Diana Leon-Boys

Bringing together discourses of Latina girlhood and ambiguity, in this article I interrogate Disney Junior’s specific and ambiguous Latinidad in three key episodes from the first season ofElena of Avalor. This type of intersectional analysis is seldom found in Disney scholarship, despite the relative abundance of existing work on Disney-generated cultural production. By analyzing the ambiguity (Joseph 2018) and unambivalent structure of ambivalence (Valdivia 2020) present in Disney’s deployment of animated Latina can-do girlhood (Harris 2004), in this article, I provide an intersectional approach to the study of Disney Junior animated content and Latina girlhood in contemporary popular culture. I argue thatElena of Avaloris the result of Disney’s avowed and disavowed dedication to the construction of Latinidad and can-do girlhood. The result of this is a fluctuation and flexible navigation between specificity and ambiguity within one narrative franchise.

Research indicates that Disney theme parks function as sites of ideological negotiation. This study builds on the research by examining Disney World’s incorporation of its first avowed Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Bringing together discourses of Latinidad, theme parks, and media, this essay focuses on how the park incorporates Elena into its landscape at the level of production, representation, and audiences. I argue that Disney’s inclusion of Elena, and by extension Latinidad, is malleable, situated within the geographic setting, and dependent on various factors seldom disclosed by the conglomerate. Ultimately, Elena exists as an outsider within the Disney park universe.

“Nobodiness does not equate to invisibility, but rather, is a tactical navigation and subversion of the constraints of visibility and the dominant institutions that exploit those constraints for profit and power” (180). This book will appeal to a broad academic audience, including teachers and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, critical race and ethnic studies, American studies, cultural studies, media studies, surveillance studies, and legal studies. It provides strategic insights for social justice activists working on a range of issues who find themselves battling media frames that refuse to reflect the nuance and complexity of intersectional identities and experiences. Fischer’s book holds additional value as a methodological and ethical model for research in the humanities. Fischer’s novel approach, a “queer scavenger methodology,” yields utterly compelling analytical results and promises to make a lasting contribution to work on the racialized surveillance practices of the state by accenting its gendered aspects.

(Paper co-authored with Diana Leon-Boys). Abstract: This article examines a recent mediated version of Latina girlhood, the teenage science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) genius, through an analysis of a Netflix original series: Ashley Garcia: Genius in Love (2020). The series offers a representation of girlhood that does not fully align with either the “at-risk” or the “can-do” girls that have appeared previously on television. By conducting a qualitative analysis that highlights key episodes, we interrogate the layered representation of Latina girlhood offered in the show, focusing on two aspects: how the title character, Ashley, appears as a particular embodiment of a contemporary Latina teenager, and how she is narratively positioned in the story line. Our findings suggest that the series showcases a complex albeit ambiguous and ambivalent representation of Latina girlhood. This portrayal is exaggerated and fantastic and ultimately falls back on common tropes found in teen-oriented television. Online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QWIVHB4XCFFANY6PII2M/full?target=10.1080%2F07491409.2022.2147676&cookieSet=1

Bringing together discourses of Latina girlhood and ambiguity, in this article I interrogate Disney Junior’s specific and ambiguous Latinidad in three key episodes from the first season ofElena of Avalor. This type of intersectional analysis is seldom found in Disney scholarship, despite the relative abundance of existing work on Disney-generated cultural production. By analyzing the ambiguity (Joseph 2018) and unambivalent structure of ambivalence (Valdivia 2020) present in Disney’s deployment of animated Latina can-do girlhood (Harris 2004), in this article, I provide an intersectional approach to the study of Disney Junior animated content and Latina girlhood in contemporary popular culture. I argue thatElena of Avaloris the result of Disney’s avowed and disavowed dedication to the construction of Latinidad and can-do girlhood. The result of this is a fluctuation and flexible navigation between specificity and ambiguity within one narrative franchise.

