Review Assignment: You Don't Come Out of Thin Air

According to lesson 1 of Disney Literature Week 1, Disney stories often used orphans as protagonists because Walt Disney himself had a rough childhood.  His father was a tyrant who made Walt deliver newspapers at the age of nine even in cold weather.  His mother was nice to him, but she died of asphyxiation caused by gas or smoke leaking from faulty pipes in the house he bought for her.  The loss of the one parent who was nice to him made him feel like an orphan even though he was an adult at the time of her death.  He himself overcame his misfortune and made a success of his life.  He wanted to inspire others to believe that they too could be successful despite early misfortune, in particular being orphaned; so he made movies about orphans who became successful.

Cinderella was an orphan.  Her mother died, her father married an evil woman with two evil daughters from a previous marriage, and then her father died too (in the Disney version, although not in the original version of the story).  Once the stepmother had Cinderella all to herself, she made a slave of her and encouraged her daughters to mistreat Cinderella as well.  Cinderella overcame that misfortune with the help of her fairy godmother, who made it possible for her to attend the ball, where she met the prince who would eventually marry her and take her away from her miserable home.  But she wasn't just a passive recipient of help.  The fairy godmother was inspired to help her because of her determination to go to the ball.  In addition, she had the resourcefulness to keep the one glass slipper that didn't fall off her foot when she ran from the castle and to show it to the prince after her stepmother tripped him, making him drop and break the other glass slipper.

Simba, the Lion King, was an orphan too: his father was murdered by his evil uncle Scar.  He initially ran away and lived a lazy life, but was eventually persuaded to return and reclaim rightful place as the king of the lions.  He did so by defeating Scar in combat, showing that he was more fit than Scar to rule, physically as well as morally, aside from being the natural successor to his father.

Arthur was, if not an orphan, at least not raised by his parents.  Instead, he was adopted by Sir Ector and tutored by Merlin.  He achieved success by pulling the sword out of the stone, showing everyone that he was the true King of England.  The film does not go on to show how great a king he became once he got used to the idea of being king, but it does inspire some viewers to read about his later life.

Finally, Anna and Else are orphans: their parents die at sea.  In addition, Elsa has a magical power that she can't control: when she's stressed, she casts a freezing curse on things and people around her, including Anna.  To protect those around her, she isolates herself - and Anna as well, making Anna miserable.  To make matters worse, Anna has no idea why Elsa stops playing with her, because the trolls obliviate the memory of Elsa's magical powers from Anna's mind and tell Elsa not to revive them; so Elsa doesn't tell Anna why she will no longer play with her.  This leaves Anna vulnerable to the evil machinations of Prince Hans.  Nevertheless, these two feisty females overcome their problems and achieve success, partly thanks to Kristoff but mainly because of their own strength of character.  Anna sacrifices herself to save Elsa from Prince Hans, who tries to kill her, and Elsa's love for Anna saves her from the freezing curse she accidentally cast at her.  Elsa thus learns how to control her magical power - through love - and now uses it to enable people to ice skate even in the summer.

Review Assignment: Disney Magic

Many fairy tales are fables - stories that have a moral.  A fantasy element is introduced to make the moral palatable to children, since they don't want to listen to the sort of moral preaching to which their parents subject them, and magic is a type of fantasy that especially appeals to children.  But the magic has to be close enough to reality that the child will learn the lesson.  Disney made his magic close to reality, possibly for just this reason.  In this essay I'll discuss the way magic is used in several Disney films, one from each decade, as the spoonful of sugar that helps the (moral) medicine go down.

The only feature film to emerge from Disney Studios in the 1930s is Snow White.  One piece of magic used in this film is the magic mirror through which the Queen, Snow White's wicked stepmother, discovers that Snow White is even more beautiful than the Queen.  The Queen is so jealous of Snow White's beauty that she uses her own magic - the poisoned apple - in an attempt to murder Snow White, disguising herself as an old woman (another feat of magic) to fool Snow White into accepting the apple.  The moral here is that being too obsessed with one's own beauty is destructive.  The moral for Snow White is: if you know someone's out to kill you, don't trust strangers!

One of the films to emerge from Disney Studios in the 1940s is Fantasia, my favourite film, which first appeared in 1940.  In this film, various pieces of classical music are played (in abbreviated form), accompanied by pictures that illustrate the music.  Among the pieces played is Paul Dukas' famous tone poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".  In the film, the apprentice is played by Mickey Mouse.  He watches the sorcerer do magic, making things appear and disappear, until the sorcerer hands him two buckets and orders him to transport water from the well to a basin and then leaves their home.  The apprentice looks up an animation spell in the sorcerer's book and then animates a broom and orders it to transport the water, which the broom starts to do.  The apprentice falls asleep and dreams about controlling the sea.  When he wakes up, he finds that the broom has overflowed the basin with water, flooding the home, and is still carrying water.  The apprentice tries to stop the broom, but he isn't strong enough to do so.  He chops the broom into pieces, but each piece becomes a full-size broom with two buckets and resumes transporting water.  As the water rises higher, the apprentice frantically leafs through the book, trying to find the counter spell.  Just before the water rises to the ceiling, which would have drowned the apprentice, the sorcerer returns, makes the water and all but one of the brooms disappear, hands the apprentice the two buckets and hits him with the broom.  The moral here is Alexander Pope's famous saying: "A little learning is a dangerous thing.  Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring."

