The Disney Canon
This summer I have watched 26 of the 59 Disney Animation feature films. Some of them for the very first time. (Princess and the Frog was delightful, who knew?) I don’t adore Disney, but I find it an interesting cultural touchstone because it has lasted so long and evolved so often. Watching so many so close together is an entirely different experience than watching one every so often. Stories begin to emerge beyond the individual films.
One story I’ve indulged in is the evolution of animation and the expectations for what an animated film can be. The Internet has been my friend and after I watch, I look things up. I learned about the great fission of animators who left with Don Bluth to become Disney rivals and create non-Disney films that I love such as Land Before Time, American Tail, and All Dogs Go to Heaven.
I have collected the story of Disney-esque expressions. From yellow eyes of the snake in the Jungle book that show up in Robin Hood and Alice and Wonderland and many others, to the ‘aw gosh’ hand motion of Aladdin which every male hero does before and after including, strangely, Simba who does not have hands.
I also notice the treatment of storylines and story devices across films. I had this impression of the canon being a rather flawed three-notes on repetition behemoth. In fact, it has surprising range and supports the conclusion that Disney has been in some ways a pioneer, allowing risky ideas and unique stories that we would not know otherwise. (The Black Cauldron, anyone?)
Beauty and the Beast is by far and away the most complex, nuanced, and accurate reflection of our real society’s biases, rules, dark impulses. I was surprised how much I allowed myself to enjoy it after swearing off the story during grad school when I wrote a paper on B&B adaptations and threw my loyalty in with Angela Carter.
The Lion King is the first major feature that was not an adaptation. All the princess movies are not nearly the carbon copy romances I thought they were as a child, but the do all work from some shared assumptions about love, romance, and women’s roles in stories. Ariel is a sixteen year old who falls in love with an adult man. Also, Sleeping Beauty’s Aurora is promised to Prince Phillip who is at least eight years older. Moana is beautiful and amazing and I wish it had been around when I was a kid.
If you have Disney+ and you’re looking for an escape from our continuing hellhole of a historical moment, a systematic watching of the animated features is great fun. You can also place yourself in this narrative and your children in another and see how your childhood touchstones overlap and diverge. As a Disney Renaissance child, B&B, The Lion King, and Aladdin are always going to be stand outs. And watching these modern musicals like (ahem, Frozen) was disappointing because I thought after all the hype they would somehow be the same and they aren’t. They’re not Broadway style, but fractured repetitive pop songs stuffed into bad editing and basic stories. I think my 8-year-old niece would like to argue about this, but that’s far better than watching Covid case numbers rise while she skips off to school without a mask.
