FOF #2893 – Howard Ashman: the Man Who Gave a Mermaid a Voice and a Beast a Soul
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After several box office bombs in the 80s, Disney considered never making animated musicals again.
Thankfully, after playwright and lyricist Howard Ashman’s successful musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors, Disney asked him to work with them and launched the Disney Renaissance.
Today musical theater enthusiast Jake Bellisimo from the YouTube channel Dreamsounds joins us to take a look at the amazing musical legacy of Howard Ashman, queer coding in Disney films and Beauty and the Beast as an allegory for society’s betrayal of people with AIDS.
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Comments
This one was of my favorite FOFs as ever. I learned a lot that I never knew about the gay undertones and HIV/AIDS subtexts of so many Disney songs. I also appreciated the editing of the songs interwoven with the interview. Thank you Fausto & Marc!