Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (7 page)

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The short presents color and lighting as if they were natural, the normal rising and setting of the sun in one day. But, in doing so, it makes the manipulation of the emotion that accompanies the story also seem as if it’s “only natural” that the mouse’s transformation should throw the world into darkness. The emotions that the colors and lighting attempt to instill in the audience work to make the audience feel as if those emotions are “natural” and not a manipulation of technique.

The technical advancements in the
Sillies
also changed Mickey’s environment. The backgrounds become more detailed, and an increased use of perspective and modeling (a technique that draws in the shadows on the bottoms of heads or stomachs or the like) becomes noticeable. With
The Band Concert
(1935), the Mickey cartoons also began to be filmed in Technicolor. But there were problems with adapting the new look to the Mickeys. After watching the attempts at greater realism in
The Flying Mouse,
seeing Mickey and Minnie cavorting in the same middle-class suburban environment quickly proves jarring. Mickey and Minnie had successfully been changed in personality to fit the requirements of this new period in Disney’s history—but they still remained characters that were designed from a previous era, one less concerned with creating an “illusion of life.” Yes, as the 1930s went on, Mickey grew “rounder, sleeker (and far more humanoid in design),” but it was still a mouse that had two balloons for ears, and stood taller than his pet dog Pluto.51 Furthermore, it was becoming more and more apparent that there was little that could be done with Mickey in cartoons anymore. As Walt himself opined, “Mickey was on a pedestal—I would get letters if he did something wrong.”52 Being so straitjacketed by the ever watchful eye of parents and censors, Mickey grew boring—and soon he was being thrown into co-starring shorts with new characters Donald Duck and Goofy (both who could express more imagination and passion than Mickey and usually took up more screen time than Mickey in these threesomes).

At the same time as Disney’s animation was being laundered of its more burlesque elements, Disney’s public relations went into high gear, to make sure that everyone knew how wholesome Disney’s films were.

Popular magazines in the United States during the early 1930s seemed to be swamped with feature articles about (and sometimes “by”) Walt and his studio, that lauded Disney product, the technology used at the studio and most definitely the “upstanding” and “moral” tone of both the films and the man who oversaw their creation. Stories appeared in 22

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such diverse fare as popular news magazines, art and literary journals, film fan magazines, “high-class” periodicals, business and political journals, and women’s and family magazines.53 Starting in 1933,
Good
Housekeeping
had an illustrated “Disney page” in every issue, with color artwork and nursery-rhyme poetry that described a short that was soon to be released.54 The breadth of readership of these periodicals stretched to just about every group in the country, but parents and their children seemed to be the prime targets of these pieces, with the same vital information used over and over again to present a specific image of the studio to these readers. Gregory Waller describes how it seems “as if a host of journalists were treated to the same interview, taken on the same tour of the Disney Studio, and handed the same press releases. . . .

‘Facts’ and format played like a broken record.”55

It is in the journal articles of this period that the “Disney mystique” of wholesomeness comes into focus for the first time.
Overland
Monthly
’s article, “The Cartoon’s Contribution to Children,” attributed to Walt Disney himself, flatly states that “if our gang ever put Mickey in a situation less wholesome than sunshine, Mickey would take Minnie by the hand and move to some other studio.”56 The article attempts to erase Mickey’s original personality by asserting that Mickey is “never mean or ugly. He never lies nor cheats nor steals. . . .

He never takes advantage of the weak.” Oddly, the article goes on to assert that “sex is just another work [
sic
] to Mickey, and the story of the traveling salesman of no more interest than the ladies’ lingerie department.”57 While it is quite possible to read all sorts of interesting things into this last comment, its context suggests an awkwardly worded attempt to announce that Mickey takes no pleasure in sex, and that he doesn’t like randy jokes any more than a “normal” male heterosexual would like wearing ladies’ underwear. These articles continually cite approval from child psychologists and parents’

groups as proof of this saintly image. Accompanying the
Overland
Monthly
article, an inset box alerts readers:

Mr. Disney is particularly anxious to get the reactions from various groups throughout the country on his pictures. He speaks with great pride of the fact that The Better Films Conference of San Diego takes the trouble to report their ideas of his cartoons. He expresses the wish that every organized group, Parent-Teachers, Women’s Federa-tions, in fact, everyone working for the betterment of Childhood M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

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would write to him and give him suggestions and criticisms on his present pictures.58

When
Parents’ Magazine
awarded Disney with its “medal for distinguished service to children” in early 1934, the ensuing article also stressed that “among the guests [at a luncheon held at the Disney Studio for the award presentation] were a number of distinguished leaders in parental education and child welfare work.”59 In 1934,
Photoplay
ran an article with the scandalous title “Is Walt Disney a Menace to Our Children?”60 Although the author halfheartedly fears that some of the images in Disney’s cartoons could scare children, the article spends most of its time reporting how many authorities praise Disney’s cartoons, including parents’ associations, university professors, psychiatrists and an editor of children’s books. The general consensus of the experts was that “Mickey Mouse is a civilizing influence.”61

By constantly publicizing these awards and assessments, the Disney studio was quickly capable of putting their censorship problems behind them and completely obscuring the earlier, more randy Mickey Mouse. Although articles during the early 1930s would sometimes make reference to the “udder” issue, Mickey was now referred to as if he had always been the “good little boy” that was now being presented weekly on theatre screens. In describing his appeal,
Time
claimed in 1933 that Mickey “can break all natural laws ([but] he never breaks moral laws).”62 Gilbert Seldes ventured that “Mickey Mouse is far removed from the usual Hollywood product, with its sex appeal.”63 As the
New York Times Magazine
would declare in an article about “Mickey Mouse the Economist,” “The laughter is always harmless, and the world likes decency.”64

