The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-Tale and Fantasy Past

by Tison Pugh (Editor), Susan Aronstein (Editor)

For many, the middle ages depicted in Walt Disney movies have come to figure as the middle ages, forming the earliest visions of the medieval past for much of the contemporary Western (and increasingly Eastern) imagination. The essayists of The Disney Middle Ages explore Disney's mediation and re-creation of a fairy-tale and fantasy past, not to lament its exploitation of the middle ages for corporate ends, but to examine how and why these medieval visions prove so readily adaptable to themed entertainments many centuries after their creation. What results is a scrupulous and comprehensive examination of the intersection between the products of the Disney Corporation and popular culture's fascination with the middle ages.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Medieval, Essays

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Tison Pugh is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of Queering Medieval Genres and Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature and has published on children’s literature in such journals as Children’s Literature, The Lion and the Unicorn, and Marvels and Tales.

Reviews

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's definitely a medieval studies book. Is it comprehensible to a non-academic audience? Yeeess? I have no knowledge of the area, but I definitely felt like my own, albeit different, academic studies helped me understand it better. I still had to regularly go look up terms.

Regardless, it was a fascinating read for the most part. As a collection of essays, some naturally wee more interesting to me than others. It's a bit heavy on the downside. It takes some focus to not get totally lost. I did learn a lot! And I really wanted to know what these writers thought of the more recent princess movies, seeing as this was a pre-Frozen book. In fact, I noted down which authors I should look up to see if they had written anything on Disney after this book! On another note, It's always a bit disturbing to read things written primarily by Americans about Americans... when you are not American.

,like,,, wow.

[Geoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm... I read this only for Kevin J Harty's essay "Walt in Sherwood, or the Sheriff of Disneyland: Disney and the Film Legend of Robin Hood" which is a perfectly adequate interpretative survey of Disney's RH films - although I'm not convinced The Rocketeer should've been included.

As for the other dozen odd essays: I'm sure there were interesting points made but I can't remember them. And that's the problem, the essays failed to hold my attention despite my interest in the medieval (but obviously not medievalism) - indeed I became bored and it was a struggle to finish.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a scholarly work, so a little on the dry side, but gives one a lot to think about, particularly in the positioning of “Princesses” and what they say about Disney’s capitalism.

[Lín]

I read the preview, and I was not disappointed!

The preview was way more amazing than I expected! I cannot wait to read the entire book… It covers everything you could hope for and more… VERY intellectual analysis yet utterly fascinating and captivating…covering Disney-fied history, or 'Distory' as it is called...