Blogging Like A Champ

               The outline for this blog post is sure to be an ambitious one with all that we have to address but we will have to wait and see how this post unfolds. We get our ideas largely from our experiences and all that is encompassed therein by time spent with family and friends, watching movies or reading books, or engaging in any activity of that sort. The beliefs and views that my parents taught me as I was a child helped to shape my choices but as I grew older I reached a point where I challenged the values that comprised my thought process. This includes not only religious and political views but also the lessons and examples that are spread through mass media in the form of television, movies, and books. In many ways my choices are shaped by these very same beliefs and values which are influenced by the total sum of my experiences and the weighted value which I assign to each unconsciously.

                The culture industry is the association that grew between this new entertainment industry and popular culture. Marketing was done in such a way that companies sought to market their product by incorporating into everyday life. In fact, I would go as far as to say that companies such as the Disney Company sought to ingrain their products in what was defined as American life. Walt himself took part in this by seeking to control the field in regards to filmmaking and animation. I recently watched The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, in this film there were examples of things taken from Watts, chapter 19. More specifically, at the start of the movie there were trailers from other Disney productions which highlighted the films and went on to include movies which had been re-mastered. In the text, there is a quotation of Walt where he specifically mentions that he would not want to sell the rights of his movies to be aired on other networks when he could simply show them in theaters again if he wanted to because they are timeless classics.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is an amazing movie for children and adults alike. It was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theatre, even though I was just a baby and don’t remember it at all. I read an article by Michelle Arana entitled “Beauty and the Beast and the impact it has on our children.” I thought this would tie in well to our theme of the societal impact of Disney creations, and I thought that since this movie is a Disney classic it would be a good indicator.

Earlier, my blog posts, PowerPoint, and class discussions hinted that maybe Disney creations have a negative impact on children for various reasons. Arana makes the completely different stance which I think adds a good discussion piece. Arana says that the characters of Belle, Maurice, and the Beast are all good characters for our children to emulate. Belle is credited with being studious, loving, brave, and patient, all positive qualities. She tries desperately to save her father and even offers to switch places with him in Beast’s castle. This shows that she loves her father dearly and would do literally anything to save him. She never gives up on Beast even though he is at first cruel and heartless. Eventually, the patience and compassion Belle shows to Beast softens him up and allows the curse to be broken. Arana writes that, “This movie has a lot of wonderful lessons for our children. It teaches our children that they should not judge someone based on their physical appearance but how they treat others and how they are as a person-their character, their morals, and even their values.”

At first, Beast is seen as a villain and children watching the movie would be quick to make this assumption. His outward appearance is unattractive as well as his mannerisms. However, since Belle is able to change him through kindness, children may think that a little benevolence can go a long way. Although “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a bit cliché, it really applies to this movie. If there is one lesson to be taken away from Beauty and the Beast, it’s that people can change for the better, and I think that is an important lesson that our children need to understand. Whether or not children are actually impacted from this film is another blog post in itself, but I do believe that overall this is a great movie with a lot of constructive themes. Because I presented so many negative ideas about Disney earlier in the semester, I think this is a good contrast and serves as an alternate view when it comes time to rate the cultural impact of the Disney films. 

Blog Post 28 Feb.

Culture

When reflecting upon culture and what influences it, I came up with several factors that can lead to shaping the way we act and react to things culturally. I began to think of the role parents and the family have on the cultural upbringing of a youth. Then I started thinking on the great effect television and media in general has on ‘molding the minds of the masses’.

The things one sees and hears the most often are usually the things one holds to be true or expected from life. Many of these things are used in films and other forms of media as part of the storyline or to make a plot more believable. As the thinking of the masses changes, so does media, and as media begins to emphasize certain things as important, so do people. This shows us the circular relationship the population has with media. This very relationship can be observed in the Disney movies. An example of a work which showcases certain themes in culture and in social norms for the time at which it was produced is Disney’s rendering of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

This movie, a first in the world of animation (Being the first feature length animation), was very interesting to look at based on cultural influence/perceived interpretation. Doing some personal research I have found some very strongly opinionated dealings with this work and most of them had to do with its cultural effect.

