this book exists.
This book needs way more love
How is it called i want to read it
@@ИмяФамилия-ф2д8ш it's called the night fairy. I said that though.
I remember that book! I was always under the impression that she meant they’d take a very long time to grow back- I think it’s mentioned at one point that they’ve grown a little?
I was really young when I watched this movie and it had always upset me how she ends up getting wings. Like "I don't need your wings" yet there's clearly a reliance on wings in the sequel. I would be fine if the ending was a little different where in the end she took off the necklace because, as she has said before, she didn't need those wings. (I can understand not outright refusal since the fairy is like their queen or something, like she didn't want to be rude)
I think the emphasis is on YOUR wings meaning Elina didn't have a need for LAVERNA'S wings specifically. Not when taking it would ruin the world "for the friends she hasn't met yet."
When I was a kid, seeing this movie made me think that there was some magical "cure" if you earned it. Internalized ableism was rampant in my little baby brain, and with the logic this movie (and many others) gave me I was always looking to "earn" a "cure". I've since been VASTLY more educated and am working on educating those around me who are willing to learn. Your videos help me to see things that are issues in stories when it comes to disabled communities being represented, and as an aspiring writer you've given me a lot of insight for things I never even realized. It made me really think about my own characters who are disabled in ways different to my own. So thank you for discussing these things, I know it's gotta be really draining on many levels, so take care of yourself, I wish you the best.
I really enjoyed Fairytopia (as well as the sequels), but this was really interesting to see from a perspective I’ve never heard from.
Speaking of Wings and Disability allegory's, I would love to hear your thoughts on Scootaloo from Friendship is Magic as a pegasus who can't fly. I feel like there is a lot to unpack and digest when it come to disability representation in children's media and also how the character and the shows representation has changed over it's 9 year airtime.
As it is a long running series, a few episodes that would be a place to start would be "Ponyville Confidential", "Sleepless in Ponyville", "Surf and/or Turf", "Growing up is Hard to Do" and especially "Flight to the Finish", that last one specifically centers it as the main plot of the episode. Love the video and would love to see you tackle this in the future!
I always disliked that she got wings in the end and was never able to explain it and I loved the other Barbie movie where Barbie and Raquelle get wings for their friendship, because like every reasonable child I wanted wings.
So thank you for explaining to me why exactly that was a bad choice.
Interesting to see your take on this! I watched this movie a lot as a kid and was both also reading the disability thing AND disappointed by the ending. I'm not disabled myself but I don't need to be! She just said she didn't need wings like 5 minutes ago!
She said she didn't need LAVERNA'S wings.
@@Marvelsdisneydreamuniverse the implication was that she was fine without wings (shown further by the fact that she was able to save the entire world without wings, even though it was a massive struggle)
@@wren.kitchens but if she didn't had wings duibg the flight of spring then the jop woyld be inpossible for her. And ever thought that Elina's case was the fairy version of "i have been blind my whole life but finally can see".
I’m positive the writers aim wasn’t to approach Elina as a disabled person - hence why she was ‘gifted’ with wings at the end. (Plus every synopsis of this movie I read growing up talked about how Elina always longed for wings so there’s that 🙄)
Yup, when I was a child at the age of 8 years old, she didn't look disabled to me since the disability in her is not taken seriously. In my opinion, they probably made it as "the only fairy with no wings". Besides, does she really have to be those character with no wings and just walk everyday? I believe that's only way for surviving and I don't complain.
-Meanwhile I suffer with borderline personality disorder-
i never thought about this before, but it is kinda strange that the only reason elina defeated laverna was because she proved she didn’t need wings to complete herself... and then the enchantress just gave her wings anyway.
i know, children’s movie and they need to solve her supposed “problem” but it still is disappointing.
I remember being SO mad as a kid when she got her wings! Ah, memories.
I was just happy she got what she wanted 😅
I am sad thát she got wings
It seems you cannot be happy if you hád what things you should 😢
you know, I bet I know the reason why they gave elina wings at the end and it's very simple: merchandising opportunities. because I /distinctly/ remember owning a few toys from this movie when I was young, and "pretty barbie rainbow fairy princess" was IT in terms of mid 2000's girls toys. maybe they did want elina to refuse the wings at the end, but the executives mettled for the sake of toy sales.
maybe it's both this and your explanation; we'll probably never know for sure.
either way, great video!
I just discovered you're channel it's so interesting and I've actually learned some stuff, I'd also like to get your opinion on some disabled video game characters if that's possible like kotallo from horizon forbidden west
Same. I binged this channel a couple days ago.
