Category: Year: 1998

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. Dir. Tom Ellery and Bradley Raymond. Walt Disney Home Video. 1998.

In Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Pocahontas voyages to England with John Rolfe, an English diplomat. She must stop the villainous Governor Ratcliffe’s manipulation of King James and prevent the King from declaring war on the Native Americans. As expected in a Disney film, she just happens to fall in love with Rolfe…

24th January 2022
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Dir. Jim Stenstrum. Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. 1998.

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island[1] is subversive both in terms of subverting what you’d expect from a typical Scooby outing (substituting criminals in masks with genuine monsters) and subverting ideas of what it truly means to be villainous. Immortal werecats Simone and Lena (fig. 1) sacrificed their souls to their cat god to exact revenge against…

6th January 2022
The Prince of Egypt. Dir. Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells, Steve Hickner. DreamWorks Pictures. 1998.

Following the life of Moses, The Prince of Egypt tells an adaption of the story of the Book of Exodus. In the opening scene of this animated musical, the audience are introduced to Ancient Egyptian culture as a significant importance is placed on their religion through the enormous statues of their gods. These gods, specifically…

26th January 2021
Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Buena Vista Pictures. 1998.

Disney’s Mulan (1998) takes on a Chinese folktale of a woman who takes the place of her father in the fight against the Huns who have recently invaded China. The film follows the adventures and troubles of Mulan, a young woman who breaks the stereotypes of Disney’s classic princess, as well as the expectations which…

21st May 2018
Mighty Joe Young. Dir. Ron Underwood. Buena Vista Pictures. 1998.

Film provides a platform for racial stereotypes to indoctrinate its viewers and relay social prejudices. Lester and Ross argue that ‘the predominant juxtaposition of images of blacks and social problems- welfare, crime, poverty, drugs, violence…implicitly helps to activate long-existing stereotypes of blacks as sambo and savage’ [1]. The black African poachers in Mighty Joe Young…

25th January 2016
Doctor Dolittle. Dir. Betty Thomas. 20th-Century Fox. 1998.

Representation of animals in Betty Thomas’s Doctor Dolittle The animal presence in Doctor Dolittle (1998) is extremely intriguing, using impressive CGI and a vast spectrum of species to depict a humanistic side to animals that was, until then, uncommon in film. Eddie Murphy’s character, John Dolittle, provides audiences with an identity crisis: family man vs…

22nd August 2014
The Horse Whisperer. Dir. Robert Redford. Touchstone Pictures. 1998.

Representation of Animals in the Horse Whisperer Robert Redford directs and stars in the novel adaptation, The Horse Whisperer (1998). Set between the conflicting environments of urban New York and the rural countryside of Montana, we witness a family fall apart following a tragic accident. Whilst out riding, the film’s young protagonist and her friend come into collision…

22nd August 2014
A Bug’s Life. Dir. John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. Disney Pixar. 1998.

A Bug’s Life follows an ant colony in their struggle to keep the peace and tradition of providing food for their oppressors, the grasshoppers. Moments before they arrive to collect the offering, protagonist Flik accidentally causes the food to fall into a river thus leaving the ants with no offering and greatly angering the grasshoppers.…

4th July 2014