My mom’s first husband worked for Walt. She and her husband had dinner with him once. I asked Mom what Walt was like. Her response was interesting. She looked thoughtful for a minute and replied, “He was...pleasant, but I wouldn’t want to work for him.” Speaks volumes.
interesting.....yes thanks for sharing. from that i want to guess that he was could turn the charm on when he wanted but your mother saw right through it and didn't like what was underneath. cruelty perhaps? considering the way he was brought up working under a strict patriarch. what do you think?
@@hannah6034 it's pretty well known that Walt Disney was a complete hardass on his workers. He ran them hard and rarely complimented them or showed appreciation. He wasn't mean or anything but he wasn't exactly a great boss either, especially once he started going anti union
@@gregoryford2532 How? I know plenty of people who are both. I'm a communist, but basing the good nature (whatever that means) of people on their political beliefs sounds petty as hell, especially when we're talking about a guy who impacted positively pretty much all kids on earth.
Walt was a cartoonist who figured out how to turn it into a billion dollar industry. Disneyland is a place where happy dollar bills dance into the corporate wallet.
"cultural appropiation and historical revisionism are kinda integral to the disney brand" while in a gigantic sombrero. I was dirnking water and I choked.
The main place I run into women having trouble with being called "dude" is if they were assumed male previously in their life. And I've never seen anyone else complain about "guy." . To me, dudette feels kinda like a lesser version of doctoress--tacking on a feminizing prefix when it is unnecessary.
The funny thing is that I never saw Mary Poppins as a happy-go-lucky, positive, "Disney-fied" character. Yes, singing and dancing and smiling are a part of her character, but there was always this dark, mysterious undertone about her (think Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka). Mary Poppins was strict, no-nonsense, and always, ALWAYS in control of her situation. Magic was just everyday business to her. She never looked surprised or happy or even proud when she did magical things; all those reactions come from the other characters. She was the only woman who stood up to Mr. Banks and he was so in awe of her that HE NEVER QUESTIONED HER. Even when he interrogates her about her methods during "The Life I Lead (Reprise)," she flips the script and Jedi mind-tricks him into taking his kids to the bank. But the most poignant example of this for me is her last scene with the children. Jane asks her if she loves them, to which Mary Poppins replies, "And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?" Ouch. To be fair, I don't know how much of this character is Travers or Disney or Julie Andrews, but I do think that this dark side is what got Andrews her Academy Award for this movie and why this character has held up so well over the past several decades.
"Her beloved creation...was not hers and never would be again."How true. What I have grown to resent more and more about Disney is that they are presenting stories as theirs, while the original stories are sometimes distorted beyond recognition. Too many people know Disney's stories and never read, let alone learn about the true stories. In many cases,Disney's versions are considered the true versions by those who should no better.
It's easy to see her demands and lack of flexibility as annoying or unreasonable, but don't forget that she specifically didn't want her movie Disney-fied and refused their offers to adapt it for 20 years. Disney only managed to seal the deal by promising her creative control and that they wouldn't change much, that there wouldn't be cartoon sections, that there wouldn't be singing, etc. Then he went back on all of that and pressured her to allow these changes or completely ignored her wishes.
“When you point out some of the parts people consider nostalgia as being unethical, people tend to take this as an assault on their childhood”. We have this thing called Black Pete in The Netherlands.... yeah, that comment hits that discussion spot on.. well done Lindsay
This is the sort of dark weirdo nonsense from Europe Disney doesn't make cartoons about. There's always a few people here who are unhappy that Coca Cola and Disney gets to define what Santa is, instead of the Christmas Goat and people throwing logs with insults to one another.
@ that doesn't make sense. changing the name of a concept doesn't change the concept. whether you call it "blackface" or not doesn't change the fact that you're painting your face to look like a black person. does that make sense?
4 года назад+2
Chrismofer I understand that part, but can you look up curaçao / Suriname Sinterklaas ? That is kinda our culture and I’m afraid u don’t know about that.
"Roger Meyers Sr., the gentle genius behind Itchy and Scratchy, loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world. And he, in return, was beloved by the world, except in 1938 when he was criticized for his controversial cartoon 'Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors.'”
To reiterate what the sources actually say: 1. There's at least one credible source claiming that before the outbreak of WW2 Walt attended meetings of the American Nazi party. The main source of this claim is Arthur Babitsky who worked as an animator and animation director for Disney and was reportedly among the best paid, notably he did most of the characterisation work on the character of Goofy. It should be noted that Art and Walt had a very hostile falling out after Art joined a strike to increase the pay of those at the studio who were paid the least. Walt fired him, but rehired him soon after because he was apparently a very good animation director. He was also among those who worked on The Thief and The Cobbler, so that's cool. 2. On the 9th of November 1938 Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) happened, where at least 90 Jews were killed on the streets, 30,000 rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and 250 synagogues destroyed. This was news worldwide in the following days and weeks, as it was the first action of this scale by Germany. On the 24th of November Leni Riefenstahl, a Nazi propagandist, visited Hollywood. Universal and Warner Brothers refused to give her a tour of their studios, Twentieth Century Fox made it clear they didn't want her there by refusing to give her a tour unless they received an official request from the German consulate. Reportedly several restaurants and bars even refused to serve her. Walt on the other hand gave her a personal tour and screened her latest movie. 3. Walt hated the strikes and unions, and had their activities reported to police as communist action. He went as far as to single out a specific animator by name in a call to the FBI claiming he was a communist. Those are the three worst things I could find about Walt. Reportedly attended meetings of the American Nazi party, but only before WW2. Fired some people who went on strike and reported them as communists. Gave a Nazi a personal tour of his studio despite a recent and horrific Nazi attack against Jews being so widely known about that other studios and restaurants refused her entry. Maybe he agreed with the Nazis, maybe he didn't, but he was on friendly terms with at least one, and was willing to overlook a recent atrocity.
@@hickorymccay2994 he saw it as different. I wouldn’t be surprised if DIDN’T see it as a racial slur. This kinda stuff is pretty endemic to most cultures, but America in particular. Times have (somewhat) changed. It’s the Tribal problem boiled down to its most basic element: Jews still looked pretty pasty, so “we” must be on the same side. Shudder.