Working at the intersection of Media Studies, Latina/o Studies, and Girls’ Studies, this dissertation explores Disney’s contemporary construction of Latinidad by focusing on Elena of Avalor, Disney’s first Latina princess. Situated against the backdrop of contemporary postfeminist and neoliberal discourses of girls, this dissertation examines Disney’s engagement with these discourses as they move from their previously binary approach of black/white representations. Through a multi-method project, consisting of three case studies, I interrogate a mediated Latina girlhood at three different nodes: production, text, and audiences. My analysis is inspired by the circuit of culture approach (Du Gay et al., 1997) and what media studies scholar Douglas Kellner refers to as the tripartite approach to media/cultural studies (Kellner, 1995). I understand the production, text, and audience components of this dissertation as equally significant processes that must be studied together in order to unearth the significance of this cultural text in relation to Latina girlhoods. More specifically, my dissertation investigates the following questions: Does Disney’s construction of Elena of Avalor fit with their ambivalent inclusion of Latinidad and if so how?; and is Elena a consistent figure of girl power? Disney, a global purveyor of media content and one of the top transnational media conglomerates, functions in a demographic reality in which the 2000 U.S. Census revealed that Latinxs are the largest minority in the nation. Disney’s acknowledgement of these findings is heterogeneous in that they continue to produce ethnically specific characters and narratives while simultaneously courting a broad range of global audiences through tenuous ethnic ambiguity. Their newest princess, which Disney introduces as proudly Latina, embodies elements of the specific as well as of the ambiguous ethnic. This project examines the limits and possibilities of this intrinsically contradictory strategy to representation of ethnicity by analyzing the production of the text along with Disney’s previous engagements with race and ethnicity in general and Latin American-ness and US Latinidad in particular; discursively analyzing three key episodes in the first season; and interrogating how Disneyland includes and situates Elena and her fans at the park.U of I OnlyAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste

In the summer of 2019, Disneyland opened Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, an immersive experience where visitors imagine themselves as members of a resistance army fighting against a colonizing power. As Disney’s theme parks have increasingly become conduits of global flows, the company’s original brand of U.S. exceptionalism has become incompatible with the company’s strategic needs. In this article, we argue that Disney’s newest themed land, Galaxy’s Edge, functions as a reworking of Disney’s colonial discourse and borderland narrative, where postracial borderland fantasies coincide with the conglomerate’s evolution from a national project to a global enterprise. Within this intergalactic borderland, racialized bodies play an important role in creating an authentic experience, but in doing so, perform various forms of labor on behalf of Disney. Through an analysis of the labor that racialized bodies perform at Galaxy’s Edge, we examine how Disney’s modern-day articulation of the borderla...

Research indicates that Disney theme parks function as sites of ideological negotiation. This study builds on the research by examining Disney World’s incorporation of its first avowed Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Bringing together discourses of Latinidad, theme parks, and media, this essay focuses on how the park incorporates Elena into its landscape at the level of production, representation, and audiences. I argue that Disney’s inclusion of Elena, and by extension Latinidad, is malleable, situated within the geographic setting, and dependent on various factors seldom disclosed by the conglomerate. Ultimately, Elena exists as an outsider within the Disney park universe.

“Nobodiness does not equate to invisibility, but rather, is a tactical navigation and subversion of the constraints of visibility and the dominant institutions that exploit those constraints for profit and power” (180). This book will appeal to a broad academic audience, including teachers and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, critical race and ethnic studies, American studies, cultural studies, media studies, surveillance studies, and legal studies. It provides strategic insights for social justice activists working on a range of issues who find themselves battling media frames that refuse to reflect the nuance and complexity of intersectional identities and experiences. Fischer’s book holds additional value as a methodological and ethical model for research in the humanities. Fischer’s novel approach, a “queer scavenger methodology,” yields utterly compelling analytical results and promises to make a lasting contribution to work on the racialized surveillance practices of the state by accenting its gendered aspects.

Research indicates that Disney theme parks function as sites of ideological negotiation. This study builds on the research by examining Disney World’s incorporation of its first avowed Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Bringing together discourses of Latinidad, theme parks, and media, this essay focuses on how the park incorporates Elena into its landscape at the level of production, representation, and audiences. I argue that Disney’s inclusion of Elena, and by extension Latinidad, is malleable, situated within the geographic setting, and dependent on various factors seldom disclosed by the conglomerate. Ultimately, Elena exists as an outsider within the Disney park universe.

In the summer of 2019, Disneyland opened Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, an immersive experience where visitors imagine themselves as members of a resistance army fighting against a colonizing power. As Disney’s theme parks have increasingly become conduits of global flows, the company’s original brand of U.S. exceptionalism has become incompatible with the company’s strategic needs. In this article, we argue that Disney’s newest themed land, Galaxy’s Edge, functions as a reworking of Disney’s colonial discourse and borderland narrative, where postracial borderland fantasies coincide with the conglomerate’s evolution from a national project to a global enterprise. Within this intergalactic borderland, racialized bodies play an important role in creating an authentic experience, but in doing so, perform various forms of labor on behalf of Disney. Through an analysis of the labor that racialized bodies perform at Galaxy’s Edge, we examine how Disney’s modern-day articulation of the borderland obscures the realities of the borderlands beyond the park.