It's the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics

by Douglas Brode (Editor), Shea T. Brode (Editor)

Overview

In 1937, the first full-length animated film produced by Walt Disney was released. Based on a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an instant success and set the stage for more film adaptations over the next several decades. From animated features like and Bambi to live action films such as Mary Poppins, Disney repeatedly turned to literary sources for inspiration—a tradition the Disney studios continues well into the twenty-first century.

In It’s the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics, Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode have collected essays that consider the relationship between a Disney film and the source material from which it was drawn. Analytic yet accessible, these essays provide a wide-ranging study of the term “The Disney Version” and what it conveys to viewers. Among the works discussed in this volume are Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Pinocchio,Sleeping Beauty, Tarzan, and Winnie the Pooh.

In these intriguing essays, contributors to this volume offer close textual analyses of both the original work and of the Disney counterpart. Featuring articles that consider both positive and negative elements that can be found in the studio’s output, It’s the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics will be of interest to scholars and students of film, as well as the diehard Disney fan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442266063
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/24/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Douglas Brode teaches popular culture at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Our Lady of the Lake University (also in San Antonio). He has published more than 35 books, including Rod Sterling and The Twilight Zone (2009). He is the coeditor of Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012) and Sex, Politics and Religion in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012), and Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film (2013). Brode is a contributor to the upcoming PBS-TV mini-series: American Masters: Walt Disney. Shea T. Brode has an MA in Literature and Cultural Studies from the University Autonoma in Madrid. Douglas and Shea are the coeditors of The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier (2015) and Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures (2015).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Once Upon a Time at the Movies Douglas Brode xi

1 "And They Lived Happily Ever After"?: Disney's Animated Adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels (1939) David McGowan 1

2 The Perils of a Masculine Upbringing: Pinocchio, from Carlo Collodi to Walt Disney Jean-Marie Apostolidès 13

3 Here Be Gay Dragons: Queer Allegory and Disney's The Reluctant Dragon (1941) Tison Pugh 23

4 Uncle Walt's Uncle Rem us: Disney's Distortion of Harris's Hero Peggy A. Rosso 33

5 "Glory in the Flower": Disneyfying Bambi David Payne 45

6 Through the Cinematic Looking Glass: Walt Disney's 1951 Animated Version and Tim Burton's 2010 Film Sarah Boslaugh 51

7 Walt Disney and Robert Louis Stevenson: Haskin's Treasure Island or Stevenson's Kidnapped? Scott Allen Nollen 61

8 Of Medieval Ballads and Movie Musicals: Walt Disney and the Robin Hood Legend Shea T. Erode Douglas Brode 71

9 "Do You Believe in Fairies?": Peter Pan, Walt Disney, and Me Elizabeth Bell 79

10 "In God's Good Time": Walt Disney and 1950s Cold War Culture Cynthia J. Miller A. Bowdoin Van Riper 93

11 Perchance to Dream: A Narrative Analysis of Disney's Sleeping Beauty Alexis Finnerty Douglas Brode 105

12 "It's a Jungle Book out There, Kid!": Walt Disney and the American 1960s Greg Metcalf 117

13 "Higitus! Figitus!": Of Merlin and Disney Magic Susan Aronstein 129

14 "This Is Not the Mary Poppins I Know!": P. L. Travers Goes to Hollywood David S. Silverman Olga Silverman 141

15 The Wonderful Worlds of Dickens and Disney: Animated Adaptations of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol Short Hodges Holt 151

16 The Tao at Pooh Corner: Disney's Portrayal of a Very Philosophical Bear Anne Collins Smith Owen M. Smith 165

17 From Icon to Disneyfication: A Mermaid's Aesthetic Journey Finn Hauberg Mortensen 177

18 Pocahontas as Disney Princess: History, Legend, Literature, and Movie Mythology Kathy Merlock Jackson Gary Edgerton 189

19 "Driven to Sin": Victor Hugo's Complex Vision of Humanity in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame Michael Smith 201

20 The Integrity of an Ape-Man: Comparing Disney's Tarzan with Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes Stanley A. Galloway 211

Index 225

About the Editors 229

About the Contributors 231

Editorial Reviews

Brode and Brode have gathered essays that contrast classic literature with their popular (and ‘catastrophic,’ according to some critics) adaptations. Several essays sparkle with insight and wit, among them David McGowan’s juxtaposition of Disney’s iconic Snow White (1937) and the Fleischers’ inferior Gulliver’s Travels (1939), Gary Edgerton and Kathy Merlock Jackson’s ‘Disney's Pocahontas: History, Legend, and Movie Mythology,’ Elizabeth Bell’s delightfully autobiographical reflections on Tinker Bell in ‘Do You Believe in Fairies?’ and Finn Mortensen’s trajectory of the Little Mermaid from folk tradition to Danish then global icon. The book collects diverse glimpses at the American genius and pluck of Walt Disney’s oeuvre and its compelling template as the dominant cultural storytelling of the 20th century. One…must be content to be a glutton at a smorgasbord of sumptuous writings. The contributors capably show that Disney’s cinematic visualizations fit snugly into that classic tradition of translating oral tales into one’s own vernacular. Summing Up:Highly recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

Brode and Brode have gathered essays that contrast classic literature with their popular (and ‘catastrophic,’ according to some critics) adaptations. Several essays sparkle with insight and wit, among them David McGowan’s juxtaposition of Disney’s iconic Snow White (1937) and the Fleischers’ inferior Gulliver’s Travels (1939), Gary Edgerton and Kathy Merlock Jackson’s ‘Disney's Pocahontas: History, Legend, and Movie Mythology,’ Elizabeth Bell’s delightfully autobiographical reflections on Tinker Bell in ‘Do You Believe in Fairies?’ and Finn Mortensen’s trajectory of the Little Mermaid from folk tradition to Danish then global icon. The book collects diverse glimpses at the American genius and pluck of Walt Disney’s oeuvre and its compelling template as the dominant cultural storytelling of the 20th century. One…must be content to be a glutton at a smorgasbord of sumptuous writings. The contributors capably show that Disney’s cinematic visualizations fit snugly into that classic tradition of translating oral tales into one’s own vernacular. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Choice

Brode and Brode have gathered essays that contrast classic literature with their popular (and ‘catastrophic,’ according to some critics) adaptations. Several essays sparkle with insight and wit, among them David McGowan’s juxtaposition of Disney’s iconic Snow White (1937) and the Fleischers’ inferior Gulliver’s Travels (1939), Gary Edgerton and Kathy Merlock Jackson’s ‘Disney's Pocahontas: History, Legend, and Movie Mythology,’ Elizabeth Bell’s delightfully autobiographical reflections on Tinker Bell in ‘Do You Believe in Fairies?’ and Finn Mortensen’s trajectory of the Little Mermaid from folk tradition to Danish then global icon. The book collects diverse glimpses at the American genius and pluck of Walt Disney’s oeuvre and its compelling template as the dominant cultural storytelling of the 20th century. One…must be content to be a glutton at a smorgasbord of sumptuous writings. The contributors capably show that Disney’s cinematic visualizations fit snugly into that classic tradition of translating oral tales into one’s own vernacular. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

CHOICE