So refreshing! To have that biting sarcasm that starts the video not spiral down into a one sided, cynical black hole of projected nihilism, but instead retain its humanity and end up being an eloquent and nuanced reflection on an above average film, is astounding.
The problem is that we want to make mere humans an absolute. We do not accept the notion that people have nuances, and we are not perfect. Awful persons can have a bright side, and bright persons can have awful flaws.
Agreed. Someone can be a crap person and an awesome employer. Those things aren't mutually exclusive and evidence for one is not necessarily evidence against the other. Whether or not he personally was good to his employees, the philosophy that Walt Disney built into the company now has it paying it's hourly employees to be quarantined at home. Just because Walt Disney may have secretly been a jackhole doesn't mean that anyone should disparage the current iteration of his company. It has plenty of it's own current and far more sinister faults to be held accountable for. I think that's one of the big problems. People hear equal opportunity and think it means equal result. It doesn't. Just like it doesn't make sense to hold a whole race accountable for what one of it's members does, or for what it's previous members did. Revisionist history exists because everyone is the hero of their own story. No one wants to be associated with the bad things that were done, especially when they know and believe that those things were unacceptable.
This is a brilliant comment. The entirety, but imo especially : "It has plenty of it's own current and far more sinister faults to be held accountable for." & "People hear equal opportunity and think it means equal result." & "Revisionist history exists because everyone is the hero of their own story. No one wants to be associated with the bad things that were done..." Gold star to you! ***
Especially in the case of modern-day Disney juxtaposed with Walt Disney's Legacy. People often jump on the fact Disney was an anti-semite, a showman, and had a multitude of vices, among many other awful truths. They act like that is the largest issue the company needs to address when really it's not. They are a full-blown monopoly and much like the rest of Hollywood, they don't take risks when it comes to promoting new ideas, such as equal representation in their films. Yes, Walt Disney was a complicated individual and a man of his time. We should be opened to understanding the entire truth of who the man was but at the same time, that can't overshadow the modern-day problems his company has.
A problem many people have today is not only that people are put on pedestals and treated as they can do no wrong. Many started hating on Miyamoto after something he said changed the course of the Paper Mario games. I too disagree with him, but that doesn't make him a bad person. You can like something a bad person likes and not be a bad person yourself. I like my steaks well done as they are safer to eat that way and I don't like them bloody, and I don't drink alcohol. That doesn't mean I support trump. Maybe Miyamoto didn't like the Paper Mario games, but that doesn't make him a bad person. People like different things, and that's okay. What people like or doesn't like does not determine what kind of person they are, it's what they do and how and why they like it.
@@alyssabeaulieu Well ... There once was a comment from Paint, But reactions to it were rather faint, 'Cause the brains, though they'd try, Had no witty reply, So the comment quite lonely remained.
Excuse me, Lindsay, but I think everyone, even the most loyal of Walt's fans, can agree that the patron saint of all that is good and pure about humanity is, was, and will always be, Mr Rogers.
12:45 okay right here... Reminds me of the story my mother told about a trip she took in the 1960's to Disneyland with her grandmother. Great grandma didnt like the place at all. Some man from the park asked her how she liked a particular exhibit she did not hold back her contempt. When the man left, mom went to her and said, horrified, "Do you know who that was?!" Yep, twas Uncle Walt himself.
True dat, but it usually wasn't love at first sight. Some arranged/practical marriages did eventually turn into love matches (as did the one of Maximilian of Austria and Maria of Burgundy, who married for strategic reasasons), but some didn't, like the one of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who killed his lover and himself.
Not to mention that royalty had Disney-esque spontaneous marriages even less often than the peasants did. Even if you'd never met your fiancé, you still knew a laundry list of reasons why the two of you should be together. They'd generally be (theoretically) cold, calculated factors like politics and economics, but that's more knowledge than most of the classic Disney princesses had.
Yeah Justinian and Theodora are the only royal/ imperial couple I can think of who actually married purely out of love (at least on Justinian's part- she was an "actress-" and thus he had nothing to gain by marrying her) although with Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon love and strategic alliances appeared to have both been factors
I love how everyone immediately jumps to explaining the obvious after a comment like this. So you're telling me forced or strategic marriage is not the equivalent to actual love with another person? Why thank you for the enlightenment. Romanticizing these royalty tales, and especially girls sucking that junk up like a Dyson dropped on a beach, is probably one of the worst cultural effects we have Walt Disney (and cinematic drama in general) to thank for in the "What holds women back" department. And all this searching of meaning in your ancestors stories and accolades, and using that to boost your own sense of worth, is as empty as a white supremacist taking credit for the inventions and achievements of "white culture". It's just another form of the tribal pride a civilized society should be moving away from, not celebrating. We decided we were done with royalty and colonialism centuries ago and it is depressing how much imagination effort is still put into undoing that gigantic societal leap. There is only bad and worse royalty, similar to pirates... If you're lucky, they just take your labor/money to fund their lifestyle. If you're unlucky, you find yourself chopped to pieces in the garbage disposal of an embassy. Certainly would make for an interesting plot twist in the next Aladdin.
Wait, WAIT....Ralph and his disabled daughter didn't exist?? SO SAD! I loved Ms. Traver's relationship with him in the movie. On the other hand, I'm not too disappointed. I'm disabled. I have been all my life. I also studied broadcasting in college and I've always been confused somewhat with Disney's (and the media in general) lack of portraying characters who have physical or mental challenges. But then the most profound thing came out of Disney's Hunchback when Quasimoto sings this line.... "Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives. Heedless of the gift it is to be them. If I walked in their skin, I'd treasure every instant.." That wasn't Disney, so much as it was the songwriters being awesome. Disney's stuff IS rose-colored...while the world is not. But, things are not hopeless...they just don't come from a mouse. I could say much more, but will stop here.
That's even one of the more horrible conotations that that and early details in the ride (look up: pirate with brassier in PotC) are trying to soften! about pirates going and Raping the townspeople.
