Walt Disney and the Classics: The Critics' Opinions

For good or ill the screen is the great visual persuader of our age. Educators today must understand how the communication process works and how attention is gained. . . . Seeing values in a book is often easier after the film has been viewed. It is not unusual for the student to suddenly become aware of certain qualities of printed material he otherwise simply would not or could not comprehend. The author's intent, point of view, and literary skill can often be more sharply demonstrated with a cinematic presentation.

(Cohen, Abraham [Supervisor of Instructional materials and School Libraries, White Plains Public Schools], "The Challenge of the Rival Educaotrs," Library Journal, 92:4 (February 15, 1967), p. 854.)

Disney caused a greater stir among professional reviewers of popular media, children's literature critics, and American society than any other producer of children's media. Perhaps his claim comes from being a forerunner in this field; perhaps, from his reinterpretation of classical material to what he felt best suited U.S. social standards. Certainly, however, his mass audience appeal has both delighted and appalled adults. Here are some comments concerning his presentations:

Snow White

"Walt Disney's Grimm Reality," The New Republic, 93 (January 26, 1938), pp. 339-40.

"Snow White" is a fairy tale, surely the most vivid and gay and sweet in the world . . . , The fairy-tale princess is just what you would have her; the witch is a perfect ringer for Lionel Barrymore (not by accident, I take it); and the seven dwarfs have been perfectly humanized by somewhat the same technique, though each is more a composite of types, not quite identifiable. . . . For the most part, the thing is as ingenious as ever, the idiosyncracies of each dwarf quickly established and made capital of —Grumpy, Dopey and Sneezy in particular —the flow of comedy through animism still on that level at which Disney's men have never been equalled. . . . [T]he best and most important picture for 1938 is called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Weisenberg, Charles M., "Walt Disney Accused" (Interview with Frances Clarke Sayers), The Horn Book Magazine, xli:6 December 1965), p. 603.

One of the great faults he [Disney] has is to destroy the proportion in folk tales. Folklore is a universal form, a great symbolic literature that represents the folk. It is something that came from the masses, not something that is put over on the masses. . . . There is a curious distortion of all these qualities in Disney's folklore. He does strange things. He sweetens a folk tale. Everything becomes very lovable. . . . You recognize this technique gives animation a chance to operate, but it destroys the proportion and purpose of the story, the conflict and its resolution. Folk tales are so marvelous in structure and symbolism that this distortion of the elements is particularly bad.

Alice in Wonderland

Commonweal, LIV:18 (August 10, 1981), p. 431.

It may make you wonder how Disney dared depart so far from Tenniel, but no matter how indignant you get over his liberties with your childhood conceptions of "Alice," you've got to admit that his animated cartoon of the famous stories (sic) is bright and fresh and imaginative. . . . [Y]ou won't complain —unless of course you're a Carrollphile who can't stand any monkeying with your favorite author. . . . And while the songs, like most of the picture, are as much Disney as Carroll, most of them are quite in keeping with this gay dream story.

"Alice Everywhere," New Yorker, XXVII:25 (August 4, 1951), p. 61.

In Mr. Disney's "Alice," there is a bland incapacity to understand that a literary master work cannot be improved by the introduction of shiny little tunes, and touches more suited to a flea circus than to a major imaginative effort. . . . Possibly nobody is going to create a visualization of "Alice in Wonderland" that won't do violence to the nostalgic imagery of the piece that remains in the mind's eye of those who grew up on Tenniel's illustrations. But even granting a certain latitude for variations in approach. . . . we have...