Tracking Treasures
As a Disneyland fanatic I found this research paper to be the perfect opportunity to learn more about the roots of The Walt Disney Company. The company emcompasses a plethora of subjects to choose from such as movies, books, music, artwork, theme park merchandise, and more giving me lots of options to think about when trying to narrow down my choice of a primary source and focal point for the paper. I deliberated about specific aspects I could make a thorough argument about, while both learning information myself and providing knowledge to my reader. From this I concluded that a strong choice of a primary source would be the animated short that started it all...Steam Boat Willie.
I have a mass amount of Disney related objects and artifacts in my household that helped inspire me to follow the topic of Disney. Analyzing these different items is how I came upon a secondary source that provides background on a variety of possible primary sources. The Disney Treasures book has a great supply of material as it is based on the Walt Disney Archives. Since the book contains information on a variety of Disney products, it is an excellent guiding source to utilize when exploring possible primary sources to use.
In the Winter Quarter of Humanities Core Professor Imada used clips from the movie Twilight during one of her lectures as evidence for her argument. We learned about the Quileute and their misrepresentation done by the movie. Seeing this sparked the idea of how I could write about the representations of different cultures in Disney movies and how the process of the culture incorporation has changed over time.
During this Spring Quarter of Humanities Core the course will be covering Winnie the Pooh as well as other books, films, and media. Seeing different approaches—specifically for film analysis—by the different professors in lecture or in the reading for the class is very beneficial to me. I have already utilized some of the methods taught in order to gain a better perspective of what the primary source I am thinking of using offers. An example of this is when I read “Cultural Studies and Ethnography” in The Humanities Core Handbook. Learning the definition of ethnography reminded me of the movie Coco because of how Disney studied the culture for the film. This showed me how I can incorporate the style of Professor Imada’s teachings as well as lessons being taught currently into my research.
As I continue exploring all the possibilities of the Disney company I can write about, I find myself having to be cautious of the fact that whatever claim I make based on my chosen primary source, I will need to stick to. In my research paper I do not want to go off track or overwhelm the reader with too many conversations. Although I need to make sure that the primary source I decide to use can be flexible by providing me with a large source of information, I need to remain confined on my one main topic of discussion.
Originally I was leaning towards having the topic of my research paper be about Steamboat Willie. However, after going to office hours and doing some more research and exploration, I came to the conclusion that another great topic, that still relates to Disney, would be The Pirates of the Caribbean. The attraction itself is very popular, especially with the hit movie series being based on the ride. What really makes this potential topic stand out to me though is the controversy surrounding it.
I am currently deciding between the two topics and they vary in terms of arguments that could be made surrounding the scholarly conversation. Because of how they differ and how I used different methods while researching them, it made for a very thought-provoking time. However, while surveying for possible secondary sources I realized how although I was looking for different conversations to explore, they both had very similar connections I could make aside from the fact that they are of course both Disney-related productions. So no matter which topic I end up choosing, I have the option of incorporating aspects from the other topic into my paper.
Using Google Scholar and other credible websites to find the secondary sources I have chosen was a long process but was very necessary in ensuring that I will have lots of information to reflect off of in my paper. I read through many articles and entries and determined whether the piece would be useful by analyzing its material. From there I imagined myself integrating some of its key points into my paper by either growing the point or by countering it. If I envisioned it helping my paper then I decided it would be a good secondary source to use.
The secondary sources I found were very captivating when focusing on Steamboat Willie as they had a lot of information about Walt Disney's background and his successful creation of Mickey Mouse. Because of the fame and influence the company gained from the short, I felt like it would be an interesting topic to conduct a cultural analysis on. The secondary sources I found proved to be great in highlighting all the key elements needed to create my intended claim for the research paper as well as for working through the analysis.
While searching for secondary sources a common theme was how there was always a connection being made between the attraction and other forms of media with the subject of course being the Pirates of the Caribbean. This demonstrated to me the importance of the multi-media platform within this franchise. Because of this, conducting a transmedia analysis would be most fit for this topic. I believe researching the different components would result in understanding how audiences take in the different forms of entertainment on this subject. This would be extremely helpful in comprehending the perspectives of the fans and other viewers when looking at the arguments surrounding the controversy of the ride and how they correlate.
When deciding between which of the two topics I would choose for my research paper, the main factor I had to keep in mind was the prompt. Although this seems quite obvious, it was easy for me to quickly get carried away in simply researching what is already out there about the topics rather than seeing how I could contribute to the scholarly conversations around these sources. So after viewing all the different interpretations and discussions on said topics, it was clear to me that the topic best fit for me to add to, the topic that I want to explore, the topic with questions I want to answer and expand on is the Pirates of the Caribbean.