I only saw Saving Mr Banks once, so forgive me if my memory is a little foggy, but I remember the scene between Travers and Disney in London seemed to focus on the "healing power of art" and its ability to repair the past through the power of imagination. I felt like this scene was the movie's answer to its own existence. The Walt Disney Company knows that the relationship between Disney and Travers was not nice or pleasant, and that they didn't reach a nice resolution by the time Mary Poppins premiered. But just as both Disney and Travers used art and fantasy to repair their memories of their fathers, the Disney company did the same with Saving Mr Banks. It retold the story to heal the divide between the two creators. In some ways, it absolutely is propaganda designed to make the Disney Company appear more benign and wholesome (they only wanted to bring the magic of Mary Poppins to the masses, it certainly had nothing to do with making money!!). But I did appreciate that they acknowledged that storytellers "restore order with imagination", to rewrite unpleasant memories into optimistic stories. And as you said, they softened and sanitised Walt Disney, but they extended the same courtesy to PL Travers.
Otherwise known as 'lying' or 'making stuff up to feel better about yourself'. Obviously they aren't going to get into all the nitty gritty, that's not flattering, not necessary, or even entertaining so why bother, but I'm sure there's a philosophical discussion to be had in answering where the lines between alternate history, revisionist history, propaganda, entertainment, and healing re-tellings of stories vs lies are... One that I'm not gonna have because whew, lol
Me- *feels smart* Lindsay- "It reads like propagandistic corporate apologia for giving up ones intellectual property for the greater good of commoditfication of mass consumption which - you know - it is." Me- *frantically grabs dictionary while sobbing*
Don’t worry! She had to dive into the Thesaurus beforehand. She plays the “I’m an intellectual card” despite the fact it turns off many viewers. No need to throw a dictionary at your viewers.
I finally watched Saving Mr. Banks recently. I have to admit that I was surprised. Disney was rather honest about the company's flaws. Danger of ultra capitalism? Totally there. Walt as a smoking,drinking businessman who desperately wanted reality to be more like our dreams? Present. Escape from poverty as a motivation deeply rooted in trauma and pain? Check. It's still a pro-Disney take,each flaw carefully explained. But it did feel like the artists honestly believed those explanations. They weren't attempting to deceive,or presenting anything that they felt false. So while adaptational changes were made, I can't call the film propaganda. I was invited to interact with the work,to meditate on it's themes and ideas. For me,that's the bar. Artists can have opinions all day. The question is,do they present those opinions as indisputable fact? Or,as a more honest alternative,do they present multiple sides to those viewpoints,inviting conversation? I do think the film falls firmly into the second category.
If I could say one thing, it's that Saving Mr. Banks hints at the possibility that if Disney had never fallen ill, there could have been a very strong chance he could have been taught about how socialism could really do so much good and that he could have tried to turn the tide against late stage capitalism.
Pretty sure thats the wrong franchise. Actually, Mary Poppins reached out through the force to stop Michael from killing Jane, giving Jane a chance to strike down Michael.
It's interesting to think about just how much Disney's revisionist telling's of history have affected and shaped how we who were raised on Disney viewed different people and periods in history in out youth. Thank you once again for another thought provoking and intellectually satisfying film theory essay video Lindsay!
Uhh Disney movies are for kids. Are they supposed to make kid cartoons "historically accurate" complete with misogyny, religious zealotry, primitive medicine, and bad hygiene? "Hey kids, it's Alladin - brutal warlord who owns a harem of enslaved women who have no choice but to breed!!!!"
I'm not saying they're supposed to be accurate, I'm saying that these films shaped the way that we saw, and the way some might still see, certain time periods, people, and cultures in history. I wasn't saying they should shove their movies full of realism, though that would be a nice change of pace.
On that, just a thought. It seems people cry harlot when historical narratives show only the clean stuff, but if they portrayed it, they'd portray them all as horrible times where everything presently bad at the time would affect everyone presently alive! It just makes me wonder, if in the future they'll complain that most of everyone in 2017 America was racist whenever there's certainly a majority that isn't, and is against it, despite it's uprising. Major events in history can often be bad, but a lot of good ones are really just homely lives of people not worth writing a drama about, I think.
Little known fact.. Disney's cough was often fake... 😉 he coughed to alert his employees that he was coming and it gave them a few minutes to get ready. (Old employees said that after they heard the cough they'd tell others that "Man is in the forest".. bambi code for "look busy the boss is near." )
I'm curious who claimed Walt, who died of lung cancer, coughed out of esteem for his employees to appear busy, and not because his lungs were filled with carcinogens.
I love how Lindsay can open a video essay talking about a subject that, on sight, has nothing to do with the title or thumbnail, and while most YTers would have to reassure their audience that they’re going somewhere with the subject, Lindsay gets the benefit of the doubt because she’s just that good at weaving a narrative together when most people would never be able to make the connection.
The pirates ride “wench auction” has been replaced with a literal hen auction, with the women holding chickens. I guess it’s a cheeky nod to the original
that sounds pretty cool actually. it gets rid of what some people may find problematic, but doesn't take away too much of what others are nostalgic about. not bad
The new scene feels alright and fits in almost as well as the original did, I just don't like that Ms Red is now a pirate and a "sassy kickbutt female" in it.
Lindsay, this is so good. You always create high-quality content, but like these recent long-form analytical pieces have been brilliant. It's like sitting in on a lecture in a class I didn't know I wanted to take. Thank you for all your hard work and research!
"it's what got her through the last year in the hospital" 1. Lay down. 2. Try not to cry. 3. Cry a lot. I just watched Jim Henson's funeral and this video got recommended, so I'm a little primed to cry I suppose.
Adapting books is kind of a crapshoot. JK Rowling loves the Harry Potter movies, but to a fan of the books they leave A LOT to be desired. Why the didn't animate it, I'll never understand.
This happens not only with books. Robert Props invented office cubicle to make office spacy and less confined. He hates his invention. Victor Gruen, architect and father of american malls hates how his ideas were twisted too. But my favorite story is story of John Sylvan, creator of coffee pods. He thought that his system will be used in a office, where u don't have to clean coffee machine because someone left it dirty, etc. You get the coffee you want every time, just how you like it, also it might be cheaper alternative to starbucks, dunkin donuts, etc. He hates his invention, because for companies coffee pods became what blades are for shaving razors, what cartridges are for printers. Also whole landfills now filled with just coffee cups.
