Dumbo starts with a bunch of storks bringing down baby animals to a bunch of circus animals. All at once. There’s like a huge army of storks delivering babies to everyone. Imagine growing up and everyone has the same birthday. The insanity!

Anyway, one of the babies is an elephant with big ears. Then these other elephants, like adult female elephants, start making fun of this baby, calling him “Dumbo.” They’re just being complete assholes to a fuckin baby! Pisses me off. At least Dumbo’s mom slams the door in their stupid faces. Dumbo’s mom is pretty cool, not taking their shit.

Dumbo’s cute, but he’s always getting laughed at because of his big ears. Some jerkoff kid even pulls and pushes Dumbo, and yells in his ear. When his mom tries to defend her son, she gets locked chained up in a tiny train car in isolation. The movie is about the circus, and kinda some of the shittiness of being in a circus. It’s not a huge theme throughout, but I think it’s there, the unfair treatment of circuses. It’s just not particularly relevant in our society, I think. Maybe I’m out of touch, though. Maybe circuses are hugely relevant somewhere. I don’t fucking know.

Then Dumbo meets this mouse with a Brooklyn [?] accent. Some kind of accent. He scares off those bitchy lady elephants and befriends Dumbo. He accepts Dumbo for who he is and encourages him. He’s a pretty good character. He kinda plays a similar role to Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, but Jiminy was way better at it. Speaking of Pinocchio, that had over twice the budget of Dumbo, and it shows. Dumbo just doesn’t have the richness, the depth, or the artistic quality. It’s simpler in every way. It’s not bad, but it’s not anything incredible.

There’s a scene where Dumbo visits his mom when she’s locked up, and it’s kind of emotional. They show all the other animals with their mothers, but Dumbo can’t really visit her. She’s still locked up. It’s sad. But, you know, the characters are just kinda okay, so it definitely could’ve been an even better scene with more budget and a longer movie.

The best scene, of course, is the “Pink Elephants on Parade” song. Dumbo and the mouse guy kinda accidentally get drunk, and Dumbo hallucinates, for some reason. This scene is so ahead of its time. It’s so psychedelic, you’d think it would be from 1967, but it’s from 1941!

When Dumbo and the mouse guy wake up, they’re greeted by a group of crows. These crows are obviously meant to represent African-Americans, and to me it seems really racially insensitive. But, looking at the Wikipedia, I guess there’s some debate about it. I’m not really the one to have the final authority on the matter at all.

But they give Dumbo a “magic feather,” which allows him to fly. In the end, he loses the feather, but he can still fly, so he realizes it was really just him all along! And it was his ears, which had caused him such anguish earlier, that allowed him to fly! It’s a movie about loving yourself, kind of. A lot of us have our own “big ears” that we have to accept of ourselves. 

This movie could’ve really used a villain. There’s a few asshole characters, but if they had developed the ringleader as a true villain, that would’ve made it a lot better. Oh well, can’t change it now!

Pinocchio! I love this movie! I’ve always loved this movie so I may be viewing through a biased, nostalgia lens. But is that so bad? Is it so bad to have nostalgia? I like and remember that thing, and that makes me happy and sad at the same time. Isn’t that what nostalgia is? Must it be a sign of weakness??

Anyway, this movie starts with the song “When You Wish Upon A Star,” and I think it’s the greatest Disney song of all time. It’s just so beautiful and it perfectly encapsulates that “Disney magic feel.” I know it’s so fuckin cheesy to say that but it’s what Disney’s good at, that “magic feel” about wishing and dreaming and happily ever after. The melody is so rich and Cliff Edwards sings it beautifully. 

Then we get into Geppetto’s workshop and it’s all these clocks, and decorations, and furniture and scraps of wood, it’s so rich. This is what I’d say to this scene: “Ya look gorgeous, baby!” 

Jiminy Cricket serves almost as a fourth-wall breaker. He says some comments about what’s going on. And it could be him just talking to himself, but it’s like he’s talking to us too. He’s like “Not at all practical,” and “What does an actor want with a conscience anyhow?” kind of to himself, but kinda breaking the fourth wall. It’s kinda fun. 

And the opening to the town scene: beautiful. The camera moves forward, moves down, goes down a street. It really feels like a real world and the camera is traveling through it, as opposed to just: here’s a background, here’s a character. Pinocchio makes it feel like a world we could be in. It’s got DEPTH. The depth of this movie is incredible. This world felt like it was “lived in,” like it was a world that had all different characters living in it that weren’t in the movie. 

