Disney 100
I realize that all writing at this moment takes place in the shadow of current events in Israel/Palestine. To not acknowledge that is to risk censure; to acknowledge it also is to risk censure if my acknowledgement is not phrased in the way readers would like it. As you can see throughout this reflection, it’s very much on my mind.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company.
The world is on fire, which makes writing about Disney seem trivial.
I am thinking about binaries. In what felt like an uncanny and frankly just numb moment, I was recently interviewed (super briefly) by BBC radio for a story about religion and Disney 100 (The whole Disney segment begins at minute 15:28 over here).
More of the conversation was between the host, Edward Stourton, and his other guest, Mark Pinsky, author of The Gospel According to Disney. In my pre-show conversation with a producer, we chatted about good and evil.
Disney is usually reduced to a simple formula: evil is vanquished. The good triumphs. Everyone lives happily ever after. In my discussion with the producer, I found myself arguing, as I so often do, that more recent Disney films—especially Frozen II and Moana—have some moral gray zones.
The conversation went fine; I’ve not done this short a form of radio interview yet, and I had a migraine, and you can hear it. The host and Pinsky were already well-acquainted. I was….a bit de trop.
Usually, after a longer recording session, there’s a minute or two to chat. Not this time. “Such a pleasure to talk about this instead of….” someone with a posh accent was saying as the tech folks dropped me from the line.
“Instead of…” Implied, I assumed, was the conflict that took up most of the programme, the conflict on my mind, the conflict that makes me want to throw out this entire book project.
A conflict that was—in part, long ago—of the British Empire’s making.
Last Friday, realizing I had little heart to write about Disney 100, I found myself wondering what things were like in today’s Israel-Palestine when the Walt Disney Company was born.
In 1923, the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan was fully in place—with promises having been made by the British to many different parties. I read a document summarizing a conversation between two depressed British officials on the ground in early 1923. “We should endure to the end with our policies not because it was good for the Jews but because it was good for the British empire,” one wrote. They certainly didn’t have the best interests of the Arab Christian or Arab Muslim populations at heart, either. Or, really, anyone. By the time they realized what a mess they were in, they had already mucked it up.
There is more than enough blame to go around here, and this is not my subfield, so I’ll stop. But it struck me. Here we are, one hundred years later, quite a lot of history under the bridge. Here, for a few minutes on this BBC recording—here were two Jewish Americans (Pinsky is also Jewish), telling a Christian British man about the Disney company for his Sunday religion news program.
The Disney Empire— founded by two white Protestant men, later resurrected by two Jewish CEOs— is as global as it ever has been. The British Empire has fallen…. But its legacies linger all around us.
***
So far, I have not yet seen a Disney animated feature that breaks the “happy ending” formula. Evil might not be simple, but it is vanquished. Marvel and Star Wars films have more tragedies, especially midway through a cycle (see: the end of The Empire Strikes Back, the final minutes of Infinity War)—but the long arcs of the Skywalker Saga and the Infinity Saga both bent towards redemption.
Still, there are scars. There is a psychological mess beneath the gilded towers, if we just poke around a bit.
I am thinking today about the ruptures within the films, the losses that can never be undone. No matter how many times I watch The Lion King, Mufasa always, always dies. And it is always terrible, watching Simba beg his dead father to wake up. Seeing him seek shelter under one limp, enormous paw.
Cinderella always marries the prince, but her mother remains dead, in every telling. Obi-Wan Kenobi is always struck down by Darth Vader. My high school era VHS copies of those films grew scratchier and scratchier, but Luke still lost his hand to his father. Every. Single. Time.
We are always human. We are always mortal. That follows us, even into the hedonistic confines of the Disney parks. When I visit them, I think, always, of the relatives and friends who loved the parks—but can’t visit them anymore.
Faith in Disney is not a blind certainty that everything in the world is good. Nor is it an anodyne escape from the challenges of being human. Of being mortal.
No, faith in Disney no denial of darkness. Faith in Disney is a belief in the possibility of imagining things otherwise. It is the sparkling seduction of the blank page. It is the joy of pen reaching out to paper, a single stroke of an artist’s hands or click of a screenwriter’s keyboard, anything at all that will “give us more to see.”
Something more than death.
**
Why October 16? Why is this specific day and month the anniversary of the company?
I found the answer on the wall of the Franklin Institute last February.
In the very first room of artifacts “Disney 100: The Exhibition,” there was a framed yellow document on the wall. It begins, “AGREEMENT, entered into this 16th day of October, 1923, by and between WALT, DISNEY …hereinafter designated as the “Producer”, and MARGARET J. WINKLER… hereinafter designated as the “Distributor.”
It is a distribution agreement for Walt Disney’s “Alice Comedies,” a series of short films that mixed live action and animation. They are a girl who dreams of being in cartoonland—and adventures ensue.
Margaret Winkler was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant and, at the time, one of the most successful cartoon distributors in the world. Without her investment—and editorial advice—Walt Disney might never have made it in Hollywood.
From this simple legal contract, a storytelling kingdom would be born. Last night on ABC, the short film “Once Upon a Studio” brought together 100 iconic Disney and Pixar characters from the last century (including Alice). That barely begins to describe the company’s cultural reach.
**
Agreements. Promises. So very hard to fulfill. So very hard to carry out, in real world conditions.
In 1924, Margaret Winkler married one of her employees, Charles Mintz, who soon assumed control of the business. A few years after that, he and Walt Disney had a notorious falling out over the rights to Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Disney left New York, fuming. The official company story is that Mickey Mouse sprung forth from Disney’s brow on the train ride back across the counry.
Contracts can give, and contracts can take away.
Without that breakdown and conflict, there might be no Mickey Mouse—created in desperation after the loss of Oswald-- nor any of the rest of it.
**
Right now, it is hard to see the future, to celebrate talking mice and singing mermaids. That has been true many, many times over the last century, the first Disney century. A lot of terrible things have happened between 1923 and today. Only those of us with privilege think we can escape them.
It is hard to see a new contract— a new covenant—between Abraham’s children that will see us through to a better age. It is hard to see it not so much because of religion—that’s only one piece. It is hard to see also because of geopolitics, resources, human rights violations, and so much more. Because of painful histories. And, yes, because of the legacies of European empires. The legacies of European and American racism and antisemitism that did not end well for many peoples.
Disney most assuredly will not bring us world peace.
But last Monday morning, after the weekend’s horror, I put on my “It’s a Small World” socks and leggings. I knew they would not be efficacious. (Plus, “It’s a Small World” has some pretty serious problems, actually. Not every doll there is treated equally. More on that in the book.)
But it was my first favorite ride, in Disneyland, when I was four years old.
My silly sock offering brought me comfort, if not hope.
Faith in Disney, like world peace, is a brass ring that will always be a bit beyond us. A horizon of wishes.
Yet I still pray for new pages of paper, new pens and brushes, to write a different story.