Amy Davis's first chapter of her book Handsome Heroes and Vile Villains: Men in Disney's Feature Animation, "On Wooden Boys and Assistant Pig Keepers," talks about boys in Disney movies and their transition into men. The intro to this chapter is two and half pages long and I felt it was very drawn out and could have easily been condensed; however, it is somewhat understandable considering this is a book and not an essay on its own. I also felt the intro did not really relate to the rest of the chapter, or to the Tarzan section at least, which talks more about his relationship with Jane than his masculinity and how it affects young boys. I feel that this chapter relies heavily on plot synopsis, which takes up about four pages of it. After I realized little of importance is written on these pages, I started to skim until I got to content again.
Chapter four had a bit more analysis, but also had some major issues. For one, the main thesis was very hard to find, as well as the "so what" that goes along with it. I am assuming that maybe the end of the chapter would perhaps have the so what in there. I am also assuming that the thesis is something along the lines of villains fitting into the categories that Davis created for them. I like this idea and like how she also clearly lays out the different types of male, human villains, but she doesn't go into much detail explaining what each is and kind of assumes you understand what she means by the labels. Some are self-explanatory, such as "Magically-Dangerous Villains," but others are more confusing like the "Comic Villains."
David distinguishes between the "Enemies of the Earth" villains and the "Comic" villains by saying that the former are evil because of selfishness (not personal) and the latter because of a vendetta against the hero (personal). I understand how this makes sense for the "Enemies of the Earth" because the villain is evil towards an entire group or nature; however, Davis does not explain why a "Comic" villain is evil on a personal level. What about that is comical or "amusing" as David explains "Comic" and "Idiot" villains are for the audience.
I appreciate the back and forth contrasts of Tarzan and Clayton and think this is effective; however, I do not really see where he was going with this point, as in the next paragraph David moves completely away from this idea to talk about how Clayton could be considered the good guy in Hollywood movie (also not naming any specific examples of this). Then at the end of that next paragraph Davis gets back into how Clayton is a foil for Tarzan. This should be at the end of the previous paragraph about the contrasting traits of the characters. Davis also never identifies Clayton as an example of the "Enemies of the Earth" villain, which I can only assume she believes based on the evidence she uses. This is another example of how she strays too far away from her thesis without connecting her body paragraphs back to her main idea.
Despite all of my criticisms of Davis's organization, I do like two of the points she makes. I like that she points out that Tarzan has an American accent even though he was taught English by three British people and gives a reason for why Disney might choose to do this. She suggests that Disney compares Tarzan to the colonized Americans, another place colonized by Britain. Another point I like is how Davis brings up that Tarzan thinks Clayton's name is the gunshot, which symbolizes Tarzan's association of Clayton with violence.
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