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World Without Disney

HungryJoeHungryJoe
edited March 2008 in Anime
I don't want to attack Disney or anything, but how do you think animation would be different if he hadn't been around?

Max Fleischer, Leon Schlesinger, Tex Avery and the like all seem to be shooting for a more mature audience. Do you thinkthat, without Disney, American audiences might not have acquired the notion that animation is "kid stuff"?
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Comments

  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    edited March 2008
    I think most of the progress points (synchronized sound, feature-length animated films,...) would eventually happen, but they wouldn't have happened until later decades. We also wouldn't have the artistic animated films like Fantasia until probably the end of the century when there were more options for independent animation.
    Post edited by Li_Akahi on
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    You don't think Fleischer could have done that stuff? What about Gulliver's Travels?

    Do you seriously think that Disney's absence would set animation back fifty-odd years?
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    Not by 50 years, I would say by (at the latest) 1940.
  • VigaViga
    edited March 2008
    Tezuka would've been influenced by something else. Maybe his style would've been different.

    Without Disney maybe cartoons would be thought of as for everyone rather than just kids. Maybe there would be more popular adult cartoons.
    Post edited by Viga on
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    Not by 50 years, I would say by (at the latest) 1940.
    You said
    We also wouldn't have the artistic animated films like Fantasia until probably the end of the century when there were more options for independent animation.
    Fantasia was released in 1940, so if there were no "artistic animated films like Fantasia until probably the end of the century", wouldn't that be setting things back by some fifty-odd years?
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • AprecheApreche
    Japanese animation would certainly be crazy different. Would Tezuka have instead have taken more influence from the Tex Avery and Fliescher types?
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    Not by 50 years, I would say by (at the latest) 1940.
    You said
    We also wouldn't have the artistic animated films like Fantasia until probably the end of the century when there were more options for independent animation.
    Fantasiawas released in 1940, so if there were no "artistic animated films likeFantasiauntil probably the end of the century", wouldn't that be setting things back by some fifty-odd years?
    I was talking more about experimental animated films, not all animated works.
  • gomidoggomidog
    For good or for bad, Disney pioneered the big budget animated feature film. I suppose it was inevitable, but having someone like Disney who was so ambitious that he would push the limits and produce something like Snow White (which was a technical marvel for its time) probably did more good than bad to the art form all thing considered. The main problem with Disney was not their aesthetic sensibilities in the beginning but the fact that they refused to change. A studio that started off pushing boundaries (artistically) ended up getting bogged down by its own image. I think that we cannot place the blame for the tendency in the US to produce animation with infantile subject matter fully on Disney either. Disney or not, it may have been inevitable. Look at the US comics code. Were the animation industry to follow the same path it would have probably gotten caught up in that 1950's moral debate which almost destroyed animation's print cousin. That said, Disney's art is amazing, but the sensibilities and messages contained in the films, even after Disney's death, often cause me to roll my eyes. Very prudish, That Disney.

    ...I took a class once where we did critical analysis of Miyazaki and Disney in comparison to one another. My final thesis was an examination of women as the embodiment of nature (the films I used were Pochahontas and Mononoke Hime) and how they reflected differing cultural attitudes concerning man's relationship with the natural world. Basically, to make a long story short, San kicks more ass. 'Nuff said. That was the same class where I remember reading this really weird textbook which read WAY TOO MUCH politically into Disney films and I remember standing up in front of the class trying to explain how the author of the essay explained that "under the sea" was a socialist utopia, but the mermaid is seduced by capitalism in the form of Prince Erik. Laugh Riot that one...
  • AprecheApreche
    That was the same class where I remember reading this really weird textbook which read WAY TOO MUCH politically into Disney films and I remember standing up in front of the class trying to explain how the author of the essay explained that "under the sea" was a socialist utopia, but the mermaid is seduced by capitalism in the form of Prince Erik. Laugh Riot that one...
    I was reading somewhere someone was complaining about how racist "Under the Sea" is. Poor, small, underwater (underground), urban sea creatures with cool music being kept down by the white, and lame, kings and queens in the rural castles above ground.
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    edited March 2008
    That was the same class where I remember reading this really weird textbook which read WAY TOO MUCH politically into Disney films and I remember standing up in front of the class trying to explain how the author of the essay explained that "under the sea" was a socialist utopia, but the mermaid is seduced by capitalism in the form of Prince Erik. Laugh Riot that one...
    There are people out there who think that Disney was a Nazi and/or a communist and say that the films he was associated with are nothing but propoganda. I always find those statements to be quite hilarious.
    Post edited by Li_Akahi on
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    There are people out there who think that Disney was a Nazi and/or a communist and say that the films he was associated with are nothing but propoganda. I always find those statements to be quite hilarious.
    He might not have been a Nazi, but he named names to HUAC. That alone makes him a total and complete asshat.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • gomidoggomidog