In the Disney film Cinderella, which appeared in 1950, Cinderella longs to go to the ball, and she tries her best to meet her stepmother's conditions: finish her work, including helping her two stepsisters dress for the ball, and find clothes that are suitable for a ball.  With the help of some singing mice and birds, she succeeds in meeting those conditions, but her stepsisters recognize some of their own castaway clothes among the components of the dress made for Cinderella by the mice and birds, and they rip her dress to shreds before leaving with their mother for the ball.  Responding to her valiant attempts, her fairy godmother appears and uses her magic to provide her with new clothes, including a pair of glass slippers, and transportation to the ball.  The moral here is that people will help you if they see you helping yourself.

In the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the heroine is a powerful sorceress, who intercepts Mr. Banks' letter advertising the position of governess and intended for a martinet who will teach the children to become stuffy conformists like him.  She accepts the position and then demonstrates her magic to amuse the two young children in her care.  She can make things move at will, she can pull large objects out of small containers, she can make birds sing in key, and she can even make the children do magic tricks themselves.  The children are, of course, delighted with her.  She and Bert collaborate to teach Mr. Banks the moral of this film: a father should spend some fun time with his children instead of spending all his time making money.

The heroine of the 1971 film Bedknobs and Broomsticks is Eglantine Price, an amateur witch.  She uses her magic to protect the three children in her care and to play a part in World War II, eventually turning a museum's exhibits into an army to chase away some Nazis.  The obvious message of this film is that Nazis are bad guys, but there's a more subtle moral here that is directly related to the magic.  In previous films, women with magical powers weren't identified as witches, whereas Eglantine is so identified.  Up until them, witches were usually portrayed as ugly and evil old hags intent on eating children, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.  This film shows that witches can be good too.

The magic that is used in the 1989 film The Little Mermaid is the power to turn the mermaid Ariel into a human, which she desperately wants.  Her father, King Triton, is capable of doing so, but he wants her to stay with him under the sea, and he even goes so far as to destroy her collection of human-made artefacts that have sunk to the bottom of the sea.  In desperation, she turns to Ursula, the Sea Witch, who turns her into a human but imposes a condition on her: she must get Prince Eric to kiss her within three days or be turned into a sentient seaweed, and she robs Ariel of the power of speech, preventing her from asking Eric to kiss her.  Ursula represents the sort of anti-feminist women who call themselves Real Women; she wants to make Ariel depend on her beauty and feminine wiles to get Eric to kiss her rather than taking the initiative herself.  Ariel narrowly fails to make the deadline and is transformed into a seaweed, but her fate brings King Triton to his senses and he turns Ariel into a human.  Aside from the feminist message imparted here, there is a moral directly related to the magic: Triton eventually learns to help Ariel realize her own dream rather than use her to realize his dream, and all parents should do the same; otherwise their children will turn to those who promise to help them but have their own, possibly destructive, agendas.

There are several morals to the 1991 movie Beauty and the Beast.  Moral number one: don't be too full of yourself.  The witch punishes Adam for his conceit by turning him into a beast, telling him that only the love of a beautiful woman will reverse the curse (this is where magic comes in). Moral number two: beauty is only skin deep.  Once Adam learns to control his temper and mind his manners, Belle manages to love him despite his appearance, and she rejects Gaston despite his good looks because he is a male chauvinist pig.  And moral number three: love conquers all.  Belle's love for Adam turns him back into a human - in fact, a prince.

The obvious moral of the 2009 movie A Christmas Carol is the one preached by Charles Dickens, who wrote the original story: if you're rich, be generous; otherwise nobody will mourn for you when you die.  The magic involved here is the appearance of the ghosts: Jacob Marley and the three Christmases (past, present and future).  They show Ebenezer Scrooge the consequences of his stinginess and persuade him to mend his ways, enabling him to escape the bleak fate that would otherwise have befallen him.  Another piece of magic in this film is the ability of the old geezer to run extremely fast and survive falls from great heights, but I rather think that it detracts from the film by preventing the viewer from suspending disbelief.

My favourite film among all the ones we studied during both Disney Lit Weeks is the 2013 film Frozen, because this film, more than any other, defies stereotypes.  Many of the most recent Disney films feature powerful female characters who are not evil, but this one also counters the stereotype that male heroes are always better looking and more charming than villains even more than Beauty and the Beast does: Gaston is handsome but he isn't charming and he isn't a prince like Hans, and Kristoff is neither handsome nor charming and he was never a prince like Adam, but he has a noble heart.  The magic involved here is Elsa's ability to freeze things.  She can usually control her magical power, but when she gets angry she loses control of it and she unintentionally freezes things - and people - around her.  To protect people from herself, she isolates herself from other people, first by locking the castle and refusing to play with her sister Anna, and then by running away up North Mountain where she can freeze things without hurting anybody.  But when Anna finds her and tells her that she has frozen the entire kingdom of Arendelle and tries to persuade her to return to reverse the freezing curse, Elsa, who doesn't know how to reverse the curse, gets upset and unintentionally casts the freezing curse on Anna.  Then, when Anna's sacrifices herself to save Elsa from the evil Prince Hans, she declares her love for Anna, which reverses the freezing curse.  Elsa thus learns that love will undo the freezing curse; she unfreezes Arendelle and uses her power to do good deeds.  The moral here is that uncontrolled anger is destructive, but that love can undo the damage it causes.