@@KingOpenReview same here.
Wait do you know does he take requests? Does he ever do books, I've got a series I'd literally love for him to talk about, honestly if he has a Patreon or something I could use to push the request I totally would. The series is called Above World by Jenn Reese, the second book in particular I think is very interesting. If anyone knows if I can and where to make requests please let me know.
@@vamp_bat_chomp What I have observed, people (me included) have posted their request comments on a video's main comment thread. To raise the chances for your comment to get noticed you could wait for the next publication / drop Thursday and do your best to get your comment in among the first on the newest video. The date should be two weeks after this video dropped, so not the day after tomorrow but next week's Thursday.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 thanks for the advice, I'll try that. 😊
My favorite barbie movie is Princess And The Pauper and my younger sisters favorite Barbie Movie is Princess Charm School and I thought it was really funny that you pointed them both out. Anyways- Bibble is a VERY popular Barbie Sidekick, I loved his as a kid but now that I'm older... He's very annoying but I'm sure did AMAZING with merchandise at the time. The Fairytopia movies give me a bad vibe- not because their bad but because the person I watched them with caused a lot of trauma in me so I have a really hard time trying to watch it. Watching analysis videos makes it easier though. I really liked this video.
Also how messed up that they essentially have “prosthetic” wings and it was never an option until she was a hero??? Like what??
Also the fact that the enchantress had the ability to give anybody she wanted wings but only did it when Elina saved the kingdom doesn't sit right with me, clearly fairytopia is basically inaccessible for fairies who can't fly, yet elina had to risk her life before getting the help she needed (thinking of her new wings as mobility aid at least)
I got to meet bibble's VA at a con and because my little sister loved him I got him to record a message in the bibble voice for her on my DSI. hilariously I got a recording of him going 'my voice is so trashed' as he broke character for a second while I was recording it lmao
That’s incredible
5:17
surprising amount of detail and effort put into her mouth movements. theres even a subtle movement in her lips as she stops talking. nice attention to detail.
oh god this opens up many fix fic idea in my head
I don't know if anyone mentions but Raine, from the Disney Fairy books does the wingless fairy better.
She's a water fairy and she had to CUT OFF her wings so she can dive into the water. I haven't read the series in a long time. But I think they did her justice.
This really remindes me of My Little Pony, where it has a similar concept but is better executed: there's a pegasus character who is unable to fly; she obviously is affected by her disability and is the focus of sone episodes, but is just part of her character. Better yet, she never gets "fixed".
Holy cow I totally saw that comment. I can't normally say that when a youtuber has a video inspired by a comment xD what is my life that I'm made happy by this
The whole fairy theme made me remember another movie with disabled fairies. Tinkerbell (the one where she finds out she has a sister)
I am so glad I found your channel. I love your videos and they really help me open my eyes. I've never noticed how media really talks about disability especially with movies like these. When I was younger I would always see disability as something to pity but it's not, it's a normal everyday thing.
Cool thing about these movies, the dolls come before the movie. So the original Elina Barbie doll already had wings. They decided to make it this way for the movie.
I get it but at the same time i would wish they addressed the fact that Elina is still a Wingless Fairy thru and thru. And just also having her remove her necklace to walk around from time to time, since it's the thing that saved fairytopia after all.
But as much as i like certain ideas and the world of fairytopia. Knowing about animation, and taking into account probably everything this movie had to go thru just to have it done in a time crunch is always the thing that disappoints me about it more than anything. THE POTENTIAL WASTED BECAUSE MONEY AND TIME WEREN'T AVAILABLE!!!
This channel is so interesting, it shows a different side of a movie on a another persons perspective.
I love how over half the video is explaining the movie
I may just have High Functioning Autism, but I can imagine how people are upset about the ending of her getting wings of her own.
honestly the way she just put the necklace on without asking reminds me of parents of a deaf child giving them a cochlear implant when theyre an infant, trying to fix something that isnt really broken. except for cochlear implants its something that cant be undone so the necklace was at least a little better
Wonder what you think of Naruto vs disability.
Like how scars aren't indicative of villains
Or how Guy, an hightly athletic person who loves to chalenge run, was healed by the power of gods yet came out needing an wheelchair/crutch for the rest of the series and the new series to come.