Disney was a hardass and an extreme capitalist, but he did apparently hate being called 'Sir' or 'Mr. Disney', and got rather exasperated with his secretary who wouldn't stop. He eventually drew a cartoon portrait that he hung on her wall that had a sign saying, "Down with 'Sir'!"
*Mary Poppins is a film I appreciate more now as an adult than as a child.* Child me loved the penguins, and the slapstick, and the colorful whimsy. Adult me loves the genius of the songs and their range from silly humor to somber lessons. Feed The Birds is this subtle allegory about kindness and altruism. About seeing those less fortunate and encouraging empathy. A Spoonful of Sugar is about optimism and perspective. About focusing on the small good things in life in order to bear the bad. Most people see Mary Poppins as this surface level colorful musical. But, I think the underlying emotional messages of the story are truly brilliant and sincere. And therein lies the greatness of the movie. Well, and Julie Andrews is practically perfect. In every way :)
As a kid, Feed the Birds always made me cry. Something about the poor old lady, most likely cold and homeless made me upset. As an adult, this is still true and I almost always leave the room/fast forward over that part because it depresses me soooo much. Proof how good a job they did.
Mmm! This is the kind of level-headed Disney talk I love to bits! I love Disney history and Walt's life has always fascinated me, but there's so many rumors out there that have people thinking he was all good or all bad instead of just seeing as a person. I love Saving Mr. Banks, even when I knew it was taking a few liberties with the actual historical context, and I think you articulated exactly what makes it so great. Fantastic video! :D
Yeah. I mean, Walt Disney was a cutthroat capitalist who wasn't the perfect PC individual that he tried to sell himself as, but he made a living selling people a lot of really artistic, genre-defining, films that changed the landscape of cinema. Even if the man was a tyrant to work with, I feel like what he managed to create is worth it because you kind-of need to be able to separate what someone's responsible for creating and the person that they were, which is always going to contain some good and some bad to it.
dracocrusher Well, that's just the thing about capitalism: Walter Elias didn't create these artistic, genre-defining films, it were the artists he employed. Under our socioeconomic system Walter simply appropriated their labor because he had a piece of paper that read he owned it.
TennelleFlowers I can't quite agree with Lindsay's take. Walter's movies and shows pushed a broken, toxic moral system. If you need to erase the bad parts of your past - your own personal or that of your country - in order to feel good, enjoy happiness, it's a false happiness that won't last long as the negative legacy builds up and comes crashing down on you. (And that's not broaching the hyper-consumerist crap.)
+Doyle Harken You under represent the role of a producer. Did he draw each cell, did he write each note, did he type each word? No. But without him NONE of it happens. Something like Fantasia is conceptually his idea (though he'd already done something similar), he brings together the artists, musicians etc. Without him Mary Poppins is a barely remembered (culturally speaking) set of books. They also carry his philosophy of what he wants to achieve through these creations. No question he's a capitalist but you can't diminish his agency in what was created. Erase maybe not, but are you saying we can't also occasionally escape? Are you presuming we don't grow up? And the toxic moral system is hard to respond to because you don't site anything, just a blank statement. I've read too many people analyse Disney films and get them fundamentally wrong to really know where you're coming from.
At Walt Disney World I met a military family who were so excited to escape their serious life and meet Mickey. I thought, yes. This is why people come to this theme park. People are not deluded. They need a temporary escape from reality.
I watched this after your Death of the Author essay, and it’s a pleasingly odd juxtaposition. Years ago, visiting Disneyland with my young girls, we saw Mary Poppins, and they had to meet her. They were always grimy little kids, getting into everything, and several layers of sunscreen had made them worse. They were nervous about it, but I said Mary Poppins understands children should play hard. It’s how you act, not how you look. They were exceedingly polite, and the actress primly complimented them on their exquisite manners. They were incredibly happy. And ten minutes later they were absorbed in something else, and only remember the incident as a story I remind them about. A real author invents a character, that character is appropriated, is watched by real children, and the children want to express their love to a real actress interpreting the character. The story of the interaction is told and read here, and perhaps sparks some memory in the reader. In any case, as adults we all saw Saving Mr. Banks, and hated it. TLDR, life is a gordian knot of events, memories & imagination.
That part about divorcing characters/stories from their setting made me thing of a concept called "Mukosekai" used in Japanese animation (and video game design) to describe the ethnic ambiguity of anime characters largely as a result of the progenitor of that art style (Osamu Tezuka) basing it largely off of Disney's cartoons. That's probably why similarly to Disney films characters in Anime are homogenized in a way that makes them more distinctly "Anime" than the background their are meant to portray on screen.
As a person who has always loved art and has constantly questioned dilemmas such as "Should we tell kids the truth or sugar coat stuff for them?", this is an incredibly pleasant thing to watch. It opens discussions that truly interest me, and it's amazing that I can learn this much. Granted, I may not understand all of this entirely because I'm still growing, but that's the beauty of the internet. I can go back to this in a year or some months and see it in a clearer picture (IF youtube allows it, damn). THANK YOU for making so much interesting content and opening genuinely interesting (and not hostile) debates about artistry in general. You're doing the lords work, Lindsay
"Should we tell kids the truth or sugar coat stuff for them?" I find proper perspective to be a good calorie-free substitute for sugar coating. Every time you speak to children about some situation that is not perfect, remind them that the past was worse. As a species, we are constantly maturing, and the problems of today are almost always a lesser version of past problems.
Children's entertainment is in a rather unique position that it can do amazing things that lead to or absolutely terrifying things. You can tackle those tough issues but still do it through a fantasy medium. That way, the message is still imparted but it doesn't just go for the throat which could cause kids to shy away from it.
Disney was definitely a complicated person, as we all are. Being a fan of someone's work certainly doesn't mean you can't look critically at said work or its creator. I think you exemplify that here! Your video essays are always very thoughtful.
A friend of mine says: "Maybe the message of Saving Mr. Banks is that a film as great as Mary Poppins justifies all the trouble and suffering that went into making it."