One such response to the film was in describing the characters as a metaphor for cocaine and its symptoms. ““Walt Disney had been a cocaine addict. He insisted that ‘Snow White was (symbolizing) cocaine, and the seven dwarves were the symptoms of various stages of cocaine addiction: Grumpy, Sleepy, Grouchy [sic], Dopey, Sneezy, Happy and so fourth’” (Klimov, 2007). The same theory is also explored on http://filmguide.wikia.com :“…Snow is cocaine, which causes exhaustion (Sleepy), mood swings (Happy, Grumpy), allergies (Sneezy) and alteration of personality (Bashful, Dopey) eventually resulting in a trip to the doctor (Doc)”.

Another two seemed to attack each other, but had the same message overall in mind. From a somewhat feminist perspective, one comment was “that Walt Disney has created household names of heroines in his films, but in so doing, is encouraging passivity and inaction from female viewers who are influenced by the pretty-but-dumb characters. […]The three Disney films based on other fairy tales (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) all star an innocent, beautiful girl who is victimized by a jealous, evil villainess. Disney encourages the image of a perfect housewife in his heroines. They all exhibit patience, obedience, passivity, diligence, silence, and beauty. To become a heroine for Disney, one must have all those qualities. To mute the heroine inside oneself, one must simply don dirty rags […] In Snow White, it is her beauty that eventually leads to her success. It is because of her face that the prince falls in love with her and frees her from sleeping death with love’s first kiss. Heroines […] do not develop throughout the story because they start out perfect, without defects. All they need is their beauty and passivity to succeed.

The other reaction considering these same factors, a white nationalist critic, explains:

“Snow White is a selfless, sweet, maternal homemaker. She displays all of the peasant virtues. The message of Grimm's fairy tale as well as Walt Disney's movie is that the cheerful labor that goes into making a home and raising babies is the true royal quality, and it is that quality which ultimately merits the love of a handsome prince. […]

In this modern age, our daughters have become so skilled at manipulating mom and dad into maid and butler service that they never wash dishes or do the laundry. The cohesion of the family dinner has given way to our fractured schedules and the isolation of the microwaved TV dinner. Parents leave the piles of dirty clothing which we find strewn all over our daughters' bedroom floors in hopes that they might someday clean up their own mess, but they never do. For some strange reason, the boys seem to do a slightly better job of picking up after themselves. […]
The basic building blocks of civilization celebrated in Snow White are melting away before our eyes.

Under the current cultural regime, only those with the most powerful instincts will be able to make the sacrifices necessary to form stable relationships and to raise children. As the gentle restraints and pressures of civilized norms crumble, huge numbers will succumb to their own self absorption, their lack of behavioral restraint, and their disdain for labor. They will leave no traces of their presence on this earth in the next generation.

Snow White lives to make life bright, cheerful and clean for all those around her, no matter what circumstances she may be placed in by others. She is the model of the female role you will see in re-runs of the 1950's family television series like The Donna Reed Show, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father Knows Best. It is the behavior which so infuriated the inner party critics of our culture, most famously Susan Sonntag who railed against the suburbs in the early 1960s as "Christian breeding grounds."
The modern hatred of all that Snow White represents shows up clearly in the 2004 remake of "The Stepford Wives." And it is this hatred which commands our unwavering allegiance to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

These responses highlight some of the things Disney princess movies may value most. The cultural effect this has is to emphasis those roles of the traditional housewife. That is to say, that she should be meek, quiet, a good cleaner, provider of meals, and that her personal appearance is very important.





Sources:

Klimov, Blagoy. There! Did you see it?; Care! They do see you...Subliminal messages in advertisement, moving-making and cartoons in a 'not so-innocent world'. Profit driven or 'dark' conspiracy? Munich RePEc Personal Archive. 07 Nov. 2007. Central European University-Budapest. 10 Mar. 2009 http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4257/1/MPRA_paper_4257.pdf .