At the same time that Mickey Mouse was being rehabilitated in the press, Walt himself was building a reputation through the journal articles, a reputation that began gaining mythic proportions and somehow reaffirmed the American Dream. As
Overland Monthly
succinctly put it,

“If Mickey is good it is because Walt is good.”65 After rhapsodizing about the cartoons themselves, and describing the process of creating an animated short at the Disney studio, many of the articles moved to a biography of the man himself. Such articles often repeated many of the same phrases and anecdotes that aimed to prove that Walt was separated from the scandalous social environment of Hollywood high life. The
New Yorker
confided that “Disney . . . shares hardly at all in 24

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Hollywood’s life. . . . He goes to pictures, but rarely to flash openings; he neither gives nor attends great parties.”66
Time
concurred that “Hollywood hotspots seldom see him.”67 Similarly, both the
New Yorker
and
Time
point out that although Walt’s wife Lillian was “a Hollywood girl

. . . [she] has never had anything to do with the cinema.”68

Rather, Disney was “down-to-earth, middle class,” a “conspicu-ously average American.” “Disney lives in the house he built five years ago . . . a six-room bungalow, the commonest type of construction in Hollywood; the car he drives is a domestic one; his clothes are ordinary.”69 “He works until 7 o’clock every night . . . drives his Packard roadster home to dinner, plays with his baby daughters . . . and goes to bed.”70 By 1934,
Fortune
was able to bypass many of these anecdotes and simply state that “Enough has been written about Disney’s life and hard times already to stamp the bald, Algeresque outlines of his career as familiarly on the minds of many Americans as the career of Henry Ford or Abraham Lincoln.”71 The articles made sure to mention Disney’s childhood on the farm and in the small towns of middle America, painting a bucolic existence that supposedly helped explain why the shorts he produced upheld the American ideal so well.

Although it is perfectly understandable why the Disney studio would attempt to redress its public image after the complaints of 1930, it might not be as understandable why the popular press would so willingly participate in this public relations campaign. Mickey Mouse was still an incredibly popular character, but the depth of collaboration with the studio in creating the “wholesome” image goes beyond merely commenting on Mickey’s popularity. Disney’s growing fame must in part be attributed to the situation facing the American film industry as a whole in the early 1930s. The conversion to sound financially strapped almost all of the major studios, just as the Depression hit the country. Although the novelty of sound was able to keep attendance high for a while, by 1931, many studios were finding precipitous declines in their revenue. By 1932, almost every studio was in debt, and some had even entered into receivership. In the face of this, most of the studios flaunted the provisions in the newly written Production Code. Although Disney was called to task in 1930, and answered the call by completely shifting the style and substance of the studio’s output, it seems to have been the only studio to do so. Since the Code had no method for enforcement, and knowing that sex and violence always pulled in an audience, American films were rampant with gangster stories, women sleeping M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

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their way to wealth and fame, scantily clad chorines and barely veiled innuendo. Even in cartoons, Fleischer’s Betty Boop was swaying and singing about her “boop-oop-a-doop.” By 1933, when Mae West’s first starring feature (
She Done Him Wrong
) premiered, protest groups such as the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency coalesced and began calling for boycotts and federal intervention.

Disney was spreading its publicity in the midst of this upheaval, and it seemed to many as if Walt was one of the few working in the film industry who was not appealing to the “low” interests of audience members. For example,
Parents’ Magazine
’s award to Walt Disney was reported when the magazine was putting out “Family Movie Guides”

in every issue that warned “Don’t run the risk of letting your sons and daughters see movies that are harmful. Many pictures are unfit for children and adolescents.”72 Other articles in future issues of the magazine would include “Helping Youth to Choose Better Movies,” “How to Select Movies for Children” and “Will the Code Bring Better Movies?”73

Although it is hard to substantiate, it is probable that the Hollywood film industry as a whole heartily approved of Disney’s promotionalism.

By presenting a figure that was contributing to the well-being of children throughout the world, the entire industry looked better. Highly influential columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper made sure to promote Disney’s brand of family entertainment quite often through the 1930s. In 1937, the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, led by a panel that included Will Hays, announced Walt as their “Out-standing Young Man” of the year (for individuals under 35). It is certain that, by the mid-1930s, a number of film celebrities were voicing their admiration of Mickey Mouse and his creator, such as Mary Pickford, Will Rogers and Charlie Chaplin. By 1935, the conversion was absolute, and Walt was considered America’s mythmaker in residence.

The “family-oriented” atmosphere of the Disney studio was not simply a public relations gambit though, for day-to-day life at the studio quickly began to mirror the moral image that was being advertised in the popular press. According to a 1936 article in
Harpers’ Bazaar,
the studio looked “like a small municipal kindergarten with green grass for the children to keep off of. . . . Law and order reign there, without seeming unattractive.”74 The employees were considered by Walt as a family, and they were expected to share that conception. Everyone at the studio called their boss “Walt,” whether they felt comfortable with it or not. Although everyone had specific titles and positions, it was not un-26

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common for everyone to help out in a number of different ways—coming up with gag ideas, drawing inspirational sketches, etc. Lunch breaks at the studio usually included volleyball games on the lot.

There was also a great deal of social propriety within the studio confines as well. A dress code was instituted for all employees. Men were expected to arrive at work in coat and tie (which could be removed when sitting at a drawing table). Pants on female employees were strictly forbidden. The women, who worked almost exclusively in the

“inking and painting” department (coloring the animation cels), were often segregated from the male employees. One female employee, Phyllis Craig, recalls that the Ink and Paint Department was nicknamed

“The Nunnery,” and that they were given their lunch break at a separate time from the men.75 In fact, as Disney biographer Leonard Mosley narrates,

It was sometimes known among cynical acting types as Mickey