America's Oppressed Minorities...as Disney Princesses?

On the surface, the movies Pocahontas , filmed in 1995, and The Princess and the Frog , filmed in 2009 don't have much in common--they are set in very different eras, in different parts of the American continent. I find the two movies so compelling as a pair, however, because they are portrayals of America's most oppressed minorities as Disney-fied princesses. While neither Pocahontas or Tiana are Disney's first minority characters, adding them into the princess franchise is very problematic because the racial tensions that subjugated these groups are still fresh in the minds of the American public.

Before I discuss the implications of portraying the Disney Princesses, I have to show this awesome clip from my favorite TV show "30 Rock". Last week's episode showed one of the show's main characters, Tracy, lamenting about the return of "old school racism". Enjoy...



Disney's decision to use the story of historical figure Pocahontas was an odd one. This is a turn from Disney's typical usage of public domain folklore or classic tales, as Pocahontas was at one point a living, breathing woman. Tackling the complications of having a native woman as a character would've been a challenging hurdle all its own, but adding historical fact is another beast. To touch on just a few inaccuracies, the real Pocahontas married an Englishmen named John Rolfe, not John Smith, and she did leave her home with him to London (oddly a more Disney-like ending than the ending of the film), where she died of illness very shortly after. In my opinion, Pocahontas reinforces many of the stereotypes modern Americans hold about native peoples. First, as a historical film set even before the US was colonized, Pocahontas furthers the commonly held misconception that native peoples are a past civilization, which they clearly are not. This isn't entirely Disney's fault, the story is a historical one, but the issue remains. The rest of the stereotypes brought forth by this film are simplistic--war paint, feathers, buckskin garb (that still somehow manages to be sexy), being one with nature, etc. Clearly, this is a Disney-fication of the Pocahontas legend, but it's odd that there are so many discrepancies as far as the plot or some of the larger or more visible elements, however many historians have complimented the accuracy of the colonists' weaponry and their ship. Is this euro-centrism at it's finest, or simply coincidence? While I don't believe that the creators had racist aims in mind, it certainly would be easier to recreate and simplify what being and Englishman means (to an American audience) than to simply what it means to be native.



Critics raise similar debate with the character Tiana of Disney's latest princess film, The Princess and the Frog. Tiana is a young woman who lives in New Orleans and works around the clock to achieve her dream of owning a fine dining restaurant. While Tiana is not a member of a distinct "tribe" per say, she is a young black woman living in the deep south in the 1920's. This should provide some limitations on what her character "could" and "could not" do, but of course it does not. The rampant racism of this time period is completely ignored by the creators of this film, there are a couple of quick remarks that seem a slight to Tiana's quest for business ownership, but they could just as easily have been because she was poor, uneducated, or a woman. I understand that Disney chose twenties-era New Orleans to showcase jazz and twenties excess, but one would think that with the first Princess film in over a decade, and the first to portray a black princess at that, they would've been more careful. While Pocahontas' story could not have worked outside of the early 1600's time period in which it's set, Tiana's could have. New Orleans is still a city bustling with a distinct culture of jazz music and bayou eccentricity, could telling Tiana's story in the present day (or maybe, pre-Katrina) have kept Disney from even having to discuss the implications of twenties racism? Or, conversely, would telling her story in a modern time period have been more explosive, since many feel that racism is still present in modern day New Orleans?

Aside from the historical issues which limit The Princess and the Frog, there is the widely criticized issue of Tiana's status as a green frog (and not a young black woman) for the majority of the film. Many famous movie critics have questioned this choice, and it does seem odd. In none of the other films is a princess transformed into anything other than a human woman, so why Tiana? It doesn't even go with the namesake fairy tale the film is based on! Maybe in the coming years, animators or creators will leak some of the production details of decision like this. In the meantime, one can only speculate and trust that if Oprah signed on to do this film, it couldn't be too bad :)

As far as Pocahontas and Tiana's portrayal as women, race aside, I feel that their stories are liberating. Pocahontas stays behind and lets John Smith go back to London to recover from his gunshot wound because "my people need me". Tiana's prince, the race-neutral Prince Naveen, falls in love with her and becomes a performer in the band at her restaurant, so in a way, her employee. I find that liberating--the breadwinning woman! It's so common, especially with the waning economy, for families to have a female breadwinner, it's refreshing that Disney's newest princess is in this role.

