Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (2 page)

a full-budget Disney animated feature with gay leads—for example,
The Prince and the Stable Boy
or
Peter Pan: Love in Never-Never Land
or
The Little Mermaid 2: Ariel and Samantha.
With love songs between the two and full promotions. Y’know, McDonald’s Happy Meals with the characters. It would be great.3

If Disney figured so strongly in the gay community, then it might be possible to see how Disney was helping individuals to define their identity as part of the gay community and how various Disney texts worked as a factor in the understanding of their sexuality. Similar to my adolescent preoccupation with Kurt Russell, others have told me about the formative influence of the television serial “The Adventures of Spin and Marty” shown on the original
Mickey Mouse Club
(1955–59; rerun in syndication, 1977–78). Wayne Koestenbaum, in
The Queen’s Throat:
Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire,
describes how his fascination with Adriana Casselotti’s contralto as the voice of Snow White helped build the foundation of his identity as an “opera queen.”4

The idea that lesbians and gay men could be watching Disney and using the texts (films, TV shows, theme parks, records, etc.) to further a definition of their sexuality is initially stunning and provocative. Of all the major Hollywood studios, only Disney has maintained a public awareness of a “house style” up to the present day. Whereas moviegoers in the 1930s might have been able to distinguish the look and feel of a Warner Bros. film from an MGM film or a Paramount film, today there is no brand differentiation amongst studios—except for Disney. The Walt Disney Company has established for itself since the 1930s an image of conservative American family values—values which uphold the heterosexual patriarchal family unit in a nostalgic remembrance of some bygone era of small-town Midwestern Protestant ideals. Obviously, this image is usually considered antithetical to conceptions of homosexuality—and even, to an extent, sexuality in general. Since the films, TV shows and theme parks are geared mainly towards children, or adults with children, there is often an elision of anything that could be construed as referring to sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual. In the cartoon shorts, for example, no one is ever the offspring I N T RO D U C T I O N

xiii

of another character: Donald has an Uncle Scrooge, but no father—and three nephews, but no sons. In the early 1930s, the studio removed the udder from Clarabelle Cow because it was too suggestive of sexual organs. Only the constant replication of a middle-class heterosexual family indicates that “something” is going on off screen.

One of the main purposes of this work, then, is to explore what particularly there might be within the Disney image and its various manifestations that attracts lesbians and gay men. By viewing Disney’s animation, live-action films, television series, theme parks and various other products created by the company through a “queer sensibility,”

one can come to understand the variety of motifs and characteristics of Disneyana that lend themselves readily to such a reading. Since the company has stood for so long as an upholder of heterosexual norma-tivity, it is vital to recognize and discuss the long-standing (though basically hidden, denied and underexplored) relationship that has existed between the Walt Disney Company and the communities and cultures of homosexual men and women that emerged during the twentieth century. By acknowledging the presence of lesbians and gay men both within the studio and within the viewing audience, this work also attempts to bring greater awareness of the importance that Disney has had in twentieth-century homosexual culture.

Realizing the links between Disney and lesbian/gay culture was a bit of a surprise to me back in 1992 during the screening of
Aladdin.
Six years later, though, a number of individuals and organizations have recognized the relationship. In 1994, some fundamentalist Christians in Florida noticed that a “Lesbian/Gay Weekend” was being held at Walt Disney World and protested Disney’s allowing it to take place (even though Disney itself was not involved in the organization of the event).

Soon, others were jumping on the bandwagon of outrage at Disney. One anonymous writer on the Internet ominously asked,

What should you think of the modern Disney? Are your children safe with the Disney mindset? Consider the people involved in making the recent Disney feature-length cartoons. Who are they? Renown [
sic
]

singer, self-professed homosexual, and AIDS activist Elton John is in the employ of Disney. A not-so-well-known Disney employee died of AIDS shortly after completing a Disney cartoon. Look at the other credits in such films as “Beauty And The Beast” and “The Lion King” and “Pocahantos” [
sic
]. Are there more not-so-well-known sex xiv

