>>20584>1. Walt has been accused of bastardizing European folklore by literary critics like Tolkien and Adorno. Taking 400 year old stories and making 20th century movies was always gonna require "bastardization." Or, as I call it, "adaptation." He simplified them, smoothed the rough edges, and made them palatable to Americans because that was his audience and he was a genius at knowing what they wanted. Tolkien and Adorno aren't wrong but just don't understand the medium of film.
> He was also accused of racism and made Song of the South but African Americans whined that they were painted as servants or passive despite Walt going out of his way to adapt American folklore. People forget that Walt was a small town Illinois boy and not a city slicker.By the time Song of the South was made, Disney had been in Hollywood for years, had traveled the world, was extremely well-read, and was thus worldlier than anyone in his audience and most of the people alive on earth at the time. What is true is that he was a man of his time and upbringing. It is a racist movie, though that doesn't mean Disney was racist, or at least any more racist than most white men in the 40s. But he didn't go "out of his way" — he saw what he thought was a good story and adapted it in a way he thought audiences would respond to.
>2. Walt was always political and outed communists to the Senate because they ruined his work with their strikes. Sure, he was the Bezos/Shultz/Musk/etc of his day. All men in such positions hate unions because they want to call all the shots, because they're megalomaniacs who insist they know what's right for everyone, about everything. And he wasn't wrong that communism and unions were aligned, but it's an inarguable fact that unions created the middle class in this country. In fact the era of wide-spread prosperity that today's conservatives claim to want to recapture was enabled by the rights that unions fought for and guaranteed.
>3. Walt had to fight PL Travers just to adapt Mary Poppins and would fight JK Rowling, Greeks, and the Senate just to make cartoons. He'd make Ariel black, but more closer to Norman Rockwell because he would hate rappers for being no different than the corrupt businessman of his time.Yes, he was driven and didn't take no for an answer. You don't get to be Walt Disney by doing so. Not sure though if you're aware Rockwell was actively, openly antiracist and pro-civil rights. As for Disney in the 21st century, I'd bet my left nut he'd have some aspects of hiphop in his movies. In general he'd be taking the temperature of the culture, looking towards the future, and making his movies as multicultural as possible.
