Why Kevin Shortsleeve is a Legend

Beloved readers, you are about to acquire a new life hero...

Meet Kevin Shortsleeve...

For class today we read a fantastic piece by Kev called "The Wonderful World of the Depression: Disney, Despotism, and the 1930s. Or, Why Disney Scares Us". While reading I realised that it was probably some of the best academic discourse ever written, not in terms of quality but how questionable it was. Here is my shortlist of Kev's awesomeness.

1. Kev's carefactor = 0. He really does not care what people think. He ranges from calling Disney a Nazi to saying that the Disney Company is based on war-causing principles to relating a story of his experience of Disneyland which borders on libel. All this is conducive to humes - (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Humes).

2. Kev's analogies = awesome. One of my favourites was his likening his characterisation of Disney's empire to String Theory. Therefore, one of the sections of his essay is titled "A Disney 'String' Theory". If that's not so full of pretention as to be hardcore I don't know what is.

3. At least 1/3 of Kev's writing = not his. He literally quotes other writers for most of his essay. He seems to have a particular man-crush on a guy called Watts. Hell, if I were an academic, I'd try to do as little work as possible as well...

4. Kev's evidence = at times very questionable. He uses Scaramanga (the James Bond villain) to assert that Disney was a terrible individual. See the logic yet? He goes on to comment that Scaramanga's island home - which was fully sick - resembles Disneyland because it had tunnels. Nice, Kev. This place also has tunnels - by Kev's logic, it therefore resembles Disneyland:

By the way, this town is called Coober Pedy. It is the furthest one could get from Disneyland. It's a mining town where the weather gets so hot people have to live underground (in tunnels). As a result, all its residents bear a strong resemblance to Gollum.

5. Kev's qualifications = legendary. I could only imagine his CV: "Kev Shortsleeve, social commentator extraordinaire". Here is an excerpt of his awesomeness: "[Kev's] commentaries on children’s cultures are heard nationally on the public radio program Recess." BOOM! Take that kids! You just got commented on - nationally as well! Pretty much the most ineffective qualification I have ever heard. Apart from that, he's also studying at Oxford and got his master's at Florida - a jump of astronomic proportions...

Picture of the day - Grumpy Cat's opinions on this post:

Just Skip This Post - It's Actually Serious

Top of the morning lovely readers,

Yesterday I was vacuuming my room when a thought struck me: why the hell do we still care about Disney (apart from it practically owning our souls)??? Even newborns who have no idea who or what Mickey Mouse is are these days adorned with onesies decorated with pictures of him and all his friends (see some of the more humourous pictures I found). But why does he have such an influence - on both the young and the old?

The funny thing about this one is that the kid actually looks like Yoda

This kid's parents obviously think they're funny...

I found this child's sleeping position fantastic - Not much else going for this picture...

In class this week we read a piece by Elizabeth Lawrence discussing this lasting impact Mickey has had. If you want to read it for yourself, it's called "In the Mick of Time: Reflections on Disney's Ageless Mouse". But my summary's going to be better so I wouldn't bother. Also if you're a college student, you live for reading summaries...

What stuck out in the article is that Mickey is more than a friendly character in a film - he is an ideal to which we all aspire. Young children can relate to his youthful character and personality, but his persona represents so more. He is the epitome of ageless enjoyment, a feeling of youth that all people can relate to matter what their age. A particularly interesting comment that Lawrence makes is that Mickey outlived his contemporary counterpart, Felix the Fox (never heard of him either...) because he represented an image people were comfortable with. While Felix was made of sharp, angular features, Mickey was made of comforting circles - a shape which has "never harmed anyone"...