So what will become of the Disney Princess franchise? The company has said it will return to the hand drawn 2D animation of the other princess films for subsequent movies, but maybe that is best left in the "Disney Renaissance". Whatever comes of the future of the princesses, I'm certain to show these films to my children someday as a valuable part of my childhood.

Arabian Nights

Aladdin , Disney's thirty-first full length animated film, is important for a number of reasons. Most noticeably, Jasmine is the studio's first "brown" princess. The film is set in the fictional, presumably Middle Eastern country of Agrabah, and Jasmine is the daughter of the sultan. The second first for this movie is the presence of "crossover" humor. While some argue that The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast had crossover appeal for both adults and children, I think Aladdin has a different, more current sort of entertainment value. I was surprised on re-watching this movie how many parallels there were between Robin Williams genie character and recent hit animated films, like Shrek. Throughout the film, Williams' Genie morphs into Ed Sullivan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Groucho Marx, and many many other notable people of popular culture. Some of the references were even too old for me to catch onto. This quick humor is unoffensive to children who may understand it, but funny to adults who catch on.
Robin Williams presence in this film is an interesting note even beyond his comedic contribution. Prior to production of Aladdin, Williams had struggled with a drug addiction and was released from rehab. He was reportedly coaxed into doing the project after animators set some of his stand up routine to animation of the Genie character. Further, doing the movie was a positive PR move for Williams, allowing him to play a happy-go-lucky character and easing him back into the public eye. There were also stories about William's contract with the studio, evidently he only accepted a basic wage for doing the film in return for the boost to his reputation and a few other small concessions by Disney (not mentioning his name any more than other characters, not letting his character dominate promotional posters, etc)
Aladdin was viewed by some in the Middle Eastern community as a racist film. Groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee cited the film for controversial lyrics, such as a lyric from the opening number describing the Middle Eastern setting as a land where "they cut off your ear if they don't like your face". This lyric was dubbed over for the video release of the film. I have to roll my eyes at this group's feeling slighted by this tiny line in a song. There seems to be many more problematic issues at play here than five seconds in the first song. First of all, as far as I can tell from researching the cast on IMDB and other film websites, all of the actors involved were white, and none of the characters assume any sort of Middle Eastern accent. I personally am not offended by this, I see Disney's portrayal of Agrabah similarly to the studio's portrayal of other foreign locations, more of a stage on which to set a very American storyline than anything else (like the portrayal of France in Beauty and the Beast, whatever Germanic country Snow White is set in, etc). After all, the struggling-to-find-herself princess storyline doesn't really work in a country like America where there are no monarchs, so Disney has to use other countries for this type of work (with the notable exception of Pocahontas, my next entry). That being said, if this Arab-American diversity group feels that the songs of Aladdin are misrepresenting their culture, wouldn't they be offended by the absence of Middle Eastern talent in the film's cast? Another issue which would be interesting to see from this groups perspective is the few times the name of "Allah", the Islamic god, is mentioned. I don't know nearly enough about the Islamic faith to comment on what a Muslim person would've thought of that reference, but it seems a bit forced and unnecessary to the film.
The central love story to this movie is also a bit innovative for the Disney Princess films. Jasmine is the first of the princess characters to not leave her lifestyle for her man by the end of the film. Every other previous princess somehow alters her life for the man she meets in the film, leaving behind her family and home. In Aladdin, Jasmine begins her life in the palace, tries to blend in in the kingdom in disguise as a peasant woman, but in the end finds that she can experience liberation while still assuming her role as the next queen of Agrabah. Aladdin comes to her, in other words. This is pretty a pretty fresh notion for Disney films, however, Aladdin is much different in his "leaving home" than the princesses of prior films. For one thing, he has no home except for an abandoned building, and no family except for his monkey sidekick. Whereas Ariel, for example, is seen leaving her whole world behind to live as Eric's human wife, Aladdin simply gets to "marry up" and ascend from street peasant to the next Sultan of Agrabah.
The end of this movie, though less dramatic than watching Ariel leave her ocean home or Belle bring the Beast back to life, is nonetheless happy. Aladdin frees Genie from his bottle, and while he and Jasmine are pictured riding off into the night sky on the magic carpet, they do not wed in the film (that is saved for one of the awful straight-to-video sequels). The moral of the movie is to be your true self, a common Disney theme but a refreshing break from the eighties-esque glorification of greed this story could've portrayed.