Stone, Kay. "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us." The Journal of American Folklore 88.347 (1975): 42-50.

http://www.whitenationalism.com/cwar/snowwht.htm

for Tuesday: another attempt to fill in the gap

Dear Disney Evaluators,

Please note that my assignment for the “Next Blog Posts” is not a change from our outline, which includes a second section on Disney’s creativity, including his movies.  So my assignment blog offers a way into these creations, including movies.  So your responses could indeed “fold [in] the influential/cultural/creative/innovations aspect into our choice of subject,” as one of you already suggested.  Go for it: evaluation a Disney creation, such as a movie; and hence the phrase my assignment post: your evaluation of the character of influence, the nature of the culture industry, and the relation of these ideas to a Disney creation. 

Do good work,

pjc

for Tuesday: and filling in the gap in the last post

Dear Disney Evaluators,

Please note that my assignment for the “Next Blog Posts” is not a change from our outline, which includes a second section on Disney’s creativity, including his movies.  So my assignment blog offers a way into these creations, including movies.  So your responses could indeed “fold [in] the influential/cultural/creative/innovations aspect into our choice of subjects,” as one of you already suggested.  Go for it: evaluation a Disney creation, such as a movie; and hence the phrase my assignment post: your evaluation of the character of influence, the nature of the culture industry, and the relation of these ideas to a Disney creation. 

Do good work,

pjc

for Tuesday

Dear Disney Evaluators,

Please note that my assignment for the “Next Blog Posts” is not a change from our outline, which includes a second section on Disney’s creativity, including his movies.  So my assignment blog offers a way into these creations, including movies.  So your responses could indeed “fold [in] the influential/cultural/creative/innovations aspect into our choice of subjects,”

As one of you already suggested.  Go for it: evaluation a Disney creation, such as a movie; and hence the phrase my assignment post: your evaluation of the character of influence, the nature of the culture industry, and the relation of these ideas to a Disney creation. 

Do good work,

pjc

Brooke Staton’s power point

Thanks Brooke for your interesting Power Point.  With your opening statement about Disney’s shift “from man to beloved cultural icon,” and your focus on innovative techniques, including animation cels, photo transfers, and multiplane cameras; the implicit argument is that the techniques were the crucial part of this shift, that he did really good work.  This suggests some other questions, such as what made these techniques so good, and so appealing?  Their realism, such as recreating the depth of life, including such complex actions as spinning?  They looked true to life, so they produce a “you are there” feel?  That is wonderous in itself, but then why not live action film; isn’t there also something in Disney animation about the exaggerations beyond real life for visual expression of emotion and for just plain cuteness?

Also, about the book Animated Cartoons, how much of Disney’s technique is from this book, and how much did he develop his own approaches beyond this book?  Were there other sources of inspiration, or was his genius largely self-generated?

And the mention of David Spencer’s innovations, suggests a question about management style; what is the relation of manager Disney and innovative worker Spencer?

Finally, your focus on Disney as cultural icon suggests a transition to next week’s topic of influence (see my last blog post); how did he become an icon, and what kind of influence does an icon have; is it different from the influence of other people (other figures in popular culture, friends and family, political figures, religious or moral leaders, etc.)

Thanks again for your good work.

pjc

PS please send your work to the whole group

This message was already posted as a comment to Collin; my message: next blog posts

Dear Disney Watchers,

The goal for next class on Feb 28 is for each of you to produce a blog post in preparation for presentations to class.  Our recent class discussions and Collin’s post on Disney not being particularly supportive of mass consumerism suggest a topic.  Construct this blog post in three parts….

We have been talking a lot about influence in popular culture.  Another way to put this is: Where do we get our ideas (about work and play, what we pay attention to or ignore, our values and ideas, our beliefs and social practices, …)?  What shapes our choices; what shapes your choices?  That’s the reflective part of the blog post.

In addition, as we head into a new segment of the course on Disney’s Creativity and Innovations, please read Watts, ch 19, on Disney and the Culture Industry.  This will give some context and clarity to our discussions on his influence; and it will surely prompt a lot of different interpretations, all welcome, and in fact crucial for understanding how he related to the culture.  What is the culture industry, and what is Disney’s place within it: that is the reporting part of the blog post.  . 