    There are people out there who think that Disney was a Nazi and/or a communist and say that the films he was associated with are nothing but propoganda. I always find those statements to be quite hilarious.
    He was actually a huge anti-Semite, and as far as a person, I think he was a bastard. I separate the art from the artist in this case. As far as being a commie, he was generally anti-union and probably not all that much of a pinko. It's tough to be a nazi and a commie at the same time. As far a the films being propaganda, anything with a moral agenda is a little bit propaganda-ish. I think people read way too much into them, though.
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    He might not have been a Nazi, but henamed namesto HUAC. That alone makes him a total and complete asshat.
    I did a project on this subject in Freshman year so I already know about this.
  • AprecheApreche
    I separate the art from the artist in this case.
    This seems to be coming up quite a bit lately. Discussions about people who are pretty despicable, or have bad qualities, yet do works worthy of respect. Mike Tyson is the example I always lean on. It's hard to imagine a worse human being short of genocidal dictators, but watching him beat the snot out of somebody back in the day was a beautiful thing.
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    Despite the fact that he was Anti-Semitic, I would have loved to meet him.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    He might not have been a Nazi, but henamed namesto HUAC. That alone makes him a total and complete asshat.
    I did a project on this subject in Freshman year so I already know about this.
    Well, la-dee-dah. Maybe, as a result of your scholarly research, you can tell us what happened to those people he turned over to HUAC.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    Okay, everyone keeps going on about how his movies were propaganda and such... but weren't these movies based off of books?
  • BantaBanta
    Some of his more famous movies were based off of old fables but not all of them are.
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    Ah, alright. I know that Lion King, A Little Mermaid, Snow White (and actually most of those fairy tales) were all novels or folk stories before hand.

    So.. what wasn't?
  • BantaBanta
    edited March 2008
    A good chunk of the Disney cannon actually: Fantasia, The Rescuers, The Aristocats, and Lady and the Tramp just to name a few. You also have some of the live-action films that have animation, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, plus almost all of the movies that they did with Pixar.
    Post edited by Banta on
  • gomidoggomidog
    The Rescuers
    ...is actually based on a really good children's novel about mice from the mouse UN rescuing a political prisoner, a poet who was imprisoned for speaking out against the government and is being held in a terrible fortress by the sea. Disney cutesied the story up, because I guess the figured that kids wouldn't get the message, and made it about Diamonds in the Bayou. The best part of the book is the Norway Rat named Nils.

    In some ways bringing up old folk tales is a time honored way of preserving conservative moral values. In that way, sure, the films are based on old stories, but by remaking and presenting these stories what lessons are they trying to teach the modern child? One could say that the folktales themselves are often a form of moral propaganda.
    Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    So preaching in churches can be considered propaganda?

    And I was sure that Fantasia was based on something...
  • gomidoggomidog
    edited March 2008
    Aiyah, nix on the religious discussion. This thread will ignite in no time if you say stuff like that.

    ...but, every religion has plenty of propaganda. Let's leave it at that.

    And Lilo and Stitch = totally original. I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!!!
    My mom's friend's sister dated the director/writer and HE IS TOTALLY NUTS!
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    So preaching in churches can be considered propaganda?

    And I was sure that Fantasia was based on something...
    The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment was based off of a poem by the same name and the Pastoral Symphony was based off of different facets of Greek mythology, but none of the other segments were based off of any stories (except for maybe the Rite of Spring which was based off of the creation of Earth).
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    XD I never watched the show, but I thought.. ah well.

    And @Gomidog - yeah, I know. But that was the only example I could think of. ><
  • VigaViga
    Lilo and Stitch is one of the best things Disney brought out in the last decade!
  • ZeehatZeehat
    edited March 2008
    Lilo and Stitch is one of the best things Disney brought out in the last decade!
    I don't fancy this series much.
    Post edited by Zeehat on
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    I agree with Zeehat. It wasn't a very big hit with me, but it was adorable. =3
  • gomidoggomidog
    Ook, not the TV series. Disney spinoffs are always cruddy. The main movie, however, is comic gold in my eyes and is often quoted by me.

    "Emily is troubled...she needs desserts!"
    "This is your badness level"
    "My friends need to be punished" and
    "Bricks in a pillowcase"

    have entered my lingo something fierce.
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    I can do an almost perfect Stitch impression.
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