As a Disney parks cast member, one who was working actually during the filming of Saving Mr Banks, I love this video. This movie has...flaws. A number of them, and that last scene always irks me but I gotta admit I get a lot of feels from this one. Especially Sherman Brothers ones...and maybe I got a little teary-eyed when it shows walk hearing Feed the Birds because it was his favorite and they sang it at his funeral and yeah alright maybe I've taken a few sips of the Disney kool-aid in my day. Disney has it's flaws, the parks especially. Sometimes I get all caught up in the frustration of incredibly annoying business choices and guests deciding Disney wasn't absolutely perfect today so the store girl is responsible, but seeing a little kid meet Mickey for the first time? Kinda hard not to smile and feel some sort of way about that. Besides, let's talk about what's really wrong in this movie. RIDES?!? They're called attractions, Walt!! Yes I know the carousel is a ride but it's the only one in the park, and you know that sir! Somebody needs to go back to Disney University! Also what are modern Chip and Dale doing at that premiere? Pretty sure they weren't even in the parks yet. THIS MOVIE IS LIES!
Yes I know they were created then, but I'm not sure they were characters in the park by the time this movie is set? Or if they were those were modern costumes. Just silly Disney nitpick
To say nothing of Winnie the Pooh toys being in Travers' hotel room. I believe I've read/watched somewhere that Disney hadn't gotten the right to Pooh yet, or had yet to release anything Pooh related, when Mary Poppins was in production.
24:31 - I had a friend who worked down at Disney World for a summer, and she had a blog about it. She wasn't any main or film character, but she was a character actress, a "fairy godmother in training" working at the Bippity Boppity Boutique, and some of her best posts were talking about the little girls that she made smile or laugh just for a little bit by doing their hair or giving them a small present or showering them in "fairy dust" or something else adorable. It's a blogspot blog, if you want to look it up, but it made me cry a few times, just like this clip did just now.
I remember thinking a lot about this after seeing the movie - whether Travers was right to insist on keeping her creation, or whether Disney was right to adapt it. I wound up concluding that Travers, in fact, gave up "autonomy over her own creation" long before Disney ever entered the picture. She gave up that autonomy the moment she published her books and children read them. From that moment on, there were millions of different versions of Mary Poppins - one for every child who read the books - and none of them exactly matched what was in Travers' head. None could have. It's impossible, unless telepathy is somehow involved.
Way to give me flashbacks to my lit theory class! If someone is writing a piece on non-fiction I believe authorial intent should strive to be kept. When writing fiction? I understand the author wanting the heart of their story and the message to be intact, but insisting every little thing to be the same when stories naturally evolve and have a different meaning for everyone is just silly.
Okay that make a wish baby hugging Mary poppins made me cry😭... I live in Florida and have season passes to Disney world. I love going with my young niece and nephew and seeing them be so happy. I also love history and know none of the history presented at Disney is true to life, it's all been "Disneyfied". Thing is, I've got chronic pain, I've got clinical depression, and I can't watch the news these days at all(I read the headlines to know what's going on, but that's it). I go to Disney to forget about all this for just one day. One day I can go to a fairyland where things are not real, but it's a nice escape. Great video Lindsey, you always make me think💜
My main hope is that there is a better version of PL Travers' life. She was a fascinating, difficult, headstrong, mystically-oriented woman whose bizarre path through life had so little to do with the Mary Poppins movie (except her opposition and the money she made from it) that there's enough material left over for a full Netflix series. .Heck, even her time in Australia as a young girl could make its own movie, without the gloss that this movie gave it, as well-done as it was. I really enjoyed this movie...so many great performances and an interesting perspective on having to give up control for money (which is why Travers did it), even though that's a bit glossy, as well. A great overview. You always show your work with these long-form essays, which i very much appreciate and enjoy.
Oh, my! You have very strong feelings about her! I find Travers very complicated and probably felt very trapped, being (most likely) a lesbian caught in a very restrictive society. She was fairly terrible to her son, and that's the main thing I would probably deride her for. He wound up in prison and addicted to drugs, largely due to her inattention and coldness, I think. But still, historical characters don't have to be kind to be interesting to me, I don't think.
Not the biggest fan, mostly because the way the books were, simply could not be adapted and she was pretty cruel to Julie Andrews and the Sherman Brothers.
Based on my flawed knowledge of Lindsay's drinking habits for youtube, I'm just gonna assume that all liquids in those disney cups are contraband alcoholic beverages
Tate Hildyard I haven't seen Saving Mr Banks either and now I'm really curious about it. However, I have seen Mary Poppins and I've also read the first book. I decided to treat them as two different entities, because otherwise I would've been pretty frustrated.
Eliza-Victoria Batrin That’s pretty much how people should treat every book-to-film adaptation; they’re not one-to-one because: 1. What’s the point in that when you can just read it? 2. The movie (depending on the book) would be far over 2 hours.
“It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them-as long as it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).” - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981, letter 13. Pretty much sums it up perfectly haha
Mary Poppins, the musical version, is interesting because it does a bit of a better job incorporating parts, characters, and character traits from the Mary Poppins books. At the same time, it still tells the Mr. Banks story and has the songs/themes that Disney wanted to sell. It is a good hybrid in my opinion.
To sum up the bad stuff known about Walt: 1. There's at least one credible source claiming that before the outbreak of WW2 Walt attended meetings of the American Nazi party. The main source of this claim is Arthur Babitsky who worked as an animator and animation director for Disney and was reportedly among the best paid, notably he did most of the characterisation work on the character of Goofy. It should be noted that Art and Walt had a very hostile falling out after Art joined a strike to increase the pay of those at the studio who were paid the least. Walt fired him, but rehired him soon after because he was apparently a very good animation director. He was also among those who worked on The Thief and The Cobbler, so that's cool. 2. On the 9th of November 1938 Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) happened, where at least 90 Jews were killed on the streets, 30,000 rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and 250 synagogues destroyed. This was news worldwide in the following days and weeks, as it was the first action of this scale by Germany. On the 24th of November, Leni Riefenstahl a Nazi propagandist visited Hollywood. Universal and Warner Brothers refused to give her a tour of their studios, Twentieth Century Fox put up a barrier to entry by refusing to give her a tour unless they received a request from the German consulate. Reportedly several restaurants and bars even refused to serve her. Walt on the other hand gave her a personal tour and screened her latest movie. 3. Walt hated the strikes and unions, and had their activities reported to police as communist action. He went as far as to single out a specific animator by name in a call to the FBI claiming he was a communist. Those are the three worst things I could find about Walt. Reportedly attended meetings of the American Nazi party, but only before WW2. Fired some people who went on strike and reported them as communists. Gave a Nazi a personal tour of his studio despite a recent and horrific Nazi attack against Jews being so widely known about that other studios and restaurants refused her entry. Maybe he was a Nazi, maybe he wasn't, but he was on friendly terms with at least one, and willing to overlook a recent atrocity.
