The Evil Of Disney

[poliphilo]

I'm told that Werner von Braun- the scientist who built rockets for Hitler (slave labour was involved) and later for NASA, also designed rides for Disney.

I love it. A life that links the Third Reich, the Space Race and Disneyland deserves to be novelized- deserves to be turned into the biggest of block-buster movies.

I've always hated Disney. The way his factory turned all those great children's stories into formulaic, sentimental kiddie-feed. Pah!

Note the word "hate". Not "dislike". This an affair of the passions and not so far removed from love. The animation in those early films- Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo- leaves me gasping with admiration.

And I have a weird, twisted regard (as you may have guessed) for Mary Poppins and its companion-piece, the under-rated Bed-knobs and Broomsticks.

That Disney magic- an evil spell cast across children's entertainment for more than half a century, so that rivals felt they had no choice but to attempt to do the same thing only worse: how glad I am- how very, very glad- that Pixar has escaped from its shadow!

Comments

[ibid.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about studion ghibli?

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

I went into a course that covered animation a couple of years ago expecting all of the literature to be fairly anti-Disney.

All the academics I read were at great pains to point out all the forms of animation that *aren't* cel-based, and to detail the traditions/genres of cel-based that were very different from Disney, and kind of at odds with the Disney tradition (like anime).

But then, we learnt *tons* of stuff about how Disney were so amazingly innovative, and were in many ways the driving force in creating a new medium. When the Russian director Eisenstein saw Snow White, he declared it the best film of all time.

Though, yeah, through such corporate success, Disney not only forced their competitors into using similarly soppy narratives, but they also engineered a factory-line type of animation that was imported everywhere, and which was highly restrictive.

I kinda liked 'Treasure Planet' and 'Atlantis'. It felt like Disney was really starting to branch out - probably to compete with anime. Pixar is great, but if Disney do phase out 2D animation I will be kinda sad, despite the evilness.

Just don't get me started on the homophobic, racist, misogynist subtexts of The Lion King...

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Werner von Braun used to appear regularly on the Tomorrowland episodes of "Disneyland", ( aka "The Wonderful World of Disney) He was presented as an avuncular, kindly boffin type.

Dick van Dyke killed "Mary Poppins" stone-dead.

"Spirited Away" was wonderful, though very gross in parts.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

...And Disney replaced those superb pen-and-ink illustrations in Winnie the Pooh with that silly looking fat bear.

The drawings in Milne's books were integral to the stories and poems.

I'd lean against my mother while she read to me

"Halfway up the stairs
is where I sit"

--and she read with wonderful rhythm. Before I understood the words I loved the music of her reading--

I wonder if children today ever read the books with those illustrations? Disney's pictures of his cartoony bears and donkeys have replaced Ernest Shepard's.