VID - ***Flawless - Disney Princesses

[kiki_miserychic]

vid title: ***Flawless
music: Beyoncé featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We should all be feminists
source: Disney Princesses movies (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Mulan, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Brave, and Frozen)
duration: 4:11
Disney Princesses Featured: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Anna, Elsa...
notes: I could write notes to fill a novel, but I can't, so ask anything you'd like.
summary: We woke up like this.

download: streaming video
100mb avi via mediafire
tumblr
ao3

Your challengers are a young group from Houston
Welcome Beyoncé, Lativia, Nina, Nicky, Kelly, and Ashley
The Hip-Hop Rappin'
'Girls TYME'

I'm out that H-town coming coming down
I'm coming down, drippin' candy on the ground
H, H-Town, Town, I'm coming down
Coming, coming down, dripping candy on the ground

I know when you were little girls
You dreamt of being in my world
Don't forget it, don't forget it
Respect that, bow down bitches (Crown!)
I took some time to live my life
But don't think I'm just his little wife
Don't get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down bitches
Bow down bitches, bow bow down bitches (Crown)
Bow down bitches, bow bow down bitches (Crown)
H-Town vicious
H, H-Town vicious
I'm so crown crown, bow down bitches

I'm out that H, town, coming coming down
I'm coming down, drippin' candy on the ground

H, H-town town
I'm coming down
Coming, coming down
Drippin' candy on the ground

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, 'You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise you will threaten the man.' Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors – not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.

You wake up, flawless
Post up, flawless
Ridin' round in it, flawless
Flossin' on that, flawless
This diamond, flawless
My diamond, flawless
This rock, flawless
My rock, flawless
I woke up like this
I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell 'em
I woke up like this
I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell 'em
Say I look so good tonight
Goddamn, goddamn
Say I look so good tonight
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn

Momma taught me good home training
My daddy taught me how to love my haters
My sister told me I should speak my mind
My man made me feel so goddamn fine, I'm flawless!

You wake up, flawless
Post up, flawless
Riding round in it, flawless
Flossing on that, flawless
This diamond, flawless
My diamond, flawless
This rock, flawless
My rock, flawless
I woke up like this
I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell 'em
I woke up like this
I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell 'em
Say I look so good tonight
Goddamn, goddamn
Say I look so good tonight
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn

The Judges give champion Skeleton Crew 4 Stars
A perfect score
And the challenger Girls TYME receives, 3 stars
Skeleton Crew, champions once again
Congratulations, we'll see you next week

Comments

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

Blocked in the UK too. Fuck you, YouTube. Thank boobies for downloads and the VVC livestream! I was grinning all the way watching it because it is put together so incredibly well, the parallels and carried motion are a joy to behold.

Very glad to read that it was chosen for in-depth. Need to come back to ask you questions after I've watched it some more times. The thing that struck me off the cuff, though, was that I got quite a cynical tone from the RL girls at the end. As in, Disney has started to push the empowering narrative and a new generation of girls is absorbing that party line as readily as the previous generation absorbed the party line of that time. The product on the shelf may have changed its spots, but the method of selling remains the same. I'm not sure if it's just me reading my own cynicism into it.

[elipie.livejournal.com]

Hi! I just wanted to respond and say that's not how I originally read the ending, but I find your interpretation to be fascinating. Definitely want to rewatch the vid with this in mind.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Another one really liking your reading. And maybe sharing your cynicism? I think I'm too old to see princess outfits and rooms all in pink as empowering, So, in a way, I feel like it's both a step back (in terms of reintroducing the extreme girliness) and a pointing out of limitations where even the new freedom is carefully curtailed?

I can't evaluate the technical aspects like you (or kiki) can, but the cuts from one film to the other with the exact same movements were amazing. It did make me think of some of the stuff recently about limited faces for girls/women in animation? Like, how much of the parallels are ideological and how much are technical?

This is such a rich text, and I love the way the visuals and music/vocals are both parallel and in countermovement. I'll have to watch it a few more times, and I can't wait to hear what in depth vid review discussed.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you and ask away. I'm all for viewer readings being valid, just as valid as what the vidder intended. I certainly intended the ending to be cynical in the sense of no matter what females do, there will always be Ed McMahon there to tell them they're not good enough just like with Girls TYME. They can put a woman on the dollar bill, but then it'd only be worth 77 cents.

I think Disney tries. And fails most of the time, but something is better than nothing and I had to pick and choose what parts to love and what parts to shove into a dark corner. That's with Disney and the viewers.