I N T RO D U C T I O N

perverts and anti-family feminists in other decision-making positions at Disney—altering the direction of the plots, injecting “alternate lifestyles tolerance” themes into the stories, and denigrating traditional family roles?5

A letter to the editors of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Sunday News
complained that “According to Coral Ridge Ministries, Disney executives work with a homosexual advocacy group that strives to promote a homosexual agenda in the workplace, along with advertising in the homosexual magazine
Out.
”6 By 1997, Southern Baptists (the largest Protestant denomination in the country) decided to “refrain from patronizing the Disney Co. and any of its related entities” in reaction to Disney’s growing tolerance for homosexual employees and customers.7

Since the 1980s, a number of other entertainment-oriented companies have either equaled or surpassed Disney’s acceptance of homosexual employees and customers. These include companies with divisions aimed directly at children and family audiences, such as Viacom/Paramount, which owns the Nickelodeon cable network. Yet, Southern Baptists and others have focused specifically on Disney, seemingly due to the aforementioned long-standing “brand-name” image of the company as “clean” and “safe.” As Operation Rescue protestors would write on placards to protest the 1998 “Lesbian/Gay Weekend” at Disney World, “What would Walt think?”8

With this in mind, writing a book that goes into detail about the relationship between Disney and homosexuality might only add fuel to the fundamentalists’ fire, giving them page after page of proof that there
is
some conspiracy afoot, that Disney has become part of a “gay agenda.” The phrase “gay agenda” has been commonly bandied about by many right-wing groups to combat the growing public awareness and acceptance of homosexuality across American society. Cries of a gay agenda have been used in efforts to deny “special rights” to homosexuals (labeling nondiscrimination in the workplace, equal opportunity housing and parental custody rights as somehow “special rights”), in arguments against legalizing same-sex marriages, as well as in debates over allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. These conservative alarmists argue that the homosexual community schemes to concertedly undermine heterosexuality, “the foundation of American civilization.”9 Yet, while accusations of a gay agenda have been used in diverse controversies, most complaints point at the entertainment in-I N T RO D U C T I O N

xv

dustry—claiming that a “gay Mafia” of homosexual executives is attempting to sway public opinion with films, TV shows, music acts, etc.

biased in favor of homosexuality. Consequently, Disney’s EEO policy (which covers sexual orientation) and its domestic-partner benefits program have been used by critics to prove the existence of a gay agenda within the company.

While this work aims to describe the importance of Disney to gay culture, and conversely the growing importance of gay culture to Disney, in no way does this discussion somehow prove the existence of a gay agenda within the corporation or anywhere else. This relationship
is
a longstanding one in terms of lesbian/gay culture’s use of Disney, but the relationship has been ever shifting, and the company’s attitudes towards homosexuality have to be analyzed carefully. Whereas the new Disney includes sexual orientation within its EEO statement, gay and lesbian employees during Walt’s life by and large remained closeted for fear of harassment and being fired.

Whereas the company now seems to be very aware of its gay and lesbian customers, it seems quite likely that Walt and most members of the studio during his reign had no idea of how lesbians and gay men were relating to their output. Also, the newer policies do not necessarily hail a radically pro-gay-rights attitude for the company. Rather, they are largely a reaction to changes in the entertainment industry at large and attempts by Disney to remain economically competitive. In order to analyze the distinct shifts in the relationship between Disney and lesbian/gay culture, I have divided my discussion into two sections, each discussing a separate period. The first section focuses on the history and texts of the Walt Disney Company during Walt’s lifetime, when the studio and American society at large attempted to ignore and deny homosexuality’s existence; the second section deals with the relationship between Disney and lesbian/gay culture since the 1960s, when gay rights activism grew stronger and louder in American society and when the company went into an economic and creative tailspin until Michael Eisner took charge in 1984.

A few more words are in order on the concept of a “gay agenda” as it relates to one of the structuring issues of this piece. In order to envision such an agenda, one needs to assume there is an easily defined idea of a “gay community.” Successfully encircling such a community quickly proves impossible. Homosexuals have spent most of the twentieth century hiding from persecution. Hence, individuals often xvi

I N T RO D U C T I O N

remained isolated from each other—making it hard to speak of a unified community outside of large urban areas that allow a relatively small space for gay and lesbian neighborhoods or ghettos to develop (such as West Hollywood, Greenwich Village and the Castro District).