And what he does? Chalenge runs while handstanding
Or when two friends lost their arms at the same time, and are offered an near perfect prostetic, the one who lost their dominant hand accepted it and now hides it's weird skin with bandages, while the other, losing a non-dominant hand choose to stay one handed as a reminder of his past mistakes that led him to this point
I appreciate your perspective! I do feel, though, that it's pretty silly to be upset that the enchantress never had a long emotional discussion with Elina to see if she'd like wings or not first, since it was obvious (in Elina's case) that she wanted them already. I think it's a hard line to walk, but the longing to just be "normal" like everyone else shouldn't be completely demonized or considered inherently self-deprecating. It's a very painful area to touch upon, but I think a lot of people completely silence that inner longing just because of how terribly painful it is to come to terms with how things "could have been" for them. It's grief. It's genuine pain that needs to be acknowledged. The longing to be something different from who or what you are is only wrong if you believe you're less than others and need to be like them to be equal. Sometimes that longing is just an expression of grief, not because you hate yourself or the state you're in, but because you realize that you suffered a heavy burden of pain to be who you are and you know how much easier your journey would have been if you had not had to have been through that loss or hardship. Elina wants wings because she thinks they're beautiful and she knows more than anyone else the value of them, but she's not hating on wingless fairies or herself just because she acknowledges she'd like them.
I think the ending is cheap lol but it does speak to our inner desire for "heaven", an ending where no one suffers from loss and we all get our heart's desires 💜
"we all get our hearts desires" -- except us in reality permanently & incurably disabled people who have genuinely accepted ourselves and are happy living as we are. We get erased with endings like that, and that sucks.
For me, becoming disabled likely saved my life and the life of at least one of my children, if not both of them. If I had not developed similar symptoms in my middle age as my eldest child did in their preteens, I might never have really experienced how inauthentic and rigidly imago-centered, immature Nice Guy (TM) my first husband was. Wherefore I might not have applied for a divorce & gotten together with the love of my life, wherefore my kids might never have known an accepting, actually adult father figure.
Working through accepting and loving ourselves, no matter what, is a huge process of immeasurable value. A cure or healing would wipe out most of the meaning of that effort and require a considerable new effort of adjustment to and unlearning, relearning and training the abilities of a changed body.
Unless of course the "healing" also wiped out our memories of having been disabled, but then the offered cure, if honestly described, would have to be approximately: "Do you want to permanently become someone else, while everyone you care about also completely forgets who you are now?"
This idea of not having wings when you are supposed to reminds me of an art piece I did for a fandom. There's this character named Phil in Dream SMP (a Minecraft roleplay series) that has bird wings and that his main form of transportation. He will rarely walk unless he is inside buildings (as he lives in a world in which wings are not the norm), but very early in the story, his wings get damaged protecting his son, making him flightless. I did an art piece celebrating the disabled characters in the story (as there's more than one), and I got a comment saying "I never thought of him having a disability". It makes sense, he is not disabled to our/their standards, he can still walk, talk and do most of the stuff everyone else could, but he is disabled to HIS standards. At one point he said something along the lines "I have been building other ways to move around since I cannot use my wings", and that's clearly a thing that a fully-able-body person wouldn't say.
I’m disabled and don’t want a cure. And a lot of people assume I do
Thank you for the videos about disability tropes. I'm working on writing a story with a variety of characters and some are disabled. Knowing what movies and shows do good representation makes studying how to write the characters alot easier.
As a kid, I always assumed the movie was loosely based on Thumbelina and Elina getting the wings at the end was a reference to Thumbelina getting wings after marrying the prince. But at least in the Andersen story, they were fastened on and came from a fly, so it could be seen as a parallel to organ donation. And it's possible that's just how fairies get their wings in that story's universe.
I kind of agree the necklace would be tolerable if only it was implied Elina could summon and remove the wings at will. This could be seen as a counterpart to using prosthetics.
I wonder if the disability angle was entirely intentional- but was foiled because they company wanted to sell Barbie fairy toys, so by the end of it Barbie “needed to have wings” to make the toy having wings make sense. Like, just the extreme inaccessibility from the fairy town seems so intentional.
It wouldn’t be the first time artistic vision was ruined by the corporation with the money the artist needs to eat.
The minions are just goblins
I'm glad I found this channel. Hearing you talk about these tropes is really getting me thinking. I've always accepted, this is how the story goes, but I never thought about how they could be better.
You may find this useful: other disabled, chronically ill and/or neurodivergent RUclipsrs also talk about representation at times. You can browse this 50+ videos public playlist:
"Disabled & Co people critiquing media, companies, platforms, representation & accessibility"
I have collected it over the last half year or so, and it keeps slowly growing. Maybe a dozen of those videos are Oakwyrm's but the rest are by other English speakers (native or otherwise), from Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 Thank you again. I'm still making my way through the first playlist you sent, but I definitely have this one cued up.
