These are the common clichés of the American dream: from rags to riches, from nobody to superstar, from the garage into the spotlight. The latter case, as trite as it may sound, was the actual career path of the brothers Walt and Roy Disney and their The Walt Disney Company. Exactly 100 years ago, on October 16, 1923, raised from the ashes as a diamond in the rough, Disney (Mickey) blossomed into a billion-dollar empire. In addition to numerous unforgettable cinema gems, a century also offers room for controversy.
One brother had the vision, the older one had the necessary start-up capital, which from today’s perspective was laughably low: Walt Disney was just over 20 years old when he founded his company in his uncle’s garage – already located in Los Angeles. He was able to gain his first experience in the entertainment industry with the previously founded company Laugh-O-Gram. However, if he had made a belly landing, he started to soar early with Disney. The journey finally began with $500, which is said to have come primarily from his brother Roy’s pocket.
The first money that would enable further projects came from the “Alice” short film series, in which a real girl (Alice) experiences adventures with an animated cartoon cat named Julius. But it was their preferred food that finally made Disney world famous: in 1928, the company’s current icon crossed a river. As “Steamboat Willie”, Mickey Mouse not only officially conquered talkies but also pop culture after two short silent film appearances.
Subsequently, other iconic characters such as Goofy and Donald Duck were born. In 1937, Walt Disney also took a risk: was the cinema audience willing to give a full-length animated film a chance? “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” asked that question and got an exuberant “yes” in response. The film was a huge commercial success and was intended to reinforce Walt Disney’s belief that the era of full-fledged animated films had begun. But at first things turned out differently.
The outbreak of the Second World War also had far-reaching consequences for the Disney Company. Europe ceased to be a lucrative film market, and today’s classics such as “Pinocchio” and “Bambi” were unable to recoup the high production costs. Even in the post-war years, the now indebted company had not yet stabilized. Animated educational films that, for example, introduced school students to the “Story of Menstruation” served as an additional source of income.
It wasn’t until 1950 that Disney’s star would rise again: With “Cinderella,” the studio made the first post-war film that earned the title “hit.” But the upswing didn’t just take shape on the screen. Plans for a theme park made the rounds that would become reality in 1955: the gates of the first Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.
After various successes such as “Peter Pan”, “101 Dalmatians” or the live-action film “Mary Poppins”, “The Jungle Book” from 1967 represents a major turning point. It is the first animated film to be released after Walt Disney’s death the previous year age 65 years. Brother Roy managed the company’s fortunes successfully until his death in 1971. But the enduring Disney hobbyhorse of feature films and, above all, animated films once again showed cracks in this phase.
After a long dry spell, it wasn’t until the end of the 1980s that what was retroactively referred to as the “Disney Renaissance” followed. “The Little Mermaid” (1989) began an impressive run of commercial mega-hits: “Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin” and especially “The Lion King” became instant classics.
At the same time, the company broke new ground. With Pixar – whose managing director and main shareholder was Steve Jobs (1955-2011) – they brought a partner on board who specialized in computer-animated cartoons. The journey began with “Toy Story” in 1995, which has since produced 26 more animated films and brought in billions. The amount for which Disney took over the studio in 2006 shows how much money Pixar generates: over seven billion US dollars were shelled out – almost exactly as much as for two of the company’s biggest drawcards combined, namely Marvel and Star Wars .
In retrospect, the approximately four billion US dollars for which Disney first acquired the Marvel and later the “Star Wars” rights seem like a bargain. For comparison: the four “Avengers” films released so far alone took in almost eight billion US dollars at the global box office. Since then, it has been impossible to imagine the annual cinema calendar without the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and for a long time it was the same with the stories from the “galaxy far, far away”. Especially since both franchises also dominate the in-house streaming service Disney, which launched in 2019, with films and, above all, series.
Of course, the elephant in the room also needs to be addressed – and that doesn’t mean Dumbo. Although: The 1941 film probably contains one of the most famous examples of controversial scenes that can be found in the older Disney works. What is meant are the stereotypically portrayed singing crows shown therein, which resemble the “racist minstrel shows” of yesteryear.
As a result, Disney places warnings before films like “Dumbo”, “Aristocats” or “Peter Pan” that say: “This program contains negative representations and/or incorrect treatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong at the time and are wrong still today.”
These and other allegations were also made again and again against Walt Disney himself. This also applies to perhaps the greatest Hollywood darling of all time, Meryl Streep (74). During a speech at an awards ceremony in 2014, she summarized the ambivalent situation surrounding Walt Disney: “Disney – without a doubt – brought joy to billions of people, but he was a sexist and racist,” said Streep.
Modern criticism of the Disney company is now taking place under the opposite circumstances. For several years now, the film studio has made it its mission to wrap old classics in modern garb. It’s not just live-action adaptations of works like “The Jungle Book”, “Aladdin” or “Cinderella” that have appeared since then.
People were particularly outraged by the new edition of “The Little Mermaid” – because Disney dared to have a black actress, Halle Bailey (23), embody the fictional title character. Under certain circumstances, Disney should think about educational films again – some people still seem to need them in 2023.