He attended as a plus one and wasn’t invited. The person who took him was pitching the idea for him to join. Clearly he didn’t feel the need to continue. However, Walt Disney showing the studio the Nazi propagandist, could be due to simply being ignorant. We don’t know what exactly what was going on with his brain. What I do know he made anti Nazi propaganda.
@@JBurrmon Under contract during a war at a time when expressing sympathies for the other side carried the risk of getting arrested or at least marked and spied on. Just saying
Yeah...I don't think Walt was an anti-semite (He worked with several hundred Jewish animators, none of whom have, even in retrospect, suggested he treated them differently, so, on a personal level, if he was an anti-semite, he was a very lazy one), but, as pretty much the only non-Jewish studio head in Hollywood at the time..I can see where it got started.
I don't think you can reasonably conclude he was "willing to overlook" anything, just that he wasn't willing to reject and vilify a visitor that had distasteful views. Maybe he just wanted to listen and debate, we don't know. Edit: soz, distasteful isn't a strong enough word, I'm definitely not trying to minimise it be using soft language, it just wasn't my point.
ElliNyan One of Lindsay's best friend. Back when Lindsay was The Nostalgia Chick, Nella would guest star in most of Lindsay's videos and help with the writing/filming. The other is Elisa who would also show up quite a bit and occasionally reviews vampire stuff.
Lindsay Ellis: Critiquing and justifying our love for the Mouse since 2007. ^^ Seriously, I couldn't be happier with this video's message. We know Walt wasn't perfect and we know Disney sanitizes and de-fangs most of the cultures they cover in their films...but does that rob them of all their artistic merit? I don't think so. Knowing Pocahontas is a horribly inaccurate movie doesn't change the nifty animation details in Colors of the Wind, like that wonderful pastel lineart or shadow play of the hawk across John Smith's armor. We know Sleeping Beauty sends the worst possible message to girls with its titular character, but the dragon fight is still pulse-pounding. We know Lion King is Hamlet-meets-Kimba-meets-some-African-myth (Kyle Kallgren will know), but we still cry when Simba shakes Mufasa, telling him "we gotta go home" and he doesn't wake up. Lindsay's unique superpower is celebrating things she loves while still acknowledging and analyzing their flaws. More people could stand to do this, I think. And for the record, I really enjoyed Saving Mr. Banks, even as I acknowledged its propagandic portrayal of "Uncle Walt."
First Guardians of the Galaxy, and now Futurama (even if just as a stepping stone to the real topic)?! Oh Lindsey, whenever I decide to hold onto you, you reward me. Thank you!
This was really smart and well thought out. It's almost exactly what I struggle explaining to my friends all the time who can't understand why I like Disney and particularly Saving Mr. Banks. Definitely subscribing
I think, if I'm remembering correctly, Walt's parents had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak in the house he had bought for them. So maybe Walt was still feeling that wave of regret while working on Mary Poppins.
I just got back from seeing a Princess and the Scrivner video about how Anne of Green Gables' Netflix show was giving the happy fluffy story a more realistic and honest interperatation on what life was like then- VERY DARK, while still keeping it's genuinely sweet moments intact. I would LOVE to see a Walt Disney bio that portrays him as a fully realized bad and good human being that would shock and generate understanding to people like the new take on Anne of Green Gables!
I definitely like this particular video essay. Also, concerning the lack of people educating themselves, I remember after the movie coming out talking with people about the movie and I would usually comment on how Travers did hate the movie for a long time afterwards. Every single one of them was shocked. I think a lot of them were so convinced by nostalgia of Mary Poppins that they refused to see the movie as anything other than 100% factual (at least when it comes to the overall outline.)
The interesting thing to me, lost in all the rush to decry the film as propaganda to make Disney look good, is that it revises history in a way that makes Travers look good and, in at least one way, makes Disney look worse than he deserved. In the movie, Travers is incredulous that Walt doesn't seem to understand that Mary Poppins really comes into the Banks' lives in order to save Mr. Banks. However, anyone who has read Travers' book would know that is absolutely NOT the story she wrote. Mr. and Mrs. Banks are barely in the written work at all, and play no significant part in the story. It was the movie's writers who added that crucial detail. In the book, there really is no discernible "mission" for Mary Poppins. She simply comes into the lives of the children, does strange/impossible things, and eventually leaves.
Fry's line "That's not an astronaut it's a TV comedian! And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife." is my all time favourite line in Futurama. One of those great gags that make you burst out laughing.
I love saving Mr. Banks for a while it was my favorite movie. It really hits you with her emotions when she’s joking even to when she’s flashing back to her sad childhood!
Your long-form video essays are my favorite. Every time a new one pops up, I can't wait to grab a snack, plop down on the couch, and watch it at least twice in that first sitting. Thank you for these fantastic pieces!
I love how you can like something and still discuss it's flaws. It's so interesting how so many people have a really hard time doing that- it must play into cognitive dissonance. I binged watched your channel a few weeks ago, and I'm glad I subscribed, you have such great content.
18th century piracy was full of slavery. A lot of the pirates were themselves escaped slaves. History's most famous pirate ship The Queen Ann's revenge was a slave ship Black Beard stole from slavers.
