Jim on Film
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The Root
The root of the problem is what Michael Eisner and friends fail to understand. The Disney name is profitable because of what it stands for, not because of the letters that form the name, the castle on the title screen, or three black circles that form a mouse’s head. Parents take their families to Disney films expecting high quality and acceptable family content. With many recent films, Disney has been able to reach to teens and adults with quality-films like Holes, The Rookie, and Remember the Titans. Some look at the Disney name as a taboo to teenagers, who are the primary movie-going audience. While this is probably true for a number of Disney films, the strong success of many of their films of recent years shows that Disney can make films that appeal to the whole family without betraying the Disney name.

The Disney name is also something that will change over time. For me, childhood connections to Disney were television airings of Swiss Family Robinson and Old Yeller, watching Pinocchio on video at a friend’s house, and seeing Cheetah and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in the theaters.

What set Disney apart for me was that they were actually producing and promoting these films when other studios weren’t. A clear childhood memory was of seeing commercials on television for The Journey of Natty Gann, understanding that it was a Disney movie. Even at this very young age and as a child whose parents rarely took their children to movies, I was aware of what this meant, that Disney was something special.

But children who grew up during this previous decade and who are growing up now will have an entirely different view of Disney.

Cheapquels: An Example
Much has been written about the sequels of Disney’s greatest works. While it’s something I believe strongly in re-visiting, it’s more important here in considering that these films are now part of the Disney legacy. While I grew up being surrounded with the Disney name on Cinderella, The Sword in the Stone, and The Jungle Book, children today are growing up with remembrances of The Return of Jafar, Cinderella 2, and Return to Neverland. While these films may be delighting the youngest generations, chances are, when they grow older, they’ll see these films for what they are.

The general Disney trend goes something like this. As children, people love Disney. As they grow into their teens, they shy away from it because it is an element of the childhood they are trying to shed. Then, as adults, they sit down to watch, say, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and realize, “This really is a good film, and I ‘get’ it now more than I ever did as a kid.�? These adults then no longer run from the Disney name but embrace it, if not for themselves, then for their families.

But the youth of today will likely experience what I call my Heidi’s Song experience. I saw that film on television when I was in about the third grade, and all throughout my childhood, teenage years, through college, and into my adult life, I wanted to see that movie again. I remembered loving the great music, feeling for poor Heidi, and laughing at the evil Fraulein Rottenmeier. Finally, after reading the wonderful Joanna Spyri novel, I decided to hunt down a copy of the movie last year.

What a wretched mess. I actually brought it to a friend’s house to watch, and it was horrible. The characters broke out into pointless songs that weren’t very good. The animation was awful. There was even a Pink Elephants on Parade-esque nightmare sequence that was poorly animated, poorly directed, and pointless.

Even now, the kids who grew up with the early sequels are seeing them for what they are. As a teacher, kids love to talk with me about Disney movies. This past year, my juniors and seniors were adamant that “those sequels are awful. They ruin the originals.�? Low quality feature animation is becoming a part of the Disney legacy.

What does Disney mean today that it didn’t mean a decade ago? And how will that affect the image, the success, and the output of the studio in the future?

A Slippery Slope
In the past, Disney has had difficulty holding its own line. A few examples:

In the revised edition of Leonard Maltin’s classic Of Mice and Men, on the subject of television quality animation, Roy E. Disney said, “We’re not going to go out and do cheap Mickey Mouse cartoons that way. We’re going to invent new characters who are adaptable to that kind of animation, and we’re going to get good stories . . . that’s the key to everything anyway.�? On many levels, Disney has done a marvelous job with television animation-The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, and Recess are all good examples of using the genre of television animation to tell great stories. But it was only a matter of time before Belle, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Lady, Peter Pan, and Wendy were all made into cheap cartoons.

Disney always held the standard that they would not release films with an NC-17 rating. However, on the heels of the success of Basic Instinct, Disney produced the Richard Rush film Color of Night. The completed film, as viewed by the MPAA, needed to have cuts in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. After the film tanked at the box office and was trashed by most reviewers, Disney made an agreement with Rush to release (and only release) the director’s cut on video. Ultimately, the director’s cut was re-classified as R; however, there is (apparently) a fine line between what is R and NC-17 . . . and Disney crossed it as they said they wouldn’t. Had Color of Night proven to be a box office hit, it is likely that Disney would have had no qualms in making more of such films.

On Broadway, Disney created the Hyperion division to distinguish its works not intended for young audiences, such as Aida. However, Broadway is a very small community, and despite such nominal divisions, nobody in the business ever really considered Aida anything other than a Disney musical. Upon its success, it didn’t take long for Disney to capitalize on its Disney name, advertising it alongside Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, using such review tag lines as “Disney’s done it again.�? However, according to an interview with Aida star Adam Pascal in the June 30, 2000 Playbill, the script originally called on him to appear on stage completely undressed. Thankfully, he resisted the idea, and we have the Aida we have today; however, it speaks to the willingness of the company to cross lines.

The most important part of this is to remember that, while tastes are changing as well as social norms, there is something to be said for starting a trend rather than following. There is also something to be said for holding up quality standards and (in addition to understanding future ramifications of decisions) making oodles of money without breaking them. There is something to be said for pursuing fresh ideas rather than hacking at classic ones.