Speaking of circles, such as those of life, here's the picture of the day: 

NONE OF THESE PICTURES ARE MINE

That Kid Who Lives Down The Hall

Hello again dear readers,

While shotgunning my early morning coffee, the realisation struck me that I had made the unjustifiable mistake of failing to provide a link to my hallmate's blog (as he had done the same for me - thanks for the ONE additional page view...) Anyway, suffice it to say the woe elicited by this thought made me choke on my coffee (whether or not this was actually caused by the coffee tasting like it's laced with ipecac is still up for debate). Therefore, here is the link to his blog:

http://drewdecodingdisney.blogspot.com

Some quick comments: he talks about Disney more than I do (that is, he has mentioned it), he seems to be obsessed with that rather rotund kid from Up or whatever it's called, he is actually considerate in what he writes, his background is some random Toy Story poster just repeated in a number of dysfunctional tiles - very unprofessional - and, finally, there are no pictures of Grumpy Cat...

To ameliorate this heinousness, and because I have some time before my next class, here is a picture of Grumpy Cat poorly photoshoped onto my hallmate's body. Enjoy...

UPDATE 10:17, 21/1/14: Was just asked by said hallmate "Why don't you get a wallpaper for your blog???" My response summarised my views on his blog, "Because there is no picture on google images which is awesome enough to justify my even considering its inclusion..."

UPDATE 10:33, 21/1/14: He just updated his background to some weird tessellation of pictures of Disney - were I an epileptic he probably would be on file for a murder charge by now... 

BOOM! Bookbagged that ****!!!

Greetings dear readers,

It was exactly 7:00am one morning when my speedy mouse-clicking skills actually came into use for a purpose other than achieving the coolest headshots ever seen. I gained a place in the esteemed 12-man team of the Writing 101 course 'Decoding Disney'. I was excited as all hell: not just because a couple of my friends missed out on the class and ended up in  'The ecology of migratory species' (this is actually a class...), but because I knew this was going to be a fully sick semester. The big question is 'Why?'

Apart from obviously being more interesting than the other (compulsory) subjects, Decoding Disney (DD because I'm lazy) engaged with matter pertinent to the world we live in. For example, did you know that Disney has $75 billion worth of assets, including media networks, theme parks, publishers, etc.??? I certainly had no idea, yet we come into contact with each of these entities on a daily basis.

Do we come into contact with the history of the Amazon's decolonisation on a daily basis??? I think not. Could the ecology of migratory species brainwash most of the world's population in the event of the discovery of a mind-control machine??? Maybe... NOT! This stuff is real, it's all around us and it has shaped our lives ever since those weird mickey ears were first forced upon our heads by our unaware parents...

More soon!!!

D-Men: Origins

Greetings beloved readers,

You will be happy to know that you now number above 5 - and at least two of those have come to this blog without me telling them to...
This blog will be all about me and my thoughts on Disney. As I realise that this may not be the most interesting subject matter for many, I'll try to make it as readable as possible by inserting anecdotes and potentially irrelevant pictures wherever I deem necessary.

But anyway, I am writing this blog as a compulsory aspect of a Writing 101 course I am taking. Called 'Decoding Disney', it is about the Disney Corporation and the reality behind the seemingly family- and society-friendly facade it has cultivated over the past century or so. Most of these posts will be discussing this topic or using it to express my opinions on things. Usually I am not too much of a fan of blogs, mainly because most of the blogs I have ever read were simply uninteresting people discussing their uninteresting thoughts. Therefore my aim with this blog is to mix things up: the only censor/editor this blog will go through is one of my mates who lives down the hall from me... But most of the time I won't listen to his thoughts - so prepare yourself....

A bit about me: I am an opinionated Australian fairly infamous in my dorm for writing unnecessarily verbose pieces, such as apology letters (more about this later) and complaints about Duke University, particularly the dining system. As I write this I am rocking four stars on GTA:V and wondering what I can eat at 4:00pm on a Monday afternoon. Subsequent blogs will generally follow this outline.

The first irrelevant picture of the series:

By the way, Grumpy Cat is awesome - prepare yourself for more... 

They might actually mention Disney next time - fingers crossed...

See you next time!