To speak of a “gay community” also begs the question: who is included in this community, and how can one talk about only “one” community?

Many lesbians feel themselves separated from gay men (and vice versa) because of gender. Transgendered individuals don’t easily fit the prescribed paradigm for either lesbians or gay men. There is wariness on the part of many homosexuals towards bisexuals. Homosexuals are also not above the biases and prejudices of the society in which they are raised, and issues of racism and class prejudice in homosexual communities have begun to come to the foreground recently. Similarly, so-called “fringe groups” such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and the S&M subculture continually have to fight to be recognized within the homosexual community. One can see the fragmented nature of the homosexual community within the relationship of Disney to homosexual culture. While chapters 2 and 4 attempt to show how lesbians and gay men could find Disney texts to appreciate from their own perspectives, both chapters clearly show that, due to the prevalence of the patriarchal viewpoint in mainstream filmmaking, there is much more material to enjoy as a gay man than as a lesbian (the wealth of male characters, the “drag queen” nature of the cartoon villainesses, etc.). Hence, while this work attempts to discuss the wide range of “non-straight” sexual orientations, discussing Disney’s relationship with “homosexual culture” perforce overemphasizes gay male response. It is precisely the problematic nature of describing an all-encompassing “homosexual culture” that complicates the seemingly more accepting attitude of Disney towards homosexuals over the past decade, a problem upon which the final three chapters directly focus.

With such fragmentation in mind, it becomes hard to envision a concerted, mutually agreed upon “gay agenda.” On the other hand, it is much easier to recognize the existence of two other agendas at work when discussing the relationship between Disney and homosexual culture. The first is a “heterosexual agenda” that has tried to deny, repress and erase the existence of any and all sexualities that do not fit within its narrow framework. From the concerted elision of passages dealing with same-sex acts in modern European transla-tions of Greek and Roman texts to specific bans of materials disI N T RO D U C T I O N

xvii

cussing such matters (including book burnings and arrests) to denying funding to research that supported the existence of “non-straight”

desires, modern Western society has worked ceaselessly to naturalize heterosexuality and demonize or pathologize all other conceptions of sexuality.10 The history of Disney itself can be viewed as a specific example of a conscious heterosexual agenda. As chapter 1 attempts to show, the success and power of the Walt Disney Company has been primarily based upon upholding the discourse of heterosexual pri-macy. While Walt and his various (if not necessarily all) employees agreed with such a viewpoint by and large, historical evidence shows that the Disney image was shaped by very specific outside forces impacting upon the company. Early animation by Walt Disney and his studio points out that there was not an inherent interest in “moral, upstanding entertainment,” but the company learned quickly that power, wealth and critical regard lay in heeding messages from audiences, church groups, other Hollywood studios and even the federal government about making shorts and feature films that preserved the constructed heterosexual imperative. The accusations by conservative groups in the 1990s of a gay agenda can consequently be viewed as another concerted attempt to squelch mainstream acknowledgement of the existence of the polymorphous workings of sexual desire.

The second agenda analyzed throughout can be termed a “capitalist agenda,” which works tirelessly to maximize profits, control market share and expand revenue and control by continually diversifying products and seeking out new customers. Some at first may not see how such a capitalist agenda would affect a company’s attitudes towards sexuality, but economic considerations have strongly influenced Disney’s discourse of sexuality throughout the twentieth century. Chapter 1 describes how profit margin and corporate finances most definitely guided the studio’s move towards a “family” image. Similarly, chapters 3 and 5 examine how that same capitalist discourse has been primarily responsible for markedly shifting the company’s regard towards homosexuality in recent years. Typical of all late capitalist conglomerates (following the ideas of Ernest Mandel and Frederic Jameson), Disney has had to find new markets to tap into in order to further expand its power.11 Remaining within the narrow confines of its former image endangered the future of the company in the early 1980s, with profit margins dwindling and hostile takeovers threatening. When Disney moved xviii