The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life

18. Citizen Disney

18 Citi2en Disney By THE MID-1950s, Walt Disney had become once again a fixture in American popular journalism. His burst of activity in movies, television, and documentaries early in the decade made him an attractive topic, and an explosion of articles followed. The broad and kindly face with its pencil mustache, combed-back hair, and twinkling eyes began to look out at readers of the nation's largest-circulation periodicals on a regular basis. In about a year and a half, from late 1953 to mid-1955, Disney appeared on the covers of Look, Newsweek, Saturday Evening Post, Time, and TV Guide. These articles analyzed the nature of the Disney appeal and provided colorful descriptions of the studio's increasingly vast undertakings. But increasingly they also focused on Walt's personal life and values, exploring the relationship between the public figure and the private man. One theme consistently wove in and out of them: this entertainer was no longer Walt Disney, film producer, or Walt Disney, studio head, but instead Walt Disney, symbol of postwar America and its values. Somehow, as his celebrity status rose, Disney came to embody the tenets defined in his work: democracy and patriotism, domestic stability and family loyalty, citizenship and creativity. In the Cold War era, Disney became a kind of screen for the projection of national self-definition. Citizen Disney I 347 I. Walt Disney, American As Disney's new parade offilms and television shows wound their way down the avenues of popular culture, a swelling volume of commentary transformed the studio head into something more than a moviemaker or even an artist. He increasingly appeared as a spokesman for American ideals of democracy and freedom. As the decade unfolded, a barrage of essays and articles bombarded the public with images of Disney as an invaluable asset in the Cold War ideological struggle. Many of these described him as a thorn in the side of international communism. The Russians, commentators noted in the early 1950s, once had swooned over Mickey Mouse as a proletarian symbol but now denounced him as a warmonger and tried to keep Disney productions from being seen. Communist "overlords look upon them as frivolous emanations of a decayed culture and unfit for the eyes and ears of their subjects;' one essayist claimed, but then pointed out gleefully the fact that private citizens behind the iron curtain took "awful chances" to procure bootlegged copies of these movies. Disney's Man in Space shows elicited another outburst of patriotic fervor; one newspaper proclaimed that "Russian scientists next week will be beaten hands down by one Walt Disney. He'll be the first man to send a rocket to Mars." These public pronouncements were mirrored by private expressions of support, such as a letter to Disney praising one of the studio's recent television shows on mathematics. "I wish it would be translated into Russian to be shown to the Russian people," the writer said, "especially to inspire the atheistic Communists that there is truly an Intelligent being who created our universe in such mathematical perfection ."l This picture of the genial and creative but tenacious foe of communism was enhanced by Walt's own steady flow of comments on the history, values, and virtue ofthe United States and his unabashed patriotism, which became a dependable feature of Cold War discourse. He loved to hold forth on American history, enthusing about the inspiring heroes "who helped make this country great" and reassuring his fellow citizens that progress continued to mark the nation's path. "The age we're living in is the most extraordinary the world has ever seen. There are whole new concepts of things, and we now have the tools to change these concepts into realities. We're moving forward;' he insisted in 1959. He consistently paid homage to his fellow Americans as "folks I trade with, go to church with, vote with, compete in business with, help build and preserve a nation with:' On occasion, Walt even commented directly on the Cold War. "With Wernher von Braun as our scientific consultant, we were two years ahead of the Russians and their sputniks," he told the Chicago Tribune in 1958. "If our military experts had 348 I Disney and the American Century listened to von Braun, perhaps we would have kept better pace with the Soviets."2 Walt's religiosity made for another important component of his growing...