Elena, Princesa of the Periphery

Disney's Flexible Latina Girl

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by Diana Leon-Boys

Type: Studies
Subject: One Film > Elena of Avalor (TV Series)
Keywords: TV Series, Latin Americans
Publishing date: 2023
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Collection: Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 182 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-9788301-7-2

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Book Presentation:
In the summer of 2016, Disney introduced its first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Princesa of the Periphery explores this Disney property using multiple case studies to understand its approach to girlhood and Latinidad. Following the circuit of culture model, author Diana Leon-Boys teases out moments of complex negotiations by Disney, producers, and audiences as they navigate Elena’s circulation. Case studies highlight how a flexible Latinidad is deployed through corporate materials, social media pages, theme park experiences, and the television series to create a princess who is both marginal to Disney’s normative vision of princesshood and central to Disney’s claims of diversification. This multi-layered analysis of Disney’s mediated Latina girlhood interrogates the complex relationship between the U.S.’s largest ethnic minority and a global conglomerate that stands in for the U.S. on the global stage.

About the Author:
DIANA LEON-BOYS is an assistant professor in the department of communication at the University of South Florida, Tampa.

Press Reviews:
"In this fascinating and insightful study, Diana Leon-Boys demonstrates how Disney has constructed notions of Latina girlhood through its first Latina princess. Through apt exploration of Elena of Avalor on screen and at Disney theme parks, she illuminates how Latina girls’ media is positioned as both Latin American and Latinx, and always peripheral to the U.S. mainstream." -- Mary Beltrán ― author of Latino TV: A History and Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and Published On: 2022-09-15

"Well researched and argued, Princesa of the Periphery is a welcome contribution to Latinx/girls/media studies. Focusing on Elena of Avalor, one of Disney’s newest 'empowered' yet marginalized princesses, Leon-Boys helps us to understand the complexities of representing and performing Latina girlhood in U.S. popular culture while also drawing attention to the potential consequences of such depictions for Latina girls, who are hungry for public recognition and deserving of authentic role models." -- Mary Celeste Kearney ― author of Girls Make Media and editor of Mediated Girlhoods Published On: 2022-09-15

"This is a vital and sophisticated study of the connection between Latina girlhood and the dream machine that is Disney. Leon-Boys attends to the voices of Latina girls, and complements this with powerful insights on how Latina girls are seen within media production cultures. The result is a powerful and compelling argument about the marketization of dreams and the reconstitution of Latina marginalization." -- Hector Amaya ― author of Citizenship Excess: Latinos/as, Media, and the Nation Published On: 2022-10-10

See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press

See Elena of Avalor (TV Series) (2016–2020) on IMDB ...

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