Disney’s influence is central to the course and more particularly it is crucial for understanding this next segment dealing with his cultural creations.  In fact, I can foresee evaluations of Disney and the culture industry emerging not only as theoretical and ideological debates, but also as windows into understanding the particular creations that you examine in your choices for presentation in this next segment.  As you view particular Disney creations, enlist your insights about influence and about the culture industry to evaluate the creation that you are viewing: that is the applied part of the blogpost. 

Then in class next week, let’s hear the summary presentations of your evaluation of the character of influence, the nature of the culture industry, and the relation of these ideas to a Disney creation. 

Do good work,

pjc

Frank & Ollie

                My next topic of discussion for the Movies section of the class will be Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I figure most of the class will focus on newer movies, so I’ll try to go back a ways in time. And these two are probably the easiest of the old animators to find out about. They wrote a book together called Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, which I’ve checked out from the library and started to read. So far I’ve gathered a few details both about the men themselves and Disney animation in general.

                First of all, these two guys are really good friends. They both went to Stanford University, and were friends during their time there, working on the magazine The Stanford Chaparral. They started working for Disney within a year of each other and trained under the same animator, Freddie Moore. Eventually they would work together on a lot of big-time Disney movies, the first one being Pinocchio (1940) and the final one being The Fox and the Hound (1981).

                The culmination of their work as animators was their book The Illusion of Life. In this book they lay out what Disney animators do to make their drawings come to life, and what their fellow industry animators could do to follow suit. This includes the 12 basic principles of animation (http://bit.ly/sjnp), which have since become an industry standard to determine what makes good animation good. I’ve only read part of the introduction, but it seems that the focus of the animators at Disney, or at least the focus of Johnston and Thomas, was to put life into their characters. If the audience could tell that the image they were seeing was supposed to represent a sad person, they would then feel the emotion, and project it back on the image, making the connection between character and audience even stronger.

                I’m really excited to read some more of this book and then watch some of their movies. The insight into the intricacies of animation that this book promises should shed a whole new light on Disney’s films, and hopefully give me a renewed appreciation for the works of art they produced, one cel at a time.

Disney as a Spokesman

During/after class today Dr. Croce and I had a discussion about a passage in Watts' book on page 361-363. This passage is the introduction to the chapter about Disney and the "culture industry". Dr. Croce claimed that Watts had alluded to Walt as "a spokesman for consumerism". Truly, the passage reads "... he had been serving as an enthusiastic salesman for the new consumerism." This is followed by a recounting of a radio interview by Walt during which he said "... the modern proliferation of home appliances, electrical gadgets, and automobiles should make every citizen 'stand up and cheer for the American way of life.'" Only the last part of this statement is actually a quote from Walt, and it points more towards a general stance that the increased consumerism in America in the 50s was a positive thing.

The sections leading up to this also don’t really point towards Walt being overly supportive of mass consumerism. The first paragraph on p. 361 is just about the increase in leisure time after WW2 and the Great Depression. The subsequent paragraph detailed a Wall Street Journal article that just pointed out the Company’s capitalizing on the increased leisure. The next paragraph talks again about Disney’s ability to make profits on increased leisure, and then the following two paragraphs talk more about the increased leisure and consumerism in general. This is when the sentiment about Walt as a salesman comes in, and it really does only say that he was pushing the “American way of life”.

The final paragraph of the section does start to move towards Walt selling entertainment as a product “as important as food, shelter, and a job”, but Watts doesn’t ever actually imply that Walt was anything other than a businessman pushing his product as best he could in as many areas as he could. He capitalized on the economic boom felt in America in the 50s, and he got into leisure time activities such as vacation and television right as they were hitting their stride. Yes, these things took advantage of the economic situation of the 50s, and it can be said that they exploited the emerging leisure culture, but Walt was a “family” man and America was his family. He sold primarily to this group of people and his support of the “new consumerism” mentioned on p. 362 was not an endorsement of all consumers participating in rampant spending, but instead that Americans should embrace their new consumerist lifestyle and economic prosperity by buying into what his company was selling.