Tale as Old as Time, Song as Old as Rhyme...

Re-watching the Disney Princess films for this project has been so eye-opening for me. My perspective has changed so much in the ten-plus years since I've viewed the films. Though my favorite as a child was definitely The Little Mermaid, my favorite as an adult is Beauty and the Beast, the film I just watched. I attribute this mainly to the fact that I find the Belle and Beast love story to be the most realistic of the Princess movies. I know that this seems a silly observation of an animated film (or not, I guess, since we're living in the era of Avatar), but I think it's true. Belle and the Beast fall in love fairly slowly, after a rocky start when he takes her prisoner. Belle is not immediately fawning over the Beast, nor is she hot to give her entire life away to this new man like Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora or Ariel. I found the ball scene to be sweet, the concept of a gala event for just one couple very romantic, but not over-the-top (with the obvious exceptions of the gorgeous palace and eager-to-please staff of talking household items). The culmination of the story is refreshing in that, though it is an implied union, it's a sentimental rush of Belle "finally" (by Disney standards) saying "I love you" to the Beast, not necessarily ready to walk down the aisle. The transition from ignorance and misunderstanding to love is also displayed in scenes in the movie, like the bird feeding/breakfast scene during the "Something There that wasn't there Before" song.
In her book, Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney's Feature Animation, Amy Davis writes that Belle is the stereotypical "good daughter" character. Her father leads her into harm's way through his own naivete, which allows her to show her devotion in sacrificing her safety or freedom for his good. Davis describes at length how Belle fits this stereotype by twice trying to help her father, first by accepting his "sentence" in the Beast's dungeon and second by rushing to his aid after realizing he's sick and lost. What I don't understand about this characterization of Belle is, does Davis find "the good daughter" to be a harmful role for women, or is it simply a useful description?
In the intro to the chapter which discusses Belle's character, "The Eisner Era", Davis argues that, while gender roles in the Disney films had branched out somewhat from doting homemaker or damsel in distress, they still portrayed 80's-90's era female characters as "respectable" women. This is different than the idealized womanhood of the early princess films, these "Disney Renaissance" princesses (Ariel to present) portray modern womanhood, the "I can have it all" ideal of career ambitions, or at least intellectual ambitions, and family. Belle portrays this by avoiding Gaston's advances and rolling her eyes at her father's suggestions to settle down. In the end of the film, Belle has a first lady-esque role as the new princess of the castle, not really independent, but not entirely devoid of her own purpose and opinions (one can only assume this by watching the original release film, but the straight-to-video sequels support it). While I don't find Belle to be the most independent of all of the princesses, she certainly couldn't easily be cast aside as a poor role model.

Under the Sea

Over Spring Break, I watched The Little Mermaid with my nine-year-old sister, Ellie (or Ell Bell, as she's better known). Let me start by saying that this was my absolute favorite film as a child. Even when my family was so broke that we resided in a trailer home, I had tons of Ariel memorabilia--towels, Christmas ornaments, clothing, even the Ariel and Eric dolls. I was astonished that this was Ell Bell's first viewing of the film, but am pleased to note that she really liked it!