The villains are sinister. Honest John’s a dastardly fellow. Just out doing some scams, some schemes to make a quick buck. He tricks Pinocchio into becoming an actor for some quick cash from Stromboli. It’s just a scam. This gives Honest John a sense of plausible deniability. “I didn’t do the horrible things to Pinocchio, Stromboli did. I didn’t know what was gonna happen, I just facilitated the whole deal and profited off it. It’s Stromboli you’re after!” 

And Stromboli! He sees Pinocchio, an obviously sentient and intelligent being, and enslaves him. He ignores his pleas for help, he locks him up, and forces him to perform so that Stromboli to get rich. And, Stromboli says, once Pinocchio has served his purpose, Stromboli will kill him, turning him into firewood. And is that not the true evil of Man? To look at your fellow Man, and to consider his emotions inconsequential, his passions unimportant, his free will nonexistent, and his body disposable. Is that not Evil?

Anyway, the Coachman, somehow, goes further. He’s just as ruthlessly obsessed with money as Stromboli, but his approach is even worse. He doesn’t just want to enslave a puppet boy for his own enrichment, he wants to enslave/transform a multitude of boys,  mutilating them into donkeys. In essence, he destroys them. 

The movie is also about Temptation.

And Pleasure Island. This is kind of a theme of morality back then. There’s a great fear of degeneracy, impurity. People need to resist the temptation of the bright lights, cigars, drinking, excess, vandalism, and.. BILLIARDS. Anything like that has to be shunned. People devolve when they engage in these behaviors. This is clearly shown in the movie, as the boys who couldn’t resist the PLEASURE Island devolve into donkeys. They’re punished for pursuing pleasure.

I’m not sure I agree with that point, at least not to this extreme. Sure, some excesses and pleasure are unhealthy, but some are still just kinda fun! And fun has value! It’s fun to drink a few beers and play pool! That isn’t any serious evil crime! Fun is good sometimes.

But, in their scenario, engaging in pleasure sends you into a damnation of being a donkey. I just feel like, we can feel pleasure, it feels good, and we should enjoy it while we can, as long as you’re not too dangerous and you don’t harm anyone else. You don’t deserve some real-world equivalent of a donkey curse, do you? 

And while I may not completely agree with the moral message, it’s very interesting. And the overall theme is more about resisting temptation in general, and I like thinking about that concept. Temptation seems like it’s just “wanting to do something,” but it’s more of “wanting to do something with the belief that the thing is actually ‘bad.’” 

Anyway, then there’s MONSTRO THE WHALE. He has no morals, no moral lesson or metaphor. He’s just a force of nature, a monster. What a perfect name, Monstro. We love a good old-fashioned Monster movie. The Monster, whether it’s King Kong, Godzilla, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Cloverfield Monster, the Alien, or the shark from Jaws, no matter what they’re called, the people in the movie know them just as “The Monster.” And we like that. Or some of us do, anyway. 

This movie is dark. There’s a lot of scary scenes, including Lampwick panicking as he’s transforming into a donkey. As his body is mutated into that of a donkey, it sets in with Lampwick’s mind. He realizes what’s happening and he can’t stop it, and true Terror sets in. It’s really a horrifying scene, a boy fading away, he wants to stop it but he can’t control it, and he is consumed by fear. It’s like, that scene just exudes so much panic. 

And just contrast it with Snow White. Snow White had a couple scary scenes, sure, but overall the movie is happy. The good guys win, the bad guys lose, and the heroes live happily ever after. But Pinocchio is not like that. Sure, it’s a happy ending for Pinocchio and Geppetto, but what about the dozens of other boys? What about the Coachman? That evil was not defeated at all! They didn’t end that evil. He’s still tricking, mutating, and enslaving young boys! His human trafficking ring is still going on without a hitch. Pretty dark. But I guess that’s kinda the thing about the really early Disney movies. They’re dark.

It’s like, a guy really sat down and drew this:

and thought, “Yeah, this would be good for kids to see.”

But, like, yeah, the Coachman is not defeated. The Evil Queen falls off the cliff, Ursula gets destroyed by a ship, Scar gets eaten by hyenas, Jafar gets locked up. But the Coachman’s still out there enslaving kids by stripping them of their humanity, transforming them, physically, into animals. To look at man as just an animal, to treat them as a disposable animal to be used or destroyed. That is true Evil. 

