1955 - Lady and the Tramp

So Peter Pan was a massive success. I don’t begrudge it this, since it was the 1950s, and we were still in a state of dizzy, post-war stupidity. And besides, I’m glad for that, since once Walt gets some cash in his pocket, he starts taking risks. And this movie was a big one. It’s such a classic today, and there have been several movies along the same lines, so it’s a bit weird to think how unusual it was that there was a movie so completely about dogs. This film was also Disney’s first ever completely original story. It had its genesis in the short story “Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog”, which they had tried vaguely to make into a short. When a friend of Walt’s got a spaniel puppy, he decided that a hobo mutt and a pampered pedigree meeting would make suitable material for a feature, and said “HEY YOU GUYS WE’RE MAKING A DOG MOVIE NOW OKAY?” (Yes, he talked like that. Little known fact.) Feeling a bit mangy? You should see a vet. But before that, get some Alpo and a fresh bowl of water, and let’s talk about Lady and the Tramp.

Seven classes of portrayals of minority characters

So I've been horribly sick for the past two weeks, and when I haven't been sick, I've been working, so I'm a bit behind on - well, everything. But as I've been working my way through the Lady and the Tramp review, I've been considering why the stereotypes in that movie (and there are a LOT) barely offend me at all, while the Indians in Peter Pan threw off the whole balance of what was already a very tepid movie. In the end, I developed seven classes of minority portrayals, which I've illustrated here (just click if it's too small to read):

Now, I just want to be clear, this isn't a scale where 1 is worst and 7 is ideal. (1 is definitely worst, though) It's just seven classes that these characters can be placed into, in an attempt to explain my reactions to them, and the reactions people in general have.

Any of these classes can be used poorly, and any of them can be used well. Even 1 has its place in storytelling. For example, Chin-Kee from American Born Chinese is an undeniably racist collection of Chinese stereotypes, but is used to confront the reader with the existence and source of these stereotypes, as well as the fact that there is no functional difference between "good" and "bad" stereotypes. Type 2 is more often than not EXTREMELY problematic, but it can also give characters like Scrooge McDuck, who I would unhesitatingly place as one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. Type 7 may seem like an ideal of color-blindness, but can just as easily lead to tokenism and the negation of real racial experiences. Type 4 may seem like lazy writing, but it's just as often a function of plot economy.

What I'm saying is that the classes aren't at all useful for determining what's offensive or not, which is the whole reason I came up with them in the first place. Dangit. Oh, and for those of you who don't speak Disney, I've translated into Star Trek.

Two notes: 1) That's English stereotypes on Bashir, not Arab ones. 2) I love O'Brien, we all do, but come on, the first time we see him in his downtime, he's complaining that his wife doesn't cook him enough potatoes.

1953 - Peter Pan

Okay, so Alice didn’t exactly burn up the box office, and I get that Walt was probably feeling a bit blue, but did he have to lash out at us like this? What we have here for our 14th entry is, make no mistake, a bad movie. It’s a well-animated movie and a fondly-remembered movie, but it’s bad. I went in not expecting badness. I even took steps to ensure that I would be viewing it as objectively as possible, by watching with my friend Justin, who is far less judgmental of movies than I am. Didn’t work for either of us. But since I try to avoid being overly negative, I think the best way to balance this is to talk about a good thing for every bad thing I mention, and then pass judgment. Sound fair? Good. So get yourself some invisible food that only turns real when you throw it at Dante Basco (this can be ordered from most gourmet specialty shops in Los Angeles), and let’s talk about Peter Pan.

1951 - Alice in Wonderland

So after the bonkers success of Cinderella, it was time for Walt to return to his two favorite pastimes: Fulfilling his lifelong goals and making unprofitable movies. See, Walt had always loved the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll. His early work in Hollywood included a series of silent live action-animation hybrids dubbed “The Alice Comedies”, which took inspiration from the books. In the mid-30s, he had intended to produce a full-length Technicolor version of those, going so far as to do screen tests with Mary Pickford as Alice. So why did they settle on Snow White instead? Why did he spend 12 years developing Alice before it finally saw release? Well, the books are essentially unfilmable. They’re meandering, mostly plotless, unashamedly weird works based on logic puzzles and literary wordplay, and the main character has absolutely no arc or dramatic through line. But ol’ Uncle Walter was convinced he could make it work. Wary? So am I. So eat and drink anything that suggests that you do, and let’s talk about Alice in Wonderland.

1950 - Cinderella

1950 - Cinderella

WE MADE IT! After the rough slog of anthology films, we’re finally back to full-length stories, and boy did they bring it. This period of films, which I’m referring to as The Restoration, put an end to the slashed budgets, scaled back animation, and occasional blatant racism of the anthologies and replaced it with extravagant financing, expertly rendered backgrounds and characters, and… okay, occasional blatant racism. I’m looking your way, Peter Pan. But we’ll get to him. Cinderella was a remarkable return to form for the company. They dumped nearly all the money they made off the anthologies into it, and it really shows. The profits from this went on to finance one of their most classic periods, and now we finally get to see it. Relieved? So am I. So get some petit-fours and champagne, and let’s talk about Cinderella.

I'M BACK, BABY!

Well, after a dead month, it’s time to get back on task. I apologize to my loyal fans (Yes, all six of you,) for my time away. It was due to a variety of factors, including:

* Inventory at the bookstore.
* The Emerald City Comic-Con. (awesome)
* Overwork at my five or so jobs that I actually get paid for.
* A load of personal bullroar.
* These Wings episodes aren’t going to watch themselves.
* A growing sense of ennui and dissatisfaction with my life brought on by uncertainty about my future.
* Oh, wait, no. I was just pissed off after watching Peter Pan.
* Downloaded Space Quest 6 from GOG. Yes that’s a valid excuse.
* Seriously, Peter Pan was so bad.
* And that’s coming from someone who watches Wings.