What do you think of the episode S4E5 Flight to the Finish in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? In that episode, one of the characters, Scootaloo, who is a pegasus pony, realizes that her wings aren't growing and she might never be able to fly. The end of the episode ends with explaining to her that that's okay, and I'm curious what your perspective on it would be.
A better example would be with Rudolph and the island of misfit toys when he is offered surgery to give him a “normal” nose, but he is talked out of it and keeps his nose.
Good lord, Bibble! That obnoxious little creature is seared into my brain, I watched this movie so many times with my little sister!
I feel like this sort of "fantasy disability" has got to be an interesting subject to explore, if only because of how the people writing it often don't realize they're writing about disability.
Barbie movies were my guilty pleasure as a teen too lol. I suppose they still kinda are. Idk, I just liked them lol. I watched a couple of them, but my favorite probably was Fairytopia and its sequels Magic of the Rainbow and Mermaidia. I really liked Princess and the Pauper too though, and even had dolls of them. Even though I have fond memories of those movies (and tbh still kinda enjoy them even though I'm an adult) I completely understand what you're saying and unfortunately I have to agree that the movie does deliver a... problematic message, regardless of whether or not it was intentional. I mean I was so happy for Elina when she got wings at the end when I was a kid, it seemed to me a reward for sticking to her morals and saving everyone (plus Laverna's wings were kinda ugly lol) but looking back yeah that does have some rather unfortunately implications.
if i remember correctly, the Enchantress takes the necklace off her own neck. it would be awsome if her wings disappeared. like as if she was wingless as well
I'm not disabled so maybe this take of mine is a bit weird, but we could see Alina getting wings as someone getting a prosthetic limb?
Imagine a person born without a leg, having to use a weelchair and then someone comes to them and gifts them a prosthetic leg. They can take it off and use the chair (walking for Alina) or just keep the leg on and learning how to walk with it (Alina learning how to fly)
IMO it would be awesome IF it was presented this way in the movie: choice to get wings -> fitting them (maybe smaller ones first, alike training wheels on a bike?) -> learning to fly -> adjusting to this new way of moving, maybe home repairs (bigger bed?) -> etc. But they throw away all these possibilities, and that is so wasteful & disappointing!
I am disabled and that’s exactly how I see it. She can take the necklace off if she wants too. She chooses not too because it’s hard to get places in a world built for flying just like how wheelchair people need ramps.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023
Tbh she got the wings at the end of the movie, not enough time to do that. The second movie could of covered it though, but I’ve never seen it so I don’t know if that happened. If not, I do agree it’s wasted opportunity.
@@CandyApples4ever It didn't.
@@abanana_5527 well she WAS a mermaid the whole time tbf
I completely agree why not yes give her necklace but make it not give her wings and or give her a backpack that is wings so she could take it off when she wanted and she had the choice to put it on or not assistive technology is a brilliant thing to touch up on but if it’s something like that she isn’t given a choice to use or not it’s extremely ablest
oddly enough, my introduction to Fairytopia movies started at the second movie, Mermaidia. I had no idea about this movie for many years in my childhood. (In Mermaidia, Elina mentions "I just got my wings" and I remember being like ? huh? hm. anyways.)
It does feel really frustrating when the whole movie is about the character being able to do amazing things without the wings and then the reward is wings. Then what was the point of the whole journey?
On a lighter note, Barbie movies are genuinely just so much fun. In high school, my twin sister and I made a friend who also liked Barbie movies and we had a couple sleepovers where we watched Barbie movies. Good times.
Princess and the Pauper, Rapunzel, Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Nutcracker, Mariposa, Swan Lake, Magic of Pegasus, Island Princess, the rest of the Fairytopia series, A Mermaid Tale, ahhhh my childhood. When my sister and I played dolls, our default villain we named Laverna.
How dare you slander Bibble!! /lh lol the opera singing scene in Mermaidia is a classic.