Going from Sleeping Beauty to The Little Mermaid was quite a transition. Though Mermaid utilized much of the same technology used in Sleeping Beauty, it's very obvious that it was made thirty-some years later. For one, Ariel is a far more active and fully developed character. Though only half woman, Ariel is much more human than either of her predecessors, Princess Aurora or Cinderella. The end goal for Ariel is to get her man, much like the rest of the princess films, but she's very smart and even mischievous in achieving this goal. Whereas Cinderella obeys her evil stepmother and is only surprised by a dress for the ball from her mouse friends, and then her fairy godmother, Ariel seeks out the means to achieve her goal, even when it means disobeying her father. It also turns out that her decision to consult with the sea witch was incredibly stupid, so she's a fallible woman to boot!
After viewing the movie again with Ell Bell, I read an article by Laura Sells entitled "Where do the Mermaids Stand?" taken from the book From mouse to mermaid: the politics of film, gender, and culture by Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas, Laura Sells. I'll admit that I ceaselessly rolled my eyes while reading this. As a young woman whose just seen the prior princess films, I refuse to believe that The Little Mermaid is destructive to girls. In order to spare us all a rant, I've decided to cut down what I think are three valid critiques and a few which I feel are invalid, possibly borderline ludicrous.

The three critiques Sells points out that I agree with are...
1) Ariel's number one goal is to find a man, which is a bit sad since she is a very smart character. I will agree with Sells that it seems as though Ariel is passed from one patriarch to another in her immediate marriage to Eric (and let's just note that she's sixteen in the film while we're at it. I know it was set in some sort of past time period, but still). I also applaud Sells for calling the initial feminist reaction to the film (disgust over Ariel's consuming desire for Prince Eric) "reductionist", because it is. There is an element of pain to this story, the pain of leaving one's family to create a new life with a husband, something most women experience.
2) The portrayal of Ursula is that of a woman who has power and autonomy, and is somehow monstrous in this independence. Disney's female villains have often struck me as sheer evil (versus more nuanced characters in movies for older audiences), but again this is so much worse in the prior Disney films, where the "good" girl is a passive waif and the "villainess" is a twisted demon, that I can't entirely get behind it. Ariel does seem to have some power over herself in disobeying her father throughout the film.
3) Ariel is "upwardly mobile", that is, she desires to be a part of the human world because she seeks independence and freedom. I completely follow Sells examples of this theme in the film, song lyrics like "bright young women sick of swimmin'/ready to stand" in "Part of Your World", or Ariel's obsession with human things, to name just two.

Now onto the things I did not agree with from the Sells article

1) Sells criticizes the Disney-fication of Hans Christian Anderson's original mermaid tale for many reasons, one of the larger ones being because it allows for happy ending, and not the original ending, which was the mermaid's death after failing to capture the prince's love. Are you KIDDING me? This is a movie made for children. It's laughable to even suggest that Disney end the film that way.
2) Sells references gendered symbolism a couple of times in the article. I'm totally down to pick apart symbols within a film, but her examples are ridiculous to me. The two that stood out most were, first, the quick reference to the mast of the ship that killed Ursula as "phallic", and the more lengthy discussion of Ursula's dwelling as "womb-like". I found Sells explanation and dissection of both of these symbols interesting, but implausible. For one, how can you impale someone, as Ursula is in the end, with something that is NOT phallic? Swords, knives, bayonets, knitting needles...all long and unyielding. If Ursula had died from asphyxiation after a plastic bag had been put over her head, would that have been more "feminine"? Ursula's cave presents a similar dillema. Where do you live in the sea (or anywhere in nature, really), if you do not live in a recessed, or "womb-like", space? Should she have resided at the peak of a sea mountain?
3) Sells spends several paragraphs dissecting the relationship between Ursula and Ariel. She describes Ursula's instruction to Ariel during the number "Poor Unfortunate Souls" as much like a drag performance, and claims that Ursula is teaching Ariel how to "perform" her gender. I find this interesting, but, like the other portions of the article I have not mentioned, find it a bit extreme. I cannot get on board with thinking that the writers of this film wanted to portray Ariel as pro-colonization or matricidal, or that several layers of meaning are hidden beneath the film. Again, it is an animated film for family consumption, and mainly children at that.