Also I kept waking up with bird poo in my hair.

Anyway, I’m back now, and I’ll be posting the Cinderella review on Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s ten-word reviews of the next few movies to come after that to tide you over.

Alice in Wonderland

- Making an attempt to adapt the unadaptable with predictable results.

Lady and the Tramp

- Walt makes a movie about his friend’s dog. Huh. Okay.

Peter Pan

- Boring boring boring boring boring boring racist boring boring boring.

See you folks on Wednesday.

Three Wartime Cartoons

So I've been mentioning periodically that during the war, Disney put out US propaganda for the government. A few people have asked just what I mean by propaganda. Is it just generally patriotic cartoons? Beating up Hitler? Subliminal messages? So I decided to take a look at three of these wartime toons and see if they fill me with patriotic fervor. Given my hatred of propaganda, jingoism, and unwarranted exceptionalist attitudes, probably not. Links to the shorts are provided.


THREE WARTIME CARTOONS

I miss crazy driving costumes. Let's get those back.

VICTORY VEHICLES - In this cartoon, Goofy shows us various ways people are trying out new vehicles to get around the gas and rubber shortages. The first half is just a lot of wacky machines, and the second half passionately advocates for the more common everyday use of the pogo stick. It’s funny enough, but the “here’s some crazy cars/here’s some jokes about pogo sticks” setup makes the short feel draggy at just 7 minutes. There’s also a weird thing where the characters aren’t Goofy per se, but a variety of different people, all of whom are portrayed by Goofy. He gets only one line, and all the others are voiced by the narrator. Though since this was produced when Disney and Pinto Colvig were feuding (as he had gone to work for the hated Fleischers), and the new voice actor gave him a ludicrous old cowboy voice, that’s just as well.

Ha ha! Those Nazis would actually ration coffee! Can you imagine?

DER FUEHRER’S FACE - Donald Duck dreams he lives in Nazi Germany, where he learns how horrible it is to live in a land of strict rationing and constant propaganda. This is not what you would call a very self-aware cartoon. At the end, Donald wakes up in his American flag pajamas and kisses the statue of Liberty while shouting “I sure am glad to be a citizen of the United States of America! So it’s not a subtle cartoon, either. The title comes from a Spike Jones song that is used in the opening of the short, but it’s hard to take the lyrics’ mockery of the Nazi’s “Master Race” policies seriously, as they are sing by a yellow-skinned, bucktoothed Japanese guy, a swarthy, thick-lipped Italian guy, and just for fun, a swishy gay guy. (Or as I call them, Steleotype, Stereotype-a, and Thtereotype.) The cartoon closes with just a lingering shot of Hitler‘s face, which feels uncomfortably like Two Minutes’ Hate. Except 1984 wouldn’t be written for another four years. Wait, that makes it even worse.

FUN FACT - When the “funny” Japanese guy shows up, recall that when this cartoon was made, the government had George Takei and Pat Morita in internment camps. And they grew up to be cultural icons at least on par with Donald Duck.

Man, Shining Time Station got weird since I stopped watching.

EDUCATION FOR DEATH - Well, here we get some real old-time propaganda. Rather than using an established character like the others, it follows a young German boy named Hans through his life in Nazi Germany. From his parents proving their ethnic background so they are allowed to conceive through his education with Nazi propaganda to his conscription into the German army. There’s some more blatant hypocrisy here. A large chunk of the short is given to how horrible it is that Nazis use old fairy tales as propaganda, e.g. taking Sleeping Beauty and calling the witch Democracy, the princess Germany, and the prince Hitler. Okay, got it? Using old fairy tales to manipulate people with governmental propaganda is bad. Kind of hard to make that point, though, when you portray Germany as a “hilarious” fat woman who’s always eating, and Hitler as a drooling lunatic who LITERALLY grows devil horns at one point.

Ohhhh, dammit, Disney! You’re putting me in the position of defending the Nazi party! I hate them, but you know what? I hate them for their ACTUAL eugenics policies, not your claim that they’ll kill the kleinen kinder Klaus just because he gets the flu. I hate them because of their genocidal campaigns, which are reduced in the film to the burning of philosophy books and the ransacking of a Christian church. (Shown using visuals based on Rosenberg’s weird pseudomystical Reich Church ideas, which when divorced from their context, seem to imply that the Nazis meant to destroy Christianity. That’s some A+ fearmongering.)

See folks? Barely even human!

But the ultimate achievement is the ending. Klaus is shown growing into an adult and joining the army. He is then shown with blinkers and a muzzle as the announcer tells us that he is completely devoted to the party, seeing and hearing nothing but what they permit. The cartoon literally turns him into a faceless being identical to every other, completely dehumanizing him and all the other soldiers. AND IT’S NOT EVEN POSSIBLE. The Nazis only held power for 11 years! There is not a single German soldier who was born under their rule; they were all old enough to remember a pre-Nazi time. And while the Nazi cultural takeover was legendarily effective, it did not turn their citizens into faceless marching robots. The entire point of this cartoon was to make them seem less human so we wouldn’t feel bad killing them. AND THAT IS JUST WHAT THE NAZIS DID. Ohhhhh dangit I am so angry right now.

NEXT WEEK: Cinderella! Won’t that be nice.