Wow your interpretation is really interesting and not many would have realized this
But this is what the protagonist wanted at the end of all 🤔
She loved herself and wasn't expecting to have in some way her wings.... But she wanted them, that's why the evil lady offered that, that's why it was so important she didn't want them at the end to save others
But she wanted the wings, that's why they gave her that gift
And in the second movie when she lost it, you can tell she's devastated, and the fruit that she eats basically cemented the idea of how she wants her idealized self to be, a happy fairy with wings, she is still her unique self in the end because nobody has wings like hers, when Laverna gave her that green wings, it also shows in her face how she's not happy seeing it disappear despite defeating Laverna, she's genuinely not happy with herself in the first movie, the Enchantress only gave her what she desired, and not to be too obvious, they're not humans
These movies rubbed me the wrong way growing up. It suffers from the same issue as Rudolph. Protagonist gets made fun of for being disabled, protagonist helps, disability is now useful/fixed, happy ending!
How about protagonist helps, crowd loves them, protagonist sees through the crowd's shallowness as only accepting them for being useful, and they continue to ignore the crowd in favor of sincere friends. Just because the wingless fairy is now seen as the hero doesn't mean those pixies aren't picking on the blind fairy next door.
this! This!! THIS!!!
This is actually something I wish to see more often....but it's less the disney type sunshine and rainbows happy ending the popular media is used to
They could even make the movie in two parts if they wanted the happy ending in both parts. In the first movie, the person saves the day and gets the fake praise, with hints that the praise is only superficial but is otherwise pitch-perfect classic heroic quest. In the second movie, the person realizes the people do not appreciate the actions they took or the reason they fought for etc. and continue perpetuating the same problem that led to the same problems, and therefore that person finds friends that appreciate their efforts and like them for them. This also happens is a quest-like manner.
Thus, you have the happy ending in both parts but the deconstruction of heroism and how people may simply like the heroic figure but not what they stand for or actually champion what the hero fights for but just want a buffer between them and bad actions.
You know, what you said about stories where the disabled character becomes the hero because anyone else gets taken out of commission weirdly made me think about Asta from Black Clover in the sense that it's the opposite there.
In Black Clover, everyone has magic, it's just a fact of life. Even as children people are able to use their magic, and when they turn 15, they go through a ceremony to receive a Grimoire, which allows them to even better control their magical abilities and create spells.
Enter Asta, a boy born without magic. He tried to use magic, but nothing came of it even training his body to the peak of its capabilities in an attempt to maybe unlock some hidden away power. When he turns 15, he and his best friend go to the ceremony to receive their Grimoires... and Asta receives nothing, at first. Afterward out of the ceremony, his best friend gets attacked by someone attempting to steal his Grimoire, and Asta rushes in to protect him, and that's when a Grimoire comes to him, but rather than granting him magic, it gives him the opposite; Anti Magic, the ability to cancel out other people's magic and spells, an ability only he can wield BECAUSE he was born without magic. This ability takes the form a huge broadsword that's stored in his Grimoire, and not does it drain the magical energy of anyone that tries to hold it, it's also RIDICULOUSLY heavy, so someone like Asta whose trained his body his entire life to compensate for his lack of magic, it's the perfect weapon.
And as to how Asta actually uses this ability, Black Clover gets very creative in how it works around a character that in essence can usually level a playing field. Fights aren't a breeze just because Asta can negate everything thrown at him. For example, while he can deflect magical projectiles, he is very much at a disadvantage in distanced combat. I could gush a lot about the show but I'll stop there lol
It's interesting how Fairytopia approaches being wingless compared to the original Pixie Hollow books. Fairytopia just gave us a wingless fairy then gave her wings. Pixie Hollow, a fairy named Rani, gave up her wings to save Pixie Hollow. She was my favorite character. I remember buying one of the books that was shorter and just about Rani I read some of it to my niece a few months back. And damn, they treated Rani differently. The Tinker Bell movies were based off these books but did change up a lot of things but some of the original elements were still there. No Rani though.
When you said that you remember that Elina was the long lost daughter of someone at 4:00 you are thinking of Barbie in a Mermaid Tale which has basically the same plot but it's underwater and Barbie is the long lost child of the Queen of the Ocean and half human.
I just want to say that i'm autistic and before I was even diagnosed this movie spoke to me. It made me feel like it was okay to be different, to think differently and that it wasn't a bad thing if I didn't understand it. Barbie is often criticized for not being inclusive enough but at the time it felt great to have a barbie movie tell me that you don't have to change. The same can be said for a lot of their movies.
i love your vids and there's just so many characters and stories that i think have never/rarely been looked at through the lens of disability. love seeing you look into something i grew up with like barbie :)
i'd love to see your take on entrapta from she-ra and the princesses of power as autistic representation (i think she's got some huge pros but also a few pretty big cons as representation.) i think she might be the first (and only..?) autistic princess character though, which makes her really important despite some of the issues i have with the way she was written.