While I can't agree that the makers of The Little Mermaid had serious symbolism and meaning in mind when producing the film, I do entertain accusations of sexual imagery, mostly because they are, well, entertaining. Prior to doing this project I'd heard of the myth that the minister in the wedding scene with Ursula was experiencing an inappropriate erectile issue. Based on the Wikipedia article for the film, this was actually an animator discrepancy, as the artists intended for that bulge to be the squatty man's knees (it's unclear from which of Wikipedia's many sources for this article that this explanation came). The other, more hilarious and distinct sexual image is a very phallic portion of King Triton's palace on the cover of the original VHS release. Evidently some woman tried to sue over this "obscenity", but the matter was settled out of court, and the image was re-drawn in subsequent releases of the film. The golden member in question is shown below...



Regardless of the problems that one may have with The Little Mermaid, it is THE animated film of the eighties and one of Disney's finest animated full-length films. Interestingly, it also was the first commercially successful Disney film since Walt Disney's death in the mid-sixties. The Little Mermaid garnered much success for the studio, including two Academy Awards for its outstanding original music, and ushered in the "Disney Renaissance", the era of great Disney animation that I grew up in.
More to come later this week, likely a rant about the Disney vault is in store, since I'm struggling to find somewhere to rent Beauty and the Beast, a seventeen year old movie.

Sleeping Beauty

This week's film is Sleeping Beauty. Released in 1959, it not a much older work than Cinderella, but is the Disney studio's last animated "princess" movie until 1989, when The Little Mermaid was released.
Watching Sleeping Beauty again alongside the other princess films, I'm struck by the really beautiful, jewel-toned animation and the slightly more angular way the characters are drawn.
According to the AFI catalog, the animators who worked on Sleeping Beauty spent time researching medieval artwork to get the illustrations just right. Steven Watts writes in The Magic Kingdom that Sleeping Beauty was, in its time the most expensive animated film ever made, and the attention to artistic detail was used as a draw to lure in adult viewership. It's hard for twenty-first century Americans to fathom an innocent Disney animated romance being marketed towards adults, but this was the case in all of these early films. In today's film industry, animated films are only directed towards adults if they in include overt adult themes and humor (South Park and The Simpsons come to mind) or more covert humor, meant to go over kids' heads and provide a little enjoyment for their adult chaperones, like in the movie Shrek (which of course is not a Disney film).
Though it's hard to imagine adults enjoying Disney animated films without children now, there are major efforts made to produce merchandise seemingly too sophisticated (and definitely too expensive) for kids. One of the home health clients I worked with pointed me to the new Disney paintings by Thomas Kinkade, his "Disney Dreams" series. These paintings sell for a minimum price (and this is for the paper, not canvas, copy) of $175, unframed. Kinkade has yet to paint Princess Aurora, but Cinderella is available to view from this link...

http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servlet/com.asucon.ebiz.catalog.web.tk.CatalogServlet?catalogAction=Product&productId=206563&menuNdx=0

I'll talk more about what draws adults to Disney merchandise in the coming weeks, but getting back to Sleeping Beauty...

I wrote last week about the interesting discovery that the stepmother from Cinderella and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty were voiced by the same actress, but as soon as we started watching the latter film this week I noticed another voice was the same. Flora the fairy was voiced by Verna Felton, who also played Cinderella's fairy godmother! In looking at these voice actor's film credits, it seems as though using the same voices for multiple roles was common for Disney in this era.

These two actresses as well as the rest of the cast and crew for Sleeping Beauty were certainly not wanting for work in the 1950's, as the film took nearly that long to create. The opening of Disneyland and its related projects delayed production of this film several times, so that it took almost ten years to finish. As such, I like to view this film as a Disney-fied version of American values throughout the 1950's. I don't think that this viewpoint is too far off of the mark. Like Cinderella's character, Aurora is a very sweet, pure, fair woman who does not have many goals or aspirations for herself other than marriage and family life. She is the consummate victim--things happen to her rather than resulting from her own action, and she doesn't seem to have nearly as many lines as some of the other characters in the film. Prince Phillip, on the other hand, is a crew cut fifties jock with a cape and horse rather than a letter jacket and hot rod, free spirited and handsome.

