Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, and Disney’s Commodification of Feminism: A Political Economic Analysis

Kailash Koushik and Abigail Reed
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Kailash Koushik: School of Communication, Florida State University, 3100 University Center, Building C, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
Abigail Reed: School of Communication, Florida State University, 3100 University Center, Building C, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA

Social Sciences, 2018, vol. 7, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the strategies Hollywood utilizes to capitalize on feminist social movements through replacing hegemonic male characters with female ones or updating traditional stories through a more “feminist” retelling. By analyzing both 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Beauty and the Beast as representative of this corporate trend, we critique the ways in which these pseudo-feminist texts not only contribute little to the social conversation surrounding the evolving roles of women and their representations in media through the lenses of critical political economy, feminist political economy, and feminist film criticism. We conclude that creating “feminist” reimaginings of classic narratives ultimately serves to uphold the existing economic structures that maintain social and financial capital within the largest Hollywood studios. Thus, little to no social progress is made through the creation of these retellings.

Keywords: Disney; gender; feminism; political economy of film; feminist film criticism; feminist political economy of media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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