I’ll be honest, I never saw this one only the second one, mermaid one. Knowing that she was upset (as upset as Barbie can look) over losing wings for a tail, and seeing the thumbnail, imma get the popcorn for the burns about to ensue
the antagonist of barbie fairytopia is the american healthcare system
Bibble hate gives me life. Baba-daba-doobadoo!
Seriously bad implications about the fairy healthcare system if no one thought to get the disabled girl a readily available magic prosthetic device.
But yeah I'm gonna chalk this up to writers not thinking it through and us thinking too hard in hindsight.
My goodness. I completely forgot that I watched these. I don't even remember when, I just recognize the scenes. My goodness, the nostalgia I find on your channel. First, it was Tinkerbell, and now it's barbie movies! lol.
I'm not sure if you take requests or not but if you do I'd really like to see a video on your opinion on Arizona Robbins disability (from grey's anatomy)
I'm surprised you haven't tackled scootaloo from mlp:fim yet
aaaaaa I'm so glad you made this video! my roommates were so excited and watched together!! :D
Happy to hear it ^^
I came into this video completely misremembering the ending of this movie bc I could have SWORN she didn’t actually get wings at the end 😭
It's also reinforcing this idea of disability tied to morality. Since Elina has done a noble thing, she now "deserves" to not be disabled. Just. Huh.
Hey, I know you already briefly talked about superpowers and disabilities, but a good example of a character kinda like Toph came to my head. They're not from a show or movie, but from a video game called Mortal Kombat. The character's name is Kenshi Takahashi. He's blind and wears a red blindfold to cover his eyes. His main weapon is a katana and he has telekinesis if I'm not mistaken. He also has more spiritual stuff that also kinda helps him "see", and other stuff that's hard to explain, but yeah. If you ever decide to dabble into video games, I think Mortal Kombat would be a good place to start since there's quite a few disabled characters in it.
What might've been nice is if they gave Alina wings right from the get go and have them just, not work. That way they could have their winged Barbie doll for the toy lines, AND not fix her disability in the movies. If we want to get extra spicy they could've had her have only one functional wing, the other being permanently paralyzed or missing.
The ending should have been she gets the necklace that gives her wings because thats what they expect he to want but then she panics because she doesn't want wings and it feels weird. They then tale away the necklace and give her a flying car or something like that so she can reach very high places in fairyland.
Elina getting wings in the end is like an IRL Amputee receiving prostestics. Or even better, a disabled person who got an assistive device, which is fine, tho necklaces are probably hard to come by in Elina's hometown, it's a small rural town.
In the sequels, she basically got mutated by that magical fruit, like Stem Cells being used to treat people with deceases, and in the third movie, she got mutated again after receiving an overdose of magic by other fairies.
I hope you make a next video about CODA in light of its Oscar win for Best Picture. I think it would be a perfect subject for your channel!
Elaina getting wings never made sense. Her getting wings seemed very unnecessary for the story and really left a lot of questions. If all it took was a special necklace for her to fly, why didn't she get one sooner? Why aren't they more accessible to wingless fairies. If the necklace comes off, do the wings disappear? Why wasn't there any mention of these to begin with? Did her lack of wings inspire the Enchantress to work on a way to create working artificial wings? Was Laverna actually capable of giving her wings? If some fairies could create wings, why hadn't she gone to see them or been recommended to them? So many questions.
Absolutely ALL of this^
E
They don't even mention the wings in the story book they wrote for summarizing the story.
Elina being born without wings is like the odd few of us being born with a missing limb
It would of liked to see Elina as more as a resourceful person using the world around her to do what the other fairies could do.
Like Arrietti, her small size living in a world made for bigger people.
The world should change to accommodate her than rather her be changed to fit for the world.
Awe yeah, a fellow Princess Charm School enjoyer
I know that's not what this video is about but I heard that and got excited
The truth is that the character was made before the story, the creative team didn’t get to decide to give Elina wings in the end. Mattel said they needed wings because of the marketing. What are the chances it wasn’t the ended they wanted but were forced to write? The movies are made to sell the dolls, not the other way round.
They probably just gave her wings to sell more dolls
Even Thumbelina finally got its wings.
And it's clear that this is the story that Fairytopia is based on.
But I agree, and that's what I'm criticized the film for to my nieces, who loved it.
It would have been much better if they had kept her without wings.
4:00 I don’t blame you- Barbie movies use the “long lost family member” trope very frequently.
oh wow, didn't saw it from this perspective. thx for this video. ^^