Walt's Right-Hand Man

Well, my Steven Watts textbook literally just came in through the post office today and I spent a fair amount of time searching for information about the “nine old men” as was suggested by Collin and seconded by Dr. Croce, but instead I learned a fair amount about Ub Iwerks. The cursory glance and brief skimming/reading that I did of the text were relatively uninformative about the relationship and growing dependence between Walt and his so-called cabinet.

The Works of Disney: Too Lowbrow?

Steven Watts devotes a whole chapter in his book to “Disney and American Culture,” and I found this reading to be informative but not definitive. It seems like Watts cannot put on a finger on the true impact of Disney, waffling between whimsical and fun entertainment and having a serious impression on American culture.

Watts first points to an interview with Disney In the late 1930’s when Disney says, “we are not artists but only moving picture producers trying to offer entertainment… if the public likes what we turn out we just hold up our thumbs and consider ourselves lucky” (Watts 140). From this quote, it would seem like Disney is like any other businessman; he decides what his audience wants to see and then produces movies with the intent of making bigger profits. But business expansion also makes good sense for Disney because he can reach bigger audiences with his movies, and perhaps then have a greater impact on culture. Watts notes that some authors said Disney “valued profit only insofar as it made more creativity possible” (Watts 146). So in this way, seeking profit is the means to the end of producing culturally significant works. Today, there is still much debate on whether Disney films should be treated as art or simply just fairy tales that parents show their children to keep them occupied on rainy days.

On page 145, Watts presents the idea that Disney was a “purveyor of moral values” that is interested in educating the soul through his works. Snow White can be seen as a movie that is Biblical in nature, with love triumphing over evil and selfishness. In my previous blog post I mentioned that the perversion of Grimm’s fairy tales could have a negative impact on childhood development, but Watts writes that, “Experts on child-raising and psychology publicly lauded his films for their healthy impact on young viewers” (Watts 145).  While Grimm’s fairy tales are foreboding and sometimes frightening in nature, Disney rejected “scarier, more powerful elements” and chose to instead pursue funny, inspirational films (156).

Disney seemed to respect the common man and produced many films to reach a broad populist audience, but many themes were directed at children or the inner-child in all of us. Disney said his films were wrote for “parts of people… that deathless, precious, ageless, absolutely primitive remnant of something in every world-wracked human being which makes us play with children’s toys and laugh without self-consciousness at silly things… You know, the Mickey in us” (159). So in many ways, Disney was just trying to get us to laugh instead of aspiring to have his name etched into the history books as one of the great artists And who is to say that such musings are to lowbrow to be explored on a higher level? Watts writes that Disney bridged the gap between lowbrow and highbrow culture and acted as a spokesman for the American way of life (163). It seems to me like Watts wants to say that Disney should be considered highbrow, but he settles to say that he had a huge impact on American culture, whether that be a good thing or a bad thing. 

Disney's "Three Personalities" and how these affected his work process.

Disney, in the creative process, exhibited three major different types of thinking. These manners in which he looked at things affected his personality to the extent that he would be classified as three different people as he went along. These were: the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic.
The beneficial aspect of this way in which he organized himself during the creative process is that he applied these three aspects directly into the workplace. In the artistic production process, he divided groups into three rooms. These rooms, similar to his various personalities, were divided by function. For instance, Room 1 was where all the ideas for a project were allowed to be explored and submitted. The story's details would take shape in this room, and would later be sent to another room.
In the second phase would be the process of coordination and sequencing of ideas to actually form the story and the characters. Here was where the storyboard was used ( a Disney invention, interestingly enough). The third room was where the project underwent a critical inspection, where the whole team could comment with "no holds barred", as it was not an individual being criticized but the project itself. If the project made it past the third room then it would be expanded and production could begin.
Disney allowed his personality to greatly affect his company and this is one great part of the reason for its success.

Sources:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47425719/Strategies-of-Genius-Vol-I-Walt-Disney
http://www.wiredportfolio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/DisneyPaper.pdf

Roy O. Disney: Part 2

For my second blog post on Roy, I went through the index and marked every instance of Roy O. Disney being mentioned in the book. Upon inspection, a number of these had to do with letters that Walt had written to Roy, which didn’t really give me much insight. Beyond that however, the text really seemed to give a good picture of who Roy was in terms of his relationship with Walt and his relationship with the company.

