Films and Feelings

  Anytime I’m getting ready for a new musical film, I generally try to put off listening to the soundtrack until after I’ve seen the movie. It’s just my way of ensuring that I experience the narrative in its full context upon its important premiere viewing. Most of the time I’m good about sticking to this, but nowhere is this feat harder than with the arrival of each new Disney musical. (I admit here and now I was not able to abstain with Encanto .) So, why am I talking about Disney musicals?     W hen I premiered my Jungle Book essay earlier this year, I decided that going forward I was ready to expand how I talked about Disney. Owing to Disney fans constantly having to justify their fandom, a lot of Disney discourse tends to be purely defensive. Disney fans only ever get to use their platform to try convincing the cool kids that--for the last time!--it's okay for adults without kids to go to Disneyland. There's so much about the Disney legacy that's interesting, and y