Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Changing Representations of Women in Disney's Feature Animation, 1937-2001 PDF
Preview Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Changing Representations of Women in Disney's Feature Animation, 1937-2001
GOOD GIRLS AND WICKED WITCHES This page intentionally left blank GOOD GIRLS AND WICKED WITCHES Women in Disney’s Feature Animation Amy M. Davis GOODGIRLSANDWICKEDWITCHES BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData GoodGirlsandWickedWitches:Women inDisney’sFeature Animation A catalogue entryforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary Publishedby JohnLibbeyPublishingLtd,3 LeicesterRoad, NewBarnet,HertsEN55EW, UnitedKingdom e-mail:[email protected]; website: www.johnlibbey.com EbookeditionISBN:978-0-86196-901-2 Orders:CombinedAcademicPublishersLtd.,15aLewin’sYard,EastStreet,CheshamHP5 1HQ, UnitedKingdom [email protected] www.combinedacademic.co.uk Ebookeditionpublishedby JDoihstnribLuitbebdeinyNPuorbtlhisAhminegricLatbdy,I3nLdeiaicneastUernRivoeards,itNyePwreBssa,r6n0e1t,NHoerrtthsMENor5to5nESWt,, UBlnooitmedinKgtionngd, IoNm47404, USA.www.iupress.indiana.edu e-mail:[email protected];website:www.johnlibbey.com DistributedinAustralasiabyElsevierAustralia, 30–52SmidmoreStreet,Marrickville NSW2204, Australia. www.elsevier.com.au Bookorders(UKandEurope):Marston BookServicesLtd [email protected] Bookorders(N.America):IndianaUniversityPress ©2006CopyrightJohnLibbeyPublishingLtd.All rightsreserved. www.iupress.indiana.edu Unauthorisedduplicationcontravenesapplicablelaws. ©Pr i2n0te1d1iCnoMpaylraiygshiatJboyhVni vLairbPbreiyntPinugbSlidshni. nBghLd.t,d 4.8A0l0l0riRgahwtsanregs,e Srevleadn.gorDarulEhsan. vi Contents CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter1 FilmasaCulturalMirror 17 Chapter2 ABriefHistoryofAnimation 33 Chapter3 TheEarlyLifeofWaltDisneyandtheBeginningsofthe DisneyStudio,1901–1937 63 Chapter4 DisneyFilms1937–1967:The“Classic”Years 83 Chapter5 DisneyFilms1967–1988:The“Middle”Era 137 Chapter6 DisneyFilms1989–2005:The“Eisner”Era 169 Conclusion 221 Appendix1 Disney’sfull-lengthanimatedfeaturefilms 237 Appendix2 Disneyfilmsanalysedinthisstudy,withplotsummaries 239 Appendix3 Bibliography 253 Appendix4 Filmography 263 Index 267 vii GOODGIRLSANDWICKEDWITCHES Acknowledgements Anyprojectof this size is impossibletocompletewithoutthe helpof agreatmanypeople.Thereisnowaytothankindividuallyeachand everyone of them, so I give them my most sincerethanks for their moralsupport,encouragement,advice,andgeneralcheeringon,and trustthattheyknowwhotheyare.AmongstthemareDavidEldridge, whosewillingnesstotalkshop (evenonholiday!),andhis friendship and example, alwaysinspireme to workharder; AliciaKing,who has alwaysbeenanemailawayintimesofjoy andcrisis,andwhoeven went above and beyond in helping me proofread; Cara Gunther Waterhouse, who’sbeenatruefriend fornearlyhalfour lives,always sharedmy passionfor anythingDisney(even ifshedoespreferthe live-actionfilms!),andinspiredmydesiretotryoutlifeintheUK. More recently, thanks are due to Máire Messenger-Davies, John Davies, Ciara Chambers, Niamh O’Sullivan, Andrew Boyce, and Helen Thornham, whose friendship and emotional support in the final stages of this project, not to mention the dog-sitting during researchtrips,havebeenofenormoushelp!Also,extrathankstoHelen forherhardworkontheindex! Specialthanks,however,mustbegiventothosewhogaveexceptional help tomeinsomeway.Mybrother, BrianDavis,hasalwaysbeen most able and willing to talk Disney with me, and given me much inspiration and food for thought in the process. My grandmother, Betty Erwin, has used every birthday, Christmas, Easter, and every holidayinbetweenasanexcusetogivemethevideosanddvdsI’ve neededalongtheway.Shealsoistheonewhotookmeonmyfirst trip to Walt Disney Worldback in1977(whenIwasjustfiveyears old),andhasalwaysoverflowedwithloveandgenerositytohelpme