Disney and the teaching of America's children

First of all, I need to say that I have done no hard research on this topic.

Second, I need to say that I am making no moral judgement on Disney.  "I like Disney" is the extent of my moral judgement.

Third, I would like to say that I think this would be a very productive avenue of research.  I am only musing.  If someone wants to offer me--an overqualified muser--an enormous grant to research this avenue further, I might take it, but I'd have to think about it first.

Having provided those disclaimers, I'll begin.

Disney released its fifth feature-length animated film, Bambi, in the summer of 1942 (that would make an interesting title for a book, wouldn't it?  The Summer of '42--oh, wait, scratch that).  I attended a re-release of Bambi in the 1960's that had a profound influence on me.  After I saw the film, though I had grown up in a home and in the midst of a culture that revolved around the deer season, I could not bring myself to seriously hunt deer.

I do not object to hunting, and I love the taste of venison.  Furthermore, my unwillingness to take a gun and go blasting away at Bambi's mother is born as much from my inability to see clearly (and the fear that I might blast my own father, let alone an errant doe) as it is the trauma of reliving this most traumatic childhood movie.

But I have wondered how many other people were influenced as I was by the film, and I've noticed a few correlations that may or may not be related.

The first modern federal gun control legislation (The Gun Control Act of 1968) was passed just two years after the US re-release of Bambi.  PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was founded in 1980, five years after a 1975 US re-release.  Vegetarianism in the United States is said to have begun to become popular with the publication of Frances Moore Lappe's 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet.

Of course, this may all be post-hoc ergo propter-hoc fallacy, but I suspect that there is at the very least a lurking guilt for the death of Bambi's mom in all of these things.


AFI lists "man" in Bambi as one of the worst film villains of all time.

I'm not suggesting at all that Disney consciously intended to propagandize against hunting.  I think Walt found a good story that children would love, and he adapted it brilliantly.  (I personally think the film is better than Felix Salten's book, or at least I did when I read the book in the sixth grade.)  But there is no denying that the film is powerful and formative.

Why?  Apart from the Disney skills at work, the film is addressed to children.

And that is something that interests me a lot.

Let's take Disney seriously

When I was in graduate school back in the mid-1990's, one of my professors and I got into--shall we say?--an argument about whether or not Disney was a valid subject of film study.  "Disney is not film!" the professor insisted.  "Disney is only a corporation selling things!"

This arose because I suggested at the time that such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King might represent a renaissance of musical film and theater.  They were classic musicals, I asserted, and, if they were on the stage (they weren't at the time--wasn't I prescient?) they would be the sorts of shows that parents would take their children to, which would lead their children to learn to appreciate musicals in form, content, and symbology.

This was partly born out of my personal belief that ever since the late 1960's, and especially with the advent of Hair, musical theater has been much less family friendly, and that unfriendliness is part of the reason for a period of decline in the popularity of the form.  I think that since the musical form is a difficult form to read, if children are not trained to read it, they will likely abandon it--which is almost exactly what happened until--guess when--Disney helped to establish the resurgence we are seeing today.


In order to consider such things as Disney's influence on the American musical--or the company's influence on any part of American culture--we must take Disney seriously as an artistic style, and not reject the company merely because it makes makes money. (Which American motion picture company does not try to make money?  Even William Shakespeare made money--lots of it--and we take him seriously.  If he could have sold little Hamlet dolls, I'm sure he would have without flinching.)

So, let's take Disney seriously.  Walt, after all, won more Academy Awards than any other person in history.  Disneyland, perhaps the best if not the first theme park, is an immersive theater experience, utilizing audience participation, environmental theater, street theater, improvisation, happenings, and shows within the show.

Before I start on any extended discussion of Disney and performing art, I want to make it clear that I do not work for the company.  I never have, and I likely never will.  I have no connection to Disney whatsoever except the connections of my own childhood and the connections of the Disneyphiles I raised.

The Millennialist

It is becoming increasingly evident that post-modernism is dead.

It is not surprising; post-modernism reached its apex in the 1980s and has been slowly breaking off into shards of its former self since then. Besides, the average shelf-life of a period’s definitive qualities is usually only about a half century at most.

Because I spent so many good years of my adolescence and young adulthood enjoying self-referent art, anachronism, eclecticism, and the incessant questioning and disruption of tradition and authority, I watch the death of post-modernism with some wistfulness.

And I watch what’s coming with both trepidation and wonder.

I call it Millennialism--not because it reflects the expected Christian Millennium (it doesn’t), but because it occurs at the turn of the millennium, and it thinks of itself as the beginning of a new order of things.

I wish to define it in language easy to be understood, and I wish to comment on it in a variety of ways, including observations both judgmental and non-. I wish to mark its advent with an eye both celebratory and critical. I wish to approach it as a poet as well as a chronicler, a healer as well as an amputator, a participant as well as a by-stander. I wish to argue for its wonders and against its excesses.

I wish to engage in a pre-Millennialist dialog on the meaning of what’s happening, encouraging the good, quelling the bad, and debating which is which.

Here is what I see emerging, and what I believe will be some of the major hallmarks of the next half-century:

Ad hoc tribalism: Communities are no longer formed largely by geography, but electronically. Geographically formed groups still exist, but many times they are divided by a more precise division of interests than was ever possible before.

Neo-Rococo art: Whereas, formerly, Rococo art was intricate and ornate in appearance, now art is intricate and ornate in layers of accessible information.

Accepted lack of privacy and/or casual exhibitionism: There is little concern for lack of privacy, and there is an effort to display oneself globally. This includes the wide acceptance of intimate sexuality publicly displayed.

There are also some trends that I think may likely manifest themselves more thoroughly in the near future:

Disregard for innovation, and a tendency to accept innovation as an expected thing. This is in contrast to the wonder and fear of technology throughout much of the Twentieth Century.

Continued move toward post-literacy. Written communication will become increasingly irrelevant or unnecessary; filmed communication will become more important.

Democratization of the arts. More and more people will be able to create their own visual and performing art at increasingly high professional levels, using technology to replace skill.

Widespread acceptance of the overturning of traditional norms and values. During Modernism and Post-modernism, there were concerted efforts by the avant-garde to change accepted behaviors and aesthetics. There are no more taboos, except a return to established norms.

Science will have largely replaced religion as the arbiter of societal mores.

Increased polarization of large coalitions, joining against each other on issues such as religion, abortion, climate change, and sexuality. Previous issues, such as gender and race equity, will have been settled.

I am both optimistic and concerned. I see so much positive in many trends, while I decry what I see as avoidable decay.

But I also confess, I want to the be first to document it.

We are in a new age. I hope we do something good with it.