During my search for secondary sources on Steamboat Willie I noticed that the majority of possible paths I could take my argument had been written from multiple points of view already. The sources surrounding Pirates of the Caribbean had less coverage in terms of what I was brainstorming for my argument to be and therefore stood out more. Although this made for a more difficult and tedious time, I found articles that would better support my claim rather than being the claim itself. From this it was evident what my decision would be.
While I have decided what topic I will write about, the exact research questions I am specifically inspecting and asking I have not chosen yet. There are many concepts about this attraction I would like to explore, but I have not narrowed them down yet. I had mentioned previously that the controversy surrounding the ride was very intriguing to me and I do know I want this to be a main focal point in my paper. This concept will be a great contribution as I utilize the method of cultural studies in my paper talking about the underlying messages that this attraction tells the guests who ride it and how the information conveyed has changed over time. In addition to this, while also utilizing a different interpretive method, doing a transmedia analysis of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is another key component I have in mind for my paper. Looking at the variety of platforms Pirates of the Carribean can be accessed on and how each rendition communicates a different message or builds on a preexisting one is very important to look at. While I might incorporate other methods, I know that these two are where the majority of my focus will lay upon.
One of my favorite secondary sources I found was a video of Walt Disney talking about the creation of the ride with behind the scenes footage of the animatronics being made for the ride. This video contains a large source of information that will be beneficial to refer to when trying to understand the complete vision that Walt Disney had while also being able to use it in comparison with how the ride stands in the park today. What also stood out to me were two newspaper articles that talk about the changes the ride has undergone. These articles will complement the video seeing how the goals of the ride's scenes have changed over time.
Writing about Pirates of the Caribbean is exciting to me as I love Disney, but it is also a great topic because what I will be researching can be applied to more than just this one attraction, let alone subject. Developing theories and investigating the accuracy behind them will prove to be beneficial for understanding the influence of this topic; another intriguing factor to me is that this study can be done again in the future. This concept is really compelling to me as although my focus will be laying on the past and present, I could indeed make predictions about the future for the Pirates of the Caribbean based on my findings.
As for now while writing this research paper, it will be a pirate's life for me!
The process of this research paper and website has been a trip. It was smooth sailing at first because it felt like there was so much time to explore all the options of topics and arguments that could be made. However, knowing we are on the quarter system, I should have known that it goes by in a blink of an eye. Not just this website and research paper, but my first year of college; finishing this blog and paper is like putting a seal on the year. I digress, but this paper has been very symbolic of my college experience thus far: scary, intimidating at first, still an enjoyable time, a project in need of lots of hard work, but when looking at the product, I am proud.
I started this quarter knowing that I wanted my research topic to be something related to Disney. Doing it on a theme park ride was not even a thought in my mind until going to office hours which I am thankful for because I really enjoy my abstract topic. Researching Pirates of the Caribbean has been quite the adventure because although I have my opinions about the ride and the movies, I never really analyzed the inner workings. This project helped me put aside my Disney fan bias to examine the ride and learn so much more about the franchise than what I had known prior.
The process in which I found all this information was while doing the survey of the scholarly landscape as I navigated through sources looking for research and articles done on the ride. I was surprised to find so much—I knew it was popular and I knew there had been commotion about some of the changes to the ride, but from reading the sources I did, I gained a new perspective on the ride and ended up developing my intervention into the scholarly conversation from there. I still feel as though I was really adding my background into my paper when I was planning to write which was not necessarily bad, but it left me uncertain as to whether or not I would be incorporating the scholarly conversation well. I felt unsure because the prompt for the paper was more open-ended and I was afraid of choosing just one claim, so I never really settled until I finally started writing the rough draft of my paper. While writing it was really interesting to see how what I had been thinking of doing in my paper, details big and small, came out onto the page in a direction I had not really settled on. But what surprised me even more was that I was super happy with the outcome. The feeling of uncertainty was intimidating but once I got writing and saw the connections I was making between my secondary sources, I really saw my claims come together and felt good about my work.
Regarding the blog posts and multimedia presentation, they were a great outlet to put more of my artistic self to work, but as someone who talks and repeats themselves often, I struggled with being concise. It was a very enjoyable assignment and using a different tone within this website made it feel more personal like I was talking to someone and sharing my findings compared to the essay where I felt very strict in my academic tone. It was a nice change of pace to have here and there between other assignments. The website showcases more of my personality through the blog posts with drawings, photographs, and other uses of the multimedia capacities; the paper shows my academic research in a scholarly format with a more proper academic voice. Within both I have proven the significance of my topic and enjoyed myself in the process—I too hope that those who come across either format finds my work to be insightful and valuable.