Snow White was Really Green
by Bonnie Alter, London on 03.26.08
It turns out that Snow White was a role model for saving the forest and Walt Disney was a secret environmentalist, inserting subliminal messages into his cartoons. Who knew? According to a recent book by two Cambridge academics, all those years of watching Jungle Book, the Little Mermaid and Bambi (re-runs on that one) have made generations of children more sympathetic to the natural world. Great! Bambi, from 1942, was noted as being particularly influential--the authors think that many of the first green activists may have learned respect for nature by watching it every Saturday afternoon at the movies.
It sounds crazy but the analysis of many of the plots is interesting... Snow White lived in the forest and the seven dwarfs were her best friends and the forest was a peaceful setting compared to the madness of the human world. Bambi was "a classic example of the use of animated detail to represent the idyllic realm of nature rendered vulnerable by human incursions". Tarzan was raised by gorillas, Cinderella's only friends are animals and don't forget that it was mouse that helped her find her prince. Once Disney gave up the reins and Michael Eisner took over the films "become more complex, suggesting that people and nature can coexist if people come to respect wildlife and realise their place in the natural order". The explanation of Minnie and Mickey is grist for another thesis. :: The Times
Who knew? Um, everyone? Well, maybe it's a vegan thing [I've heard "someone watched Bambi one too many times" more often than I care to recollect] but I think it's pretty much common knowledge these were films of that nature and influence...
If you Google 'The Politics of Walt Disney' an entirely different image of the man emerges. He attended American Nazi Party meetings before WWII and became an ardent AntiCommunist afterwards... even becoming an agent of the FBI. I personally think that he used Nature, the mortal danger of innocents, and Classic Fable narratives as a relief valve for the mindset of North Americans embroiled by the paranormal political manipulations of his day. Disney moved in the neoconservative circles of Hollywood who were obsessed with their brand of post-fascist loathing of Unions, Communism, and Socialism. In many ways I believe he became a model Capitalist and Hollywood still goes to great lengths to expound the Capitalism Ethics of Industrialism married to Propaganda.
Currently, I find that Disney Corp. trifles with environmental themes while delivering parallel personal triumph outcomes for most of what it has produced in the past ten or twenty years... it is caught up in the adolescent illusions they have created for the industry and our culture of nostalgic amnesia. 'The Wonderful World of Disney' was given the Six O'Clock Family Suppertime anchor by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from the start-up of it's 1950's television services in Canada to this day... and this give-over continues to hamstring Canada's media production by setting production goals and designs that must mirror the American matrices for film and television. A Canadian Film can only gain acceptance in Canada when it is played back through the American Theatre Chains that dominate our theatrical landscapes. Walt Disney is not to blame for this... Canadians are. It's ironic that Thorson... his most reliable and gifted illustrator was a Brigden's commercial artist in Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada... who wandered south and helped Disney sparkle the world.
The 7 dwarfs looked innocent enough but they were miners who hoarded their riches. Sound familiar at all?
Walt Disney's alleged fascist sympathies are an urban legend, nothing more. (Neal Gabler has debunked this rumor pretty thoroughly in his otherwise unsympathetic biography of the man.) But Disney's "green streak" was deeply heartfelt. It can be found not only in his animated features, but throughout his work as a live-action producer. The True-Life Adventures series -- though crude, emotionally manipulative, and even unscrupulous by today's standards -- blazed the trail for eco-friendly nature documentaries in the cinema and, more importantly, on television. It's difficult to imagine what the environmentalist movement in America would look like without Disney's influence.
re Jakespeare
From his volunteer work as a Red Cross ambulance driver in France during World War I at the age of just 16 to his gifts and personal work for classic charities like Toys for Tots, Walt Disney was clearly a socialist.
So why did he hate the Communists? Well by the time he became famous, the Russian Communists had already killed 50M people. Since then, Chinese Communists killed 70M people.
By any objective measure, he was right about the Communists.
There's another interpretation of Disney's portrayal of nature in his films that goes back to the 19th century American view of "wilderness": and ultimately to Rousseau: indeed, he portrayed nature as idyllic, an ideal in much the same way that Rousseau did, an idea reflected in the works of the Hudson River School and the early Western landscapists (Bierstadt comes to mind), and even in the works of Remington and later, Edward Sheriff Curtis: wilderness was Eden, a place of innocence and majesty, its human inhabitants the Noble Savages depicted by the French philosophes, and it is "civilized" humanity that is the pernicious influence. It's an ongoing theme reflected in this century in the works of Ansel Adams, among others -- a contemporary of Disney, as it happens.
Let me offer the idea that historical precedent makes more sense here than the idea that Disney was a prophet of contemporary environmentalism.
Great topic & it has covered several points regarding
subliminal messaging technology. It was fun reading your article. You might want to check out http://www.chargedaudio.com as they have a whole range of articles and programs related to subliminal messages.
Subliminal? Walt Disney never hid his environmentalism and was very open about his love of nature in all of his interviews.
I agree with Hunter that the Bambi- and Snow White-era Disney is more along the lines of wilderness ideology. While it is important to instill a value of Nature, I would pose that this (alone) may be unhelpful in contemporary climate solutions because it creates an exclusively preservationist agenda instead of a smarter integration of Nature into our cities and lives.
I'm 62 years old and can remember seeing Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs when I was a child in the 50's. This movie had a lifelong impact upon me. I admired their work ethic and their beautifully crafted and personalized furniture. From that day forward it became my dream to build and own such furniture. Fast forward to 1994. I decided then to abandon my corporate career working for the likes of IBM and Apple to make my dream a reality, not just for my self, but for all people and planet. I have spend the last 15 years developing what I hope will become some of the most sustainable, most affordable and personally artful furniture in the world. If all goes as planned you'll be reading about it here at treehugger before Earth Day 2008 arrives.
Oh. pretty interesting...and it also sounds kinda crazy. Thanks for the post tho.
someone forgot that snow white was running through the dark forest full of scary looking trees
lovely! bring me my beautiful memory of childhood!
I agree with Hunter. It is certainly true that these films weren't without their own influences, and even today we see evidence of similar themes in advertising and marketing for green products.
I think that focusing on Disney's environmental visions is ill-advised, however, because they have little to do with current circumstances. If Snow White suddenly had access to a vacuum, dishwasher, and microwave, would she really deny herself the convenience? What if Bambi's Hunter was dissatisfied with the low-quality mass-market meats offered at his local Stop and Shop, and decided to go hunting instead? Exploring what's left out of the spotlight in these movies, as well as assumptions they make about nature and man can lead to very different pictures of the environmental effects of Disney.