alongtheway.Mymother,KittyDavis,deservesthemostthanks– notonlyhasshetirelesslysupportedmeineverywaypossible,she’s evenprovidedspellingandproof-readinghelpatvariousstages.Most importantly,shetookmetoseemyfirstviewingsofmanyofthefilms inthisstudy (andmademestaytotheend,evenwhenqueensturned intohagsandBambi’smothergotshot!),andhasgivenme–andshared withme – her loveofmovies ofeverykind.Shehasbeenthekind of mothertheheroinesinthisbookcouldonlyeverhavewishedfor. Finally,mysincere thanks mustbe given toDr. Melvyn Stokes,who supervisedmyMAdissertationandPh.D.thesisinthehistorydepart- mentatUCL,andhelpedtolaunchmeinmy“MickeyMouse”career: when castingaboutfor asuitablesubjectfor myMAdissertation, a conversationwithmy brother stilllingeringinmy mind,Isuggested, somewhat flippantly, “Why don’t I do my dissertation on Disney?” Hisbrief replychangedmylife:“Whynot?” viii Introduction (cid:0)(cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:6)(cid:7)(cid:8)(cid:3)(cid:9)(cid:5)(cid:2) T he subject of women and how they were regarded overthecourseofthemoderneraisnotbyanymeans new. Writers, feminists, anti-feminists, politicians, political commentators, psychologists, journalists, celebri- ties,housewives,students,historians,andmanyothershave written on this subject in varying degrees of depth and seriousness.Butinthetwentiethcentury,asamainlyprint- based culture gave way to one which, at the start of the twenty-first century, is primarily image- and media-based, it was the way these physical/cultural/social expectations weretiedtogetherwithandwithinthemediumoffilm,and disseminated in the person of the “actress” (be she a live woman or a drawing), which became important. It is with the images of women in popular culture that all of the aspects of American society’s changing attitudes towards womenweremapped. This book analyses the construction of (mainly human) femalecharactersintheanimatedfilmsoftheWaltDisney Studiobetween1937and2004.Itisbasedontheassumption that, in their representations of femininity, Disney films reflectedtheattitudesofthewidersocietyfromwhichthey emerged,andthattheirenduringpopularityisevidencethat the depictions they contain would continue to resonate as the films were re-released in later decades. It attempts to establish the extent to which these characterisations were shaped by wider popular stereotypes by putting the films intothecontextofHollywoodfilmsfromtheerainwhich these Disney films were made. Moreover, because of the natureoftheanimatedfilm–becauseitisauniquecombi- nation of printed popular culture (as in drawings done for 1 GOODGIRLSANDWICKEDWITCHES newspapers,books,andmagazines)andthetwentiethcen- tury’slateremphasisonmorelife-likevisualmedia(suchas film, television, and various forms of photography), it is argued here that it is within the most constructed of all moving images of the female form – the heroine of the animated film – that the most telling aspects of Woman as the subject of Hollywood iconography and (in the case of the output of US animation studios) ideas of American womanhoodaretobefound.Furthermore,because within the subject of US animation it is the work of the Disney Studio which has reigned – and continues to reign – su- preme within its field, and because most of the major ani- mated films created in Hollywood have been produced by Walt Disney’s studio, it is upon these films that this study concentrates. The problemsof researching Disney Ironically, as scholarly interest in the history and creations of the studio increased thanks to the emergence of film studies and animation studies as academic disciplines, one ofthemajorroadblockswhicheventuallyaroseinundertak- ingastudyofcharacterisationsof femininitybytheDisney studio has been the Disney organisation itself. The first logicalplacetogoasasourceofinformationonDisneyfilms and on Walt Disney