Maybe I've read too much into the fifties influence on this film, but I did just finish reading Bill Bryson's childhood memoir of 1950's Des Moines, titled "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir". On that note, one small, funny similarity I noticed between Bryson's take on the fifties (he does not mention any animated Disney films by name in his book) and Princess Aurora in the film is...her breasts. I was studying Aurora's features versus the other princesses to see if the medieval influence in the animation differentiated her from the pack, and noticed just that one idiosyncrasy.
In Bryson's book, he talks of he and his equally perverted young male friends' relentless pursuit of any female nudity in this very modest and wholesome period in American history. They had to placate themselves by looking at the Maidenform bra ads of the period, about which Bryson writes...
"There was something deeply--and I expect unhealthily--erotic in these pictures. Unfortunately, Maidenform had an unerring instinct for choosing models of slightly advanced years who were not terribly attractive to begin with and in any case the bras of that period were more like surgical appliances than enticements to fantasy. One despaired at the waste of such a promising erogenous concept."

Bryson's accompanying illustration of these bra ads popped to mind when I noticed Aurora's very fifties bosom. Think I'm crazy? I'll let you decide.

Maidenform...



Aurora...

Cinderella 1950

This week's princess is Cinderella. Last night I watched the film with a few of the girls I lived with. After viewing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs last weekend, Cinderella was a breath of fresh air. Something about the later movie is just a lot less dark and forbidding.

First off, after screening the movie at the Delta Zeta house, all of us watching the film agreed that we felt Cinderella was a more independent and autonomous character than Snow White. There's no distinct reason that this would be true, though I at least give Cinderella credit for having the good sense to marry up (versus Snow White, who was already a princess when she obsesses over the prince). The Magic Kingdom by Steven Watts describes the Disney studios intent with this movie to portray the "ideal woman" of fifties America--buxom, sweet, compelled to marry soon and marry well, ready and able for life in the domestic sphere, etc. The Cinderella character fit this mold completely, which makes me curious as to why she seems more independent than Snow White. These ideals of mid-century femininity were sharply contrasted with Disney's villainous characters' traits, who were completely selfish, vain, unhappy, bitter women (pg 330).

Speaking of villains, another aspect of the film that one of my friends noticed while we viewed it is the similarity in the evil stepmother's voice to Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty. This would not be so notable except that I did a little digging today out of curiosity, and they are played by the same woman. Nice catch, Courtney!

Cinderella was Disney's first full-length animated feature post WWII and post animator's strike. The film had been in production since even before the war, but due to limited credit during wartime and Disney's other debts, the project was halted until the later forties. The film was Walt Disney's big hope to get his studio back on track after a tumultuous decade. Luckily, Cinderella proved to be a smash hit, and made enough money to put Disney Studios back on its feet.

After re-watching the movie last night, I wonder if Cinderella's idyllic womanhood is a product of this time period (1950), the years when women were settling back into homemaking after time spent working in "men's jobs" while many were away at war. It seems as though, based on my reading of Watts and the AFI catalog entry, that the Cinderella movie set the tone, in many ways, for postwar America, so maybe Cinderella herself set the tone for postwar womanhood? Also interesting in Watts is his reference to the writers and animators who'd felt they'd put an unusual amount of "spunk" into her character, and who felt that her appearance was, while attractive, fairly typical. Was this emphasis (which I as a 2010 viewer had a hard time distinguishing) important to make the film more entertaining or to make Cinderella more the picture of the perfect woman? Again we're back to the damsel vs. villain dichotomy. As Cinderella is to the perfect woman, the villains seem to be to the antithesis of this "acceptable" womanhood. Watts writes, "Throughout the 1950's the studio populated its movies with vivid countertypes to illustrate persistent threats to the feminine ideal" (pg 330). In doing this, was the studio telling American women (and, not to be forgotten, American girls) that there was no middle ground? No excuse to ever think of oneself first or overtly stand up for oneself? I did find it slightly problematic in the story that Cinderella never takes a stand directly to her attackers, though admittedly she gets to snub her nose at them in the end (which of course she would never do as the perfect lady she is).