Post 2: More on Animation

I did some searching through the Watts book and wasn't as successful as I'd hoped - I used the Index as a guide and searched the book for some of the keywords from my original post, and didn't really find anything. I'm sure that a book that's received such high praise must have an extensive section on Disney's animation practices, but perhaps it's just buried a little deeper in the text and it will surface as we get further into our studies. However, in relation to what I wrote on last week, I did find this thanks to Collin's post:

"...The [Kansas City Film Ad] company produced crudely animated one-minute advertising films to be shown at movie theaters before the main feature....Dissatisfied with the techniques of his employers - standard operating procedure was to use paper cutouts of figures, whose joints would be moved and photographed against a background to make them "move" - [Disney] began to explore the drawing process of more sophisticated New York productions. He checked out books on animation and motion from the public library and began compiling a file of tracings and photostats."

I'm still really interested in this and would like to explore it more, in addition to some other innovations such as Collin's mention of the multiplane camera. I hope that this develops into a really interesting topic, something more than just a look at the different types of techniques Disney used - maybe more of a focus on what triggered the use of each one, as seen here.

HON202: Tutorial on Disney.  This page shows the evolution of our organization for the course, with the latest schedule at the end

Jan. 19: After talking with Colin, the rest of the group met and we came up with this outline and game plan:

Framework: for each of the 3 segments, write a 5-p paper analyzing the topic and what we have learned from it

I. What to work on

1. Bio of the person and the corporation

2. Innovations:

Cartoons

Movies:  phases from 20s to the present

Art  and music

Theme parks: entertainment, design issues

Celebration: planned community

3. Influence:

            Central fl

            South America: WD and El Groupo; Ariel Dorfman’s imperialism theme

            International theme parks

            Animation industry, Pixar

            American culture: become a brand

            Technology: animatronics

            Planning use of space, urban planning

            Recruitment of creative talent

            Corporation as Entertainment trust: buying Marvel, TV channels

Disney critics

Never Give Up

                I will follow the common trend in my blog post about what I believe to have been the most influential event in Walt’s life. Since I do not know much about him I used Wikipedia to get a general overview and what I surmised is somewhat of a cop-out response. In my opinion, the most influential event was his rejection from the army during World War I. After this rejection Walt went on to join the Red Cross and become an ambulance driver. In the face of rejection the common response is often to give up but Walt portrays the archetype of the “American dream”, the notion that by working hard anyone can move forward and attain success for themselves in America. By never giving up he overcame the obstacles of poor finances and outside influences that were working against him.

                This determination and resolve that Walt demonstrated could easily be confused with foolishness but he attained that success which he sought and so we now study him as someone worthy of our attention. He faced failures when he got rejected from the army, he couldn’t find work, his studio failed, the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit were taken, and losing all of his animators to Universal Studios in addition to many other problems throughout his career. Nevertheless, Walt persevered and demonstrated that he could face a setback and rise above it. The whole concept is something that we as a society marvel at: a protagonist faces difficulty and struggles to overcome it; he/she experiences a period of growth and manages to overcome the aforementioned obstacle. We see this in The Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan, and so on. Even though these movies came about after Walt, they are popular movies in part to this theme of a protagonist overcoming difficulty and so Walt is in some ways a real life example of this.

My post is based on an aggregate of knowledge I've gained from watching hours upon hours of special features on more than a few Disney movies. So pretty much it's not that in depth.
Walt's time in Marceline gave him a lot of ideas he ended up infusing into his movies, the parks, and the whole Disney mythos. Walt also developed a talent for drawing while living in Marceline. 
He lived in an idyllic setting in a quintessential American town with a main street, quaint shops, friendly people, etc. The Lady & the Tramp special features said that the town the movie is set in is based off of Marceline. You can see the same sort of setup in Mainstreet in the Magic Kingdom. I think spending time in such a nice place as a child left a permanenet impression on him, and probably made him want to create a place where people could bring their kids and feel that same joy. I also think happy memories from Marceline might be partially responsible for the whole "happily ever after" and "dreams come true" schtick. After all, Warner Brothers (back then) and Dreamworks (now) also make a lot of animated shows and movies for children, but they aren't recognized purely for their wholesomeness like Disney shows are.

