Disney in the Classroom
Page 2 of 3

Minnie serves her country
(c) Disney

"New and better types of educational films must give cohesion to this war torn earth....." 
 -Walt Disney (Watts p. 237) 

The Walt Disney Studios produced scores of educational films for the armed services and demonstrated that animation could be an effective teaching method. Despite the millions of servicemen who saw these films; they do not represent Walt's greatest educational achievement of the War Years. That honor would belong to a group of educational films that the Walt Disney Studios produced for the general public. The first of these films, Food will Win the War (1942), detailed the massive food production of the American farmer. It also depicted farmers as soldiers in the crusade to defeat the Axis.Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line (1942) is a Minnie Mouse short that encourages housewives to save fat so that it can be used to make explosives. Minnie is also featured in an entertainment short, First Aiders (1944), that educated Americans about real first-aiders. These were women (who wore a uniform like Minnie does in the short) who were trained to care for people injured in an attack.

Shorts were also produced to explain why we needed fight the Axis. The most effective of these shorts was Education for Death in which a cute little boy is twisted (by Nazi culture) into a killing machine. While it starts off in a very amusing manner; the short's overall tone is dark. Its clear message is that the Nazis were evil and that they had to be fought and defeated completely; if the world was to survive.

The most famous educational short Disney made was The New Spirit which encouraged Americans to pay their "taxes to beat the Axis". Donald Duck starts the cartoon whining and complaining about paying his income taxes. Then his radio plays the news and he learns of the dangers posed by the Axis powers.This information changes his attitude and Donald not only wants to pay his taxes, but runs all the way across the country so he can so in person.

I show my students Food Will Win the War, Out of the Flying Pan into the Fire, First Aiders, and The New Spirit to illustrate how the government celebrated what the public was doing to win the war; and how it communicated what still needed to be done. I show Education for Death as an example of how propaganda can be used to explain why a war needs to be fought. We then discuss why the citizens of a democratic nation need to understand why a war is necessary, and why our victory over the Axis required the combined effort of the United States' military and civilian population.

It could have been "Minnie the Machinist" ;o)

A student's interpretation of the Iwo Jima Flag Raising

"It's machine-eat-machine ethos masked the fact that there would be suffering and dying civilians under the proud promises of bombs." 
James Agee's review of Victory through Air Power in The Nation (Watts p. 236)