When Disney + released “Raya and the Last Dragon” for streaming premium access on Friday, I had mixed feelings before watching it, given Disney’s track record of its treatment of women and world cultures in its animated films .
Would there be issues of consent, as in the early days of Disney’s animated films, when Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were kissed while sleeping to “save” them? Would anyone be held prisoner just to see his captor’s golden heart and fall in love with him, as Belle did with the Beast? Would white American actors provide voices of characters with whom they have no cultural connection, as happened with Simba children and adults?
“Raya” takes place in a land that was once Kumaandra, a prosperous and peaceful country inspired by the countries of Southeast Asia. He was besieged by a plague, called Druun, which is a faceless force that turns people to stone. The Druun dominates the world so much that with humanity at stake, the last dragon concentrates his magic, creating a dragon gem powerful enough to push the Druun back to where he came from.
“It should have been a great moment of inspiration, where humanity came together around its sacrifice, but instead, people being people, all struggled to possess the last remnant of the dragon’s magic,” says Raya. “Borders have been drawn, Kumaandra divided, we have all become enemies.”
I don’t think Disney intended to release a film about a pandemic that destroys a society in a world besieged by a pandemic and an intensely divided people – but here we are, living with COVID-19, criticizing each other endlessly for all others deal with the situation in the wrong way.
The film exists in a fantasy world, but it comes very close to what we are going through now.
“If we don’t stop and learn to trust each other again, it’s just a matter of time before we part ways,” Raya’s father tells her. “This is not the world that I want you to live in.”
This world in its current state is not the one I want to live in, nor the remains of Kumaandra, but there is something comforting in the film. He used to watch Disney animation by Walt Disney’s “nine old men” team and did not question whether its content was harmful. I watched this movie the opposite way. But it looks different from some of the other Disney movies.
“Raya” hired Kelly Marie Tran, a Vietnamese-American, as the lead actress, and employed screenwriters who are part of the cultures portrayed in the film. Disney has also employed sufficient cultural experts for the credits to have a “Southeast Asia Story Trust” section and has worked with groups such as Laos Angeles, which describes itself as “a progressive and inclusive Los Angeles-based movement highlighting those who identify with any one of the more than 160 ethnic groups in Laos ”and the Khmer Arts Academy.
Early critics pointed out that the film mainly uses East Asian actors from China and Korea, rather than actors from Southeast Asia. But some have also said that the representation they see in the film still looks like a good step.
“’Raya and the Last Dragon’ is much more than just the last Disney movie, at least for me,” Justine Calma wrote for The Verge on March 5. “I admit, I’m not even a big Disney fan But somehow, because of Raya, there is a little girl in me who finally feels seen. ”
Watching this film, I felt the joy of Disney animation in a way that I haven’t felt since I was a child. All I could think of when I saw it on the morning of its release was “that feels right”.
It’s not just visually stunning, or it just has the right mix of characters from powerful women, empathetic men and adorable creatures. Not only does it have animation so real that it sometimes feels real. More importantly, it has the kind of story I really needed to hear after a year living in a hellish pandemic landscape, where my own country seems more divided every day and goodwill towards each other is at what seems to be the point. lower. , at least in my life.
What hit me so much was not just that Disney accidentally made the perfect pandemic movie. It also seems that they are doing it right for Tran, who experienced intense reaction and scrutiny from the Star Wars fandom when she appeared as Rose Tico in “Star Wars VII: The Last Jedi”. The opening scene of “Raya and the Last Dragon” echoes even a kind of “very, very distant galaxy” image, when all we see is a lost landscape and Raya riding through it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “A lone rider. A dystopian world. A land that went to waste. “
It’s almost as if the scene were a nod to Star Wars and Tran’s hellish experience, which made her abandon social media and write a powerful article in the New York Times about what happened. One from which Disney could and should have protected her and the other black actors in the films, as Star Wars co-star John Boyega told Variety.
In this film, Tran plays a powerful woman, not one who has special powers like Mulan, or who needs a prince to save her. She is just a normal person, with intelligence and heart, trying to make a difference. With, of course, a dragon by your side.
The mission is to save the world, but actually to forgive each other for what they consider unforgivable and to reach the enemy, even in fear of danger or retaliation.
“There is still light in that,” says Raya’s father. “There is still hope.” He’s talking about the dragon jewel, but all I could think about was Amanda Gorman’s poem during President Joe Biden’s inauguration. “For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it,” she read. “If only we were brave enough to do that.”