All sexist conspiracy theories aside, Cinderella is at least an important part of the American myth, especially American sports stories. The "Cinderella Story" has in recent history been thrown around much like Horation Alger-esque terminology of the past to describe incredible athletic feats and turnarounds. ESPN Classic even features a show called "Cinderella Stories", where athletes who've come out of nowhere to achieve success are featured. Of course this is a lovely opportunity for Disney to double dip, since the company owns ESPN, but the sentiment remains.

More to come later this week. Next week's movie is Sleeping Beauty.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1938

In order to achieve my goal of viewing the films in chronological order, I started at the very beginning, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1938. I have to admit that I was not very excited about watching Snow White again; as a child I found the movie extremely frightening, especially when I went to see it in theaters, during the film's last release in 1993. I was intrigued after learning more about the history of animation, however, to view the film from a more technical perspective.
Snow White plays a large role in American film history, as the first full-length animated feature in Technicolor. The film also utilized a so-called "multiplane" camera, which allowed for the illustrations to be layered on each other so that the viewer could sense a distinct fore, middle, and background. This technology also allowed for the sets to be drawn separately from the characters. The camera was a major investment for Disney studios, and prior to Snow White had only been used in the Disney short The Old Mill. This promotional clip shows the Disney Studios eagerly producing Snow White.


The production of Snow White went WAY over Disney's original budget, with the final negative cost (which, I just learned, is the cost of film production, not including distribution or promotional costs)close to $1.5 million, almost ten times the original proposal, which the American Film Institute catalog says was between $150,000 and $250,000. The film was a major success, however, both in the box office and in merchandising revenue, a fairly new concept for this time. Books, toys, sheet music, even...



...valentines (very appropriate for today) were part of Disney's merchandizing effort. The film grossed a whopping $8.5 million in it's first year of release.

This week I interviewed a couple that I work for about their experience viewing Snow White when it first came out in 1938. The husband, who was a teenager when the movie premiered, said that this was his first color film, and was an incredible thing to behold. He recalled that even his parents were excited to view the film, it was not viewed as something only for children's entertainment (and, interestingly, for awhile in the U.K. Snow White carried a high rating so that children could not view the film unchaperoned). The wife had viewed a color film prior to Snow White, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine starring Henry Fonda, the first outdoor film to be shot in Technicolor. In spite of this, she too said that viewing Snow White was an amazing experience.
Of course it's been seventy years since either of my friends saw Snow White for the first time, but both says that they do not remember either seeing promotional material pre-release or consuming any licensed merchandise. However, they do remember having heard a lot of hype about the film prior to viewing it at their local theaters (for ten cents a ticket).
After my interview with this couple, I felt almost choked up watching Snow White. I couldn't even begin to imagine how incredible seeing a color movie for the first time must've been in a world without color cell phone displays, computer screens, televisions, etc. Soon, though, I'd settled back into my old disdain for this movie. I was embarrassed to find that, at twenty-one, I STILL found the movie disturbing and dark. Snow White is doomed throughout, and the fact that the queen requests her heart in a box (and that the dwarfs later build her a glass coffin...gross) is rather "Law and Order" for a fairy tale adaptation. Further, not to read to much into a thirties-era animated film, but could Snow White get any more helpless? Seriously, she has ZERO ambitions other than falling in love with the prince. ZERO. The Princesses I grew up with at least had some dreams--Ariel had her collection of human things, Belle loved to read, etc, but Snow White is content to wait for a man to come fulfill her entire life purpose. If you think I'm being a fascist feminist about this, I think you need to re-watch the film.

In spite of my jaded 2010 reading of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it is an important film in the history of Disney and of the animated film genre. And, of course, it is the first Disney Princess film! More to come later this week. Next film is Cinderella.