I Mustache You A Question...

What do you think of the latest change to Disney's dress code? While male employees were allowed to sport well-groomed mustaches beginning in 2000 (followed by cornrows a few years later), the newest change allows men to have beards and goatees, provided they're clean and professional looking, of course.  The company's last alteration to the "Disney Look" came in the summer of 2010, when female theme park employees no longer had to wear pantyhose!  In honor of this revision to the Disney Look, The Daily Beast compiled a list of Disney's "craziest corporate rules" which you can also find more information about in Janet Wasko's Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy in a chapter titled "Corporate Disney in Action" (though it's a bit outdated now, given the recent changes to the dress code).

For All of Your Happily Ever Afters...

Last fall, Disney Fairy Tale Weddings and Honeymoons added a blog to their site, the appropriately titled Ever-After Blog. With features such as "Wedding Cake Wednesday" (check out the scrumptious Wall-E wedding cake or this cute Scrabble cake), the blog showcases the countless ways the Disney Weddings team can make your fairy tale wedding come true. If you want a wedding fit for a princess, the blog has plenty of ideas Disney brides and grooms can replicate, from a Rapunzel-inspired dress and  Cinderella Platinum Anniversary Gown to a Tangled-themed wedding. "Real Weddings" features couples who have been engaged or married at Disney (or whose engagements and marriages were Disney-related, like this adorable proposal based on Up), as well as couples who renew their vows or celebrate major anniversaries at Disney, like this couple commemorating their 50th anniversary.

Are you all sitting comfortably?

Maybe we should try some improvisational storytelling on Wednesday!

What's Wrong With Cinderella?

Peggy Orenstein goes beyond wicked stepmothers, fairy godmothers, and glass slippers to examine the cultural impact of Cinderella and the pink-saturated princess culture that Disney (and other corporations) has helped create and fuel. This New York Times article is the basis for her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, mentioned in an earlier post.

Cinderella & Culture

Cinderella is more than just a fairy tale. According to Wikipedia,

"The word "cinderella" has, by analogy, come to mean one whose attributes are unrecognised, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect. The still-popular story of "Cinderella" continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media."

And, according to our friend Wikipedia, these cinderella tropes and themes have also had an influence within the field of psychology:

"The Cinderella complex was first described by Colette Dowling,^[1] who wrote a book on women's fear of independence, as an unconscious desire to be taken care of by others, based primarily on a fear of being independent. The complex is said to become more apparent as a person grows older.

Colette Dowling attempts to define women as being motivated by an unconscious desire to be taken care of as a fear of independence termed "Cinderella complex". An important aspect of the work can be defined as identifying an aspect of a larger phenomenon as to why women choose to stay in dysfunctional relationships."

And:

"The Cinderella effect is a term used by psychologists to describe the high incidence of stepchildren being physically abused, emotionally abused, sexually abused, neglected or murdered, or otherwise mistreated at the hands of their stepparents at significantly higher rates than their genetic counterparts. It takes its name from the fairy tale character Cinderella, who in the story was cruelly mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters.The effect has been called "one of the poster-children of evolutionary psychology".^[1]

South Park 'n' Mickey Mouse

Below is the South Park Studios description for the episode...

South Park: The Ring --- Original Air Date: 03.11.2009

Thinking it's his way into her heart and other body parts, Kenny takes his new girlfriend to a Jonas Brothers concert. His dream of taking their relationship to the next level is crushed when the Jonas Brothers give them purity rings.

Tags: Jonas Brothers, Kenny, girlfriend, Tammy Warner, concert, purity ring, Mr. Mouse, sex, Cartman, Butters, Stan, Kyle, B.J.

watch it at South Park Studios here.

On publishing, and disney, and rejections, and more...

What we have here is something that will be of great interest to Tim Burton fans.
I also suggest that you peruse the comments, because internet arguments are teh funnehs.