But yeah the animations are beautifully rich throughout, and the water scenes are just spectacular. Great movie. One of the best Disney movies.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937, is the first Disney animated feature. It is often said to be the first full-length animated movie, but I would just like to mention The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It’s a full-length film that uses a different kind of animation, but animation nonetheless, and it was released in 1926. Yes, Snow White was better and way more popular and more influential, but I just wanted to dispel the notion that Snow White was the first full-length animated film.

Still, second place is pretty good. And, like I said, it’s better. It has a way better and more detailed animation style, better characters, music, and dialogue, etc. etc. whatever, who cares, moving on.

Snow White sets the stage, for decades, for what Walt Disney films were going to be like. So imagine yourself back in the 30s. Walt Disney decides he’s gonna make a full-length animated film. He’s taking the leap from animated shorts to animated films. It was to be the first of its kind in America [Hollywood was dominant in the film industry at the time], and the first with a decent budget, the first BIG one. And it could’ve been about anything! It could’ve been about a guy in the Great Depression. It could’ve been about Mickey Mouse on some adventure. It could’ve been about the Civil War or Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan. It could’ve been about anything, but he chose a fairy tale. We almost take for granted how intertwined animation and fairy tales are. And Snow White played a huge role in building that beautiful symbiosis.

Anyway, as the film starts, the Snow White book opens. The book brings us into this world, as books do, but now we can see this world with our own eyes! Not just our mind’s eye. The world of the fairy tale that we can see, not just imagine. It was beautiful.

Basically the Queen is the fairest in the land. She has a magic mirror which has the ability to detect who is the fairest in the land. He probably can do other things, I’m not too sure. One day he says that Snow White is actually now fairer [better] than the Queen. This fact enrages the Queen, who hires a huntsman to kill her. Snow White runs away and takes refuge at the cabin of the seven dwarfs [by the way, this movie has ‘dwarfs,’ but I feel like it’s usually ‘dwarves,’ isn’t it?]. That’s basically the main set-up of the movie. Oh, and the huntsman tricks the Queen and.. probably runs off or something, I don’t know.

The dwarfs are pretty cool. I mean, Doc is funny, Grumpy is the contrarian, and Dopey is.. a dope. The rest are just okay. Sneezy sneezes, Sleepy sleeps, and so on.

Now Grumpy, talk about toxic masculinity! He doesn’t want to wash his hands because he thinks it’s sissy. He hates anything “feminine” or “female.” When Snow White is talking and singing about love, Grumpy’s pouting in the corner, scornfully saying “Mush..” Like, dude, just wash your hands, it’s not a sign of weakness or capitulation, it’s just good to do. Just wash your hands, man. Stop hating love and stop obsessing over your idea of masculinity. But he does go through the biggest character arc in the story. At first he hates Snow White, but in the end he leads the charge to save her.

Oh wait, let’s go back to the plot. So the huntsman tricks the queen, and she thinks snow White is dead, so she asks who is the fairest in the land, and the mirror’s like “Snow White,” much to the shock of the Queen, who thought Snow White was dead. Then the mirror just totally tells Snow White’s exact location. Like what the fuck?! All she asked was about who’s the fairest and he starts giving her directions to exactly where Snow White is. He’s like, “Yeah Snow White’s the fairest in the land. And ALSO, to find her, you gotta go over the seven jeweled hills, beyond the seventh fall, in the house of the seven dwarfs.” What are you, google maps or something? Why you gotta give away her hiding spot?

Now the main characters in this movie are a bit.. traditional. I’m speaking mostly about Snow White and the Prince. The common complaint is they don’t have any development, they’re boring, and they perpetuate the idea that women are weak and need saving, that they’re foolish. And I get that, and much of that is true. Snow White is not that great of a character. She’s not the best role model, but at least she’s kind. She’s kind to animals and people. She helps the dwarfs, cooking for them as an act of gratitude for their allowing her to stay. She’s a kind person.

I get that she’s not the best role model, but I think this movie still can have good themes, and maybe some good educational metaphors for kids. The lesson is about the Evil Queen. She’s pretty, but she’s consumed by comparing her beauty to that of Snow White. She places her entire value on her beauty, on her being the fairest in the land, and it leads her to comparing herself all the time to Snow White, consumed by jealousy. So much so that she wants to destroy Snow White, to kill her! Her mind warped by jealous rage, she transforms herself into an old hag. She wanted beauty, and she had it, but jealousy took over her entire life and ruined her beauty, the very thing she loved. The lesson is that jealousy can destroy you. Comparing yourself to others is not the way to determine your worth.

Walt Disney movies, in their portrayal of women specifically and general roles generally, have come a long way since then. It definitely shows that this is the first one, but I don’t think it ruins the movie by any means.