The "magic" of Disney

I agree with Holly in that the lines she presented are very important to understanding Zipes’ argument about Disney. However, I think the main argument to the essay occurs two lines later: “The great “magic” of the Disney spell is that he animated the fairy tale only to transfix audiences and divert their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images he cast upon the screen” (p. 333). While Zipes’ phrase “Disney was a radical filmmaker who changed our way of viewing fairy tales, and that his revolutionary technical means capitalized on American innocence and utopianism to reinforce the status quo” is very revealing, all of those statements are fairly quantifiable; there is much more of an argumentative edge in Zipes statements about the Disney magic.

If Zipes’ argument was not persuasive enough the first time around, I doubt that my summery is going to change your mind. However, I think there are several parts of his essay that support his definition of Disney magic, so that overall his essay is convincing of his point. He starts with a fairly detailed history of the fairy tale genre and how the oral and literary traditions interacted for so long. The point of this history is to show “the literary fairy tale’s ascent corresponded to violent and progressive shifts in society and celebrated individualism, subjectivity, and reflection” (341). But even with the societal shifts, fairy tales continued to play an important role, be it for adult entertainment or to teach morals. However, fairy tale film had a very different aim: “It did not matter what story was projected just as long as the images astounded the audience, captured its imagination for a short period of time, and left the people laughing or staring in wonderment” (342). Animated fairy tales in general have a very different and less laudable focus. Zipes also argues that “Disney sought to replace all versions with his animated version and that his cartoon is astonishingly autobiographical” (343). Pushing for the audience to only remember his version and using his animation to astound the audience is half way towards arguing his main thesis. Zipes has shown that Disney is using his magic to transfix audiences through the images he cast on the screen, the only question remains, what is he transfixing the audience to?

That question is answered in the text as well, supporting his thesis. Two major points stand out arguing this point: the first is Snow White’s historical context. It came out during the Great Depression, and it “was to bring together all the personal strands of Disney’s own story with the destinies of desperate Americans who sought hope and solidarity in their fight for survival during the Depression of the 1930s” (346). So there is a definite utopian component in the masses. Disney’s own story was a tale of success, but projecting that on the screen even though it was the story of a small minority could give the masses false hope. The final point that shows how Disney only aimed to divert the masses with false promises is how Disney acted once he was firmly in power. “The manner in which he copied the musical plays and films of his time, and his close adaptation of fairy tales with patriarchal codes, indicate that all the technical experiments would not be used to foster social change in America but to keep power in the hands of the individuals like himself” (351). Disney was willing to use his entrancing art form to chain the masses. With all these facts in mind, Zipes’ argument about Disney’s magic seems much more convincing.

Song of the blog: “I kissed a girl” by Katy Perry.