Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation, 1937-2001

275 Pages·2007·1.89 MB·English

by  Amy M. Davis

About this book
Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation, by
Amy Davis, looks at how human female characters have been represented during
the first 70 years of feature-length animation at Disney. Tallying up which films
have had human females in leading roles and analysing how such issues as
activity/passivity have been handled, this book re-examines the notion that all
Disney heroines are rewarded for passivity, and contextualises these films within
the larger Hollywood landscape in which they were produced.
The subject of women and how they were regarded over the course of the
twentieth century is not by any means a new subject. Writers, feminists, anti-
feminists, politicians, political commentators, psychologists, journalists,
celebrities, housewives, students, historians, and many others have written on
this subject in varying degrees of depth and seriousness.
This book analyses the construction of (mainly human) female characters in the
animated films of the Walt Disney Studio between 1937 and 2004. It is based on
the assumption that, in their representations of femininity, Disney films both
reflected and helped shape the attitudes of the wider society, both at the time of
their first release and subsequently. It attempts to establish the extent to which
these characterisations were shaped by wider popular stereotypes. Moreover,
because within American animation it is the work of the Disney Studio which
has reigned – and continues to reign – supreme within its field, and because most
of the major animated films created in Hollywood have been produced by Walt
Disney’s studio, it is upon these films that the book concentrates.
Biography
Amy M. Davis is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Hull. The author
of several papers on Disney feature animation and the Disney Studio, Good
Girls & Wicked Witches is her first large study of the Disney studio’s output, and
grew out of her doctoral work in the history department at UCL.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library
Ebook edition ISBN: 978-0-86196-901-2
Ebook edition published by
John Libbey Publishing Ltd, 3 Leicester Road, New Barnet, Herts EN5 5EW, United Kingdom
e-mail: [email protected]; web site: www.johnlibbey.com

Printed and electronic book orders (Worldwide): Indiana University Press, Herman B Wells Library –
350, 1320E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
www.iupress.indiana.edu

© 2011 Copyright John Libbey Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Film as a Cultural Mirror
Chapter 2 A Brief History of Animation
Chapter 3 The Early Life of Walt Disney and the Beginnings of the Disney
Studio, 1901–1937
Chapter 4 Disney Films 1937–1967: The “Classic” Years
Chapter 5 Disney Films 1967–1988: The “Middle” Era
Chapter 6 Disney Films 1989–2005: The “Eisner” Era
Conclusion
AppendixDisney’s full-length animated feature films
1
AppendixDisney films analysed in this study, with plot summaries
2
AppendixBibliography
3
AppendixFilmography
4
Index
Acknowledgements
Any project of this size is impossible to complete without the help of a great many people. There is no way
to thank individually each and everyone of them, so I give them my most sincere thanks for their moral
support, encouragement, advice, and general cheering on, and trust that they know who they are. Amongst
them are David Eldridge, whose willingness to talk shop (even on holiday!), and his friendship and
example, always inspire me to work harder; Alicia King, who has always been an email away in times of
joy and crisis, and who even went above and beyond in helping me proofread; Cara Gunther Waterhouse,
who’s been a true friend for nearly half our lives, always shared my passion for anything Disney (even if
she does prefer the live-action films!), and inspired my desire to try out life in the UK. 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 research trips, have been of enormous help! Also, extra thanks to Helen
for her hard work on the index!
Special thanks, however, must be given to those who gave exceptional help to me in some way. My brother,
Brian Davis, has always been 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 holiday in between as an excuse to give me the videos and dvds I’ve needed along the
way. She also is the one who took me on my first trip to Walt Disney World back in 1977 (when I was just
five years old), and has always overflowed with love and generosity to help me along the way. My mother,
Kitty Davis, deserves the most thanks – not only has she tirelessly supported me in every way possible,
she’s even provided spelling and proofreading help at various stages. Most importantly, she took me to see
my first viewings of many of the films in this study (and made me stay to the end, even when queens turned
into hags and Bambi’s mother got shot!), and has given me – and shared with me – her love of movies of
every kind. She has been the kind of mother the heroines in this book could only ever have wished for.
Finally, my sincere thanks must be given to Dr. Melvyn Stokes, who supervised my MA dissertation and
Ph.D. thesis in the history department at UCL, and helped to launch me in my “Mickey Mouse” career:
when casting about for a suitable subject for my MA dissertation, a conversation with my brother still
lingering in my mind, I suggested, somewhat flippantly, “Why don’t I do my dissertation on Disney?” His
brief reply changed my life: “Why not?”
Introduction
The subject of women and how they were regarded over the course of the
modern era is not by any means new. Writers, feminists, anti-feminists,
politicians, political commentators, psychologists, journalists, celebrities,
housewives, students, historians, and many others have written on this subject in
varying degrees of depth and seriousness. But in the twentieth century, as a
mainly print-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 were tied together with and within the
medium of film, 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 women were mapped.
This book analyses the construction of (mainly human) female characters in the
animated films of the Walt Disney Studio between 1937 and 2004. It is based on
the assumption that, in their representations of femininity, Disney films reflected
the attitudes of the wider society from which they emerged, and that their
enduring popularity is evidence that 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 into the context of Hollywood films from the era
in which these Disney films were made. Moreover, because of the nature of the
animated film – because it is a unique combination of printed popular culture (as
in drawings done for newspapers, books, and magazines) and the twentieth
century’s later emphasis on more life-like visual media (such as 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 womanhood are to be found. Furthermore, because within the
subject of US animation it is the work of the Disney Studio which has reigned –
and continues to reign – supreme within its field, and because most of the major
animated films created in Hollywood have been produced by Walt Disney’s