Grimm and Disney

I read this paper, titled "The Disneyfication of Folklore: Adolescents and Archetypes"

http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/pdf/story/disneyfication_friedmeyer.pdf

The author says that one of the main inspirations of Disney was the classic Grimm fairly tales. However, Disney perverted the original message to adapt them to a certain audience and for purely economic reasons. Grimm's fairly tales are dark while the classic Disney princess stories always end "happily ever after."

The problem with the adaptations of the original fairly tales to the mellowed Disney version is that young people are presented with messages that are completely unrealistic and also demote women to a lower class. The author notes that the forces of good and evil fight over sleeping beauty, which makes it seem like sleeping beauty cannot fight for herself and must instead have a man do her bidding. The author also charges that Beauty and the Beast references an abusive relationship that is fixed through the loving and caring nature of Belle. This might tell young girls that they can fix abusive relationships and that it is their own fault if the can't do so.

Overall, the paper is criticizing Disney for taking some of the most important and influential fairy tales and turning them into something that sends the completely wrong message to impressionable youth. Disney took the fairy tales out of their original context and morphed them into something completely different and possibly malicious.

Roy O.

So my post is going to be more off the cuff than most. As I was skimming pages looking for what I wanted to write about, I noticed a surprising lack of information regarding Roy O. Disney, Walt's brother. (On a side note, Walt also had two other brothers, Herbert and Raymond, that I have never heard about before today.)

Roy O. Disney had an effect on Walt from a very early age. All accounts that I've heard say that they were the closest of the brothers. The most prominent featuring of Roy that I've come across is the movie from the end of the One Man's Dream attraction in Disney's Hollywood Studios. This short film gives mention of Roy's impact on Walt in early life by mentioning in relative detail the situation regarding Roy's enlistment in the army. The story goes that Roy left almost without warning, and Walt was so distraught by losing his brother that he wanted to join the army, even though he was only 16 (2 years earlier than legally acceptable). The only thing he could do to follow in his brother's footsteps was to join the Red Cross.

Roy also had an effect on the Company later during the development of Disneyland. There's a paragraph on the Wikipedia page for Disneyland which states that "Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fundraising. He decided to use television..." What the article doesn't mention is that this plan was concocted by Roy. Roy had banking experience and was able to secure funding for Disneyland due to his business prowess. Again, I remember this from a video in the park, but it's as reliable a source as any and I have seen it a bunch of times. And if I remember correctly, Roy also helped in the early financing of the studio to produce the first shorts and movies. I'm interested to read a fleshed out version of these stories in the book next week.

Hi everyone,

Well, I'm not entirely sure how to go about this, so I'm just going to fly by the seat of my pants a bit. If I don't offer up enough information, let me know and I'd be happy to flesh things out.

I found an interesting blip about a book that influenced Walt Disney's early work - Animated Cartoons:
How They are Made, their Origin and Development. Apparently Walt Disney read this book and it gave him the idea that animation cels would be superior to the cutout animation technique he was using at the time, and this is what led him to adopt the practice for everything produced by the Disney company (until 1990, when they adopted Computer Animation Production Systems). The book can be found here, it looks like an interesting read. maybe it could be future class material: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106001458550;page=root;seq=11;view=plaintext;size=100;orient=0

For some background, the cutout animation technique is actually not unlike stop-motion animation: key moving parts of a scene are made into cutouts and laid over the scene, and a picture is taken at every moment that the cutout must move. Before computer animation, this was a popular animation technique because it avoided having to redraw every frame of an animation. Here's a page with some more information: http://www.aifweb.com/animation/cutout_anim/cutout_animation.html

In contrast, cels (celluloids) are clear sheets on which characters or images are painted and then overlayed on top of each other, and it's a staple of Disney animation.There's a page about cels and their use here: http://www.animationartgallery.com/aanimationdefinitions.html

This is something I'd definitely like to look into as it's something I never considered. Plus, I think it would be kind of cool to study that book a bit knowing Walt himself read that same text and was impacted by it.

~Brooke