himself would be the archives at Walt DisneyProductionsinBurbank,California.Thoughearlier researcherswereabletodothis(amazingly,RichardShale, author of the 1982 book Donald Duck Joins Up: The Walt Disney Studio During World War II, wrote almost apologeti- callyin hisbook’s introduction forhavingto rely so heavily on theDisneyarchivesandprimarysourcesasasourcefor his research materials!1), recent years have witnessed a change in the Disney company’s attitude toward anyone – including academics –wishing toundertake researchinthe studio’sarchives.Foratime,evenusingthename“Disney” or images from Disney was prohibitively problematic. As the editors of From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture were told in correspondence with the 1 RichardShale. Disney Company before the publication of their book DonaldDuckJoins Up:TheWalt (which they had originally entitled Doing Disney: Critical DisneyStudio Dialogues in Film, Gender, and Culture): “... Disney does not DuringWorldWar allow third-party books to use the name ‘Disney’ in their II(AnnArbor: UMIResearch, titles – this implies endorsement or sponsorship by the 1982),pp.xiii-xiv. 2 Introduction Disneyorganization”.2Thelettercontinued:“Asyouknow, all of our valuable properties, characters, and marks are protected under copyright and trademark law and any un- authorized use of our protected material would constitute infringements of our rights under said law”.3 The hint of threatthisstatementcontainsisnottherebyaccident.Over the course of its history, the Walt Disney Company has grownsuspiciousofoutside interest and, as a consequence, has become unusually protective of itself. It could be hy- pothesised that thisprotectivenesshasitsrootsinthe1928 theft of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit by Disney’s distributor, Charles Mintz, but this seems unlikely, given that this protectiveness reached its height during Michael Eisner’s leadership of the corporation. Whether academic research inthearchiveswillbeallowedinthefuture,nowthatEisner hasleft,remainstobeseen.Itcanonlybehoped, however, thatthevalueofpermittingscholarlyaccesstothearchives will be realised, and that the treasure trove of information they contain will be offeredup once more for professional intellectualanalysis. Bythelate1990s,however,ithadbecomeimpossiblesimply tomakeanappointmenttoseetheDisneyarchives.Scholars first had to write a detailed letter to the Disney Archives’ Permissions Department stating the nature, purpose, and ultimateintentions(i.e. whetherpublicationwasintended) oftheresearchthatwasbeingundertaken,andthenhadto waitand hopethat accesswouldbe granted.Only afterfirst beinggrantedpermissiontoenterthearchiveswerescholars 2 ElizabethBell, allowedtomakeanappointmenttoconductresearch.Fur- LyndaHaas,and LauraSells(eds). thermore,theywerestillnotallowedcompleteaccesstothe FromMouseto archives. When I enquired as to the existence of audience Mermaid:The PoliticsofFilm, polls on the reception of Disney’s films, I was told that, Gender,andCulture while these polls had, in fact, been conducted, “Unfortu- (Indianapolis: IndianaUniversity nately,aftercheckingwithourLegaldepartments,itseems Press,1995),p.1. that the audience poll information is still considered pro- 3 Belletal,From prietary and confidential, so it is not available to people MousetoMermaid, outsideofTheWaltDisneyCompany”.4 p.1. 4 Personal Imyselfwasdeniedtheuseofthearchiveswhen,in1997,I Correspondence, wrote for permission tosee suchmaterialsasexistedshow- viae-mail,dated ing the evolution of the various character portrayals. The 27February1997, fromDaveSmith, replyIreceivedstatedthat“Whilewerecognizethepurpose ChiefArchivist, youhave in mind, unfortunately,Iamplacedintheunen- WaltDisney Productions. viable position ofhavingtoadvise you thatwe cannotgrant 3
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