Cool, don’t want to take my daughter on a non historical pirate ride and have her see crying sex slaves, it’s not accurate anyway so it doesn’t matter. The movie has zombie pirates! They aren’t historically accurate
I've watch a lot of review shows, and I have to say you're one of my faves, Lindsay. I can't believe I haven't subscribed to you until now; all your vids are a joy to watch. You keep a level head, you present everything in a fair light yet keeping your stance firm and clear, and you hardly ever raise your voice or devolve into hyperbolic bile-spewing like so many other online reviewers.
Saving Mr. Banks is a fantastic movie, but I couldn’t get past its revisionist elements. I love the movie but feel shame that I love it because it’s not historically true. But, as you point out, it does have truth to it and maybe I don’t have to feel so guilty if I do educate myself on how things really happened, and enjoy the movie on its artistic value.
You don't have to feel shame for loving something, even if it isn't accurate. Stories, by their very nature, exist at at the whim of the one writing them. And the 100% actual thing upon which a story is based is, at its core, only one version of that story. Even a true event experienced by 3 people has three different versions of that event filtered through 3 different perspectives, all of whom may not agree even factually with the story itself. That is the freedom of writing a story: it can be whatever you want it to be for whatever reason you want it to be. Enjoying a story and believing in it 100% are not the same thing, nor should they ever be.
As a former Disney Intern, I greatly approve of your brilliantly thought out commentary as well as your dedicated practice to drinking around the world! Those were always the best days off.
Huh, I always thought the Whalers on the Moon thing was just some random Futurama thing they decided to do, where they do something ridiculous because it's a thousand years in the future. I had no idea it was an allegory for Disneyland. But yeah, I liked this video, thanks a bunch.
Ambivalence. This video does a great job of expounding on why that's an important attitude to take. Ambivalence is something I think both "4chan types" and "tumblr types" have a problem with when it comes to approaching the art/media they absorb and how they deal with uncomfortable aspects of the past, e.g. Disney and the issues of brushing over troubling issues of gender and race. They both tend to see things in black and white terms, with the 4chan types tending to get defensive and reactionary when beloved and nostalgic media works are challenged, and the tumblr types tending to get puritanical and condemnatory in wanting to dismiss said works in their entirety when they have problematic elements. The same work can be simultaneously progressive and regressive, liberatory and authoritarian, in different ways. The most appropriate attitude isn't to either condemn outright or defend outright, but to try to take a nuanced look at stuff like Disney (or videogames, or anime) and try to tease out what's liberatory from what's not.
I had a professor in college whose catchphrase was, "The text is ambiguous because the author is ambivalent." I find myself using that more often than I would've thought.
I agree when it comes to mere analysis and conversation, but when it comes to standards for how we should approach writing, viewing, and valuing movies in the present from the present or movies in the future from the future, the individual needs to take a more active stance. Otherwise the collective will not be compelling enough to change the status quo that is acknowledged to be problematic.
Honestly looking back on the content i used to enjoy ages ago in the channel awesome days, and comparing it to now. gotta admit, the more i've matured the less interesting doug's stuff has gotten and the far-far more enticing your, Allison, and Kyle's content has gotten. Like, seriously. Allison is still doing bad movies but her format has grown, Kyle- god i'm mad i didn't invest time into him sooner he made me go from being a hipster about Shakespeare to knowing huge chunks of his work- let alone the entire concept of higher art film, and loving every bit of it. And you, Lindsay. You are a frickin treasure! your old stuff was way more considered than i had realized in my younger years, and your current stuff, between the video essays, the whole plate, and all your examinations of modern media and old, just, it's outstanding. Kinda out of left field and barely if not at all relevant to the disney examination- Though I've watched this video more than once and your other essayish stuff an embarrassingly oft number of times but I just, thought i should say it. Oh- i didn't mention todd. he's great. always been great. hasn't changed his formula much but that's because it just works. But yeah thanks for the amazing content throughout the years. if i get a pay raise imma try to throw some of it at you!
My mom’s first husband worked for Walt. She and her husband had dinner with him once. I asked Mom what Walt was like. Her response was interesting. She looked thoughtful for a minute and replied, “He was...pleasant, but I wouldn’t want to work for him.”
Speaks volumes.
interesting.....yes thanks for sharing. from that i want to guess that he was could turn the charm on when he wanted but your mother saw right through it and didn't like what was underneath. cruelty perhaps? considering the way he was brought up working under a strict patriarch. what do you think?
@@hannah6034 it's pretty well known that Walt Disney was a complete hardass on his workers. He ran them hard and rarely complimented them or showed appreciation. He wasn't mean or anything but he wasn't exactly a great boss either, especially once he started going anti union
@@hannah6034 i'm pretty sure it just means he's a genuinely nice guy but also very much a capitalist that prefers to maximize profits.
@@gregoryford2532 How? I know plenty of people who are both.
I'm a communist, but basing the good nature (whatever that means) of people on their political beliefs sounds petty as hell, especially when we're talking about a guy who impacted positively pretty much all kids on earth.
@@Jmotist who brought up politics? Just the anti-union thing?
Like, actually what?
"but i want to redistribute the wealth, father" made me lol
Can we PLEASE get a t-shirt with this line? I need it.
Loved this! Personal charity is not the same as socialism.
I was 666th like
I'll vote for that guy as president
The people shall seize the means of production. FEED THE BIRDS!
So in the end, they realized both their dads was named Martha ; 3
that's beautiful
Sam R why did you say that name????? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?????
Martho
@@Christian-vq3lr Steppenwolf: Martha was my mom's name!
@@Kaanfight damn I thought you said stepping wolf and I was like, "!!!!A ralphthemoviemaker reference!" Then was very sad.
I’m firmly convinced this video was just an excuse to claim a trip to Disney Land as a business expense.
you say this like it's a crime...
and it's her godgiven right
I would
and wouldn't you?
A thing can be two things
“How I learned to stop worrying and love the mouse”
Frog Whisperer 😂👌🏼
Nice reference
Frog
(sits on bomb waving hat and whooping)
Walt was a cartoonist who figured out how to turn it into a billion dollar industry. Disneyland is a place where happy dollar bills dance into the corporate wallet.
"cultural appropiation and historical revisionism are kinda integral to the disney brand" while in a gigantic sombrero. I was dirnking water and I choked.
Honestly, the joke didn’t even hit me until you spelled it out. 😅 Thanks, dude/dudette.
That was the best XD .
"Dude" is a genderless word, dude
"Dude" has gendered connotations for sure. Though I'm sure most wouldn't mind being called dude. It never hurts to ask.
The main place I run into women having trouble with being called "dude" is if they were assumed male previously in their life. And I've never seen anyone else complain about "guy." .
To me, dudette feels kinda like a lesser version of doctoress--tacking on a feminizing prefix when it is unnecessary.
The funny thing is that I never saw Mary Poppins as a happy-go-lucky, positive, "Disney-fied" character. Yes, singing and dancing and smiling are a part of her character, but there was always this dark, mysterious undertone about her (think Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka). Mary Poppins was strict, no-nonsense, and always, ALWAYS in control of her situation. Magic was just everyday business to her. She never looked surprised or happy or even proud when she did magical things; all those reactions come from the other characters. She was the only woman who stood up to Mr. Banks and he was so in awe of her that HE NEVER QUESTIONED HER. Even when he interrogates her about her methods during "The Life I Lead (Reprise)," she flips the script and Jedi mind-tricks him into taking his kids to the bank. But the most poignant example of this for me is her last scene with the children. Jane asks her if she loves them, to which Mary Poppins replies, "And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?" Ouch.
To be fair, I don't know how much of this character is Travers or Disney or Julie Andrews, but I do think that this dark side is what got Andrews her Academy Award for this movie and why this character has held up so well over the past several decades.
Spot on analysis, very well said!
Yes I completely agree!
I died of laughter when she does the squeaky voiced "The people will seize the means of production!!! Feed the birds!!!"
"Her beloved creation...was not hers and never would be again."How true. What I have grown to resent more and more about Disney is that they are presenting stories as theirs, while the original stories are sometimes distorted beyond recognition. Too many people know Disney's stories and never read, let alone learn about the true stories. In many cases,Disney's versions are considered the true versions by those who should no better.
Disney smoothed the jagged corners and gave the stories more universal appeal.
It’s not like Disney claims the adapted stories are their own original work. They are just so good at giving them broad appeal to audiences.
It's easy to see her demands and lack of flexibility as annoying or unreasonable, but don't forget that she specifically didn't want her movie Disney-fied and refused their offers to adapt it for 20 years.
Disney only managed to seal the deal by promising her creative control and that they wouldn't change much, that there wouldn't be cartoon sections, that there wouldn't be singing, etc. Then he went back on all of that and pressured her to allow these changes or completely ignored her wishes.
Wait, an analysis of Walt Disney's character that actually has nuance and recognizes that people are complicated? This is so refreshing.
NO. HE WAS AN EVIL NAZI KINGPIN
White flag
Why hello Houston.
@@TheHarlequinHatter Proof? Nahhh
Disney did anti German/anti Nazis cartoons for the war department during world war 2. I doubt he was a Nazis sympathizer.
“When you point out some of the parts people consider nostalgia as being unethical, people tend to take this as an assault on their childhood”. We have this thing called Black Pete in The Netherlands.... yeah, that comment hits that discussion spot on.. well done Lindsay
This is the sort of dark weirdo nonsense from Europe Disney doesn't make cartoons about. There's always a few people here who are unhappy that Coca Cola and Disney gets to define what Santa is, instead of the Christmas Goat and people throwing logs with insults to one another.
@ do you realize you're literally a blackface apologist?
@ that doesn't make sense. changing the name of a concept doesn't change the concept. whether you call it "blackface" or not doesn't change the fact that you're painting your face to look like a black person. does that make sense?
Chrismofer I understand that part, but can you look up curaçao / Suriname Sinterklaas ? That is kinda our culture and I’m afraid u don’t know about that.
@ and blackface was American culture. did that make it ok? the fact that it was culture? no.
"Roger Meyers Sr., the gentle genius behind Itchy and Scratchy, loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world. And he, in return, was beloved by the world, except in 1938 when he was criticized for his controversial cartoon 'Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors.'”
You aggressively whispering "check your sources" into the microphone is a constant mood tbh
[ASMR] Telling you to check your sources
To reiterate what the sources actually say:
1. There's at least one credible source claiming that before the outbreak of WW2 Walt attended meetings of the American Nazi party. The main source of this claim is Arthur Babitsky who worked as an animator and animation director for Disney and was reportedly among the best paid, notably he did most of the characterisation work on the character of Goofy.
It should be noted that Art and Walt had a very hostile falling out after Art joined a strike to increase the pay of those at the studio who were paid the least. Walt fired him, but rehired him soon after because he was apparently a very good animation director.
He was also among those who worked on The Thief and The Cobbler, so that's cool.
2. On the 9th of November 1938 Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) happened, where at least 90 Jews were killed on the streets, 30,000 rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and 250 synagogues destroyed. This was news worldwide in the following days and weeks, as it was the first action of this scale by Germany.
On the 24th of November Leni Riefenstahl, a Nazi propagandist, visited Hollywood.
Universal and Warner Brothers refused to give her a tour of their studios, Twentieth Century Fox made it clear they didn't want her there by refusing to give her a tour unless they received an official request from the German consulate.
Reportedly several restaurants and bars even refused to serve her.
Walt on the other hand gave her a personal tour and screened her latest movie.
3. Walt hated the strikes and unions, and had their activities reported to police as communist action. He went as far as to single out a specific animator by name in a call to the FBI claiming he was a communist.
Those are the three worst things I could find about Walt.
Reportedly attended meetings of the American Nazi party, but only before WW2.
Fired some people who went on strike and reported them as communists.
Gave a Nazi a personal tour of his studio despite a recent and horrific Nazi attack against Jews being so widely known about that other studios and restaurants refused her entry.
Maybe he agreed with the Nazis, maybe he didn't, but he was on friendly terms with at least one, and was willing to overlook a recent atrocity.
@@joshuacollins385 Wasn't Arthur Babitsky also an incredibly racist dude? I mean, in the pitch document for Goofy he calls him the n-word!
@@hickorymccay2994 he saw it as different. I wouldn’t be surprised if DIDN’T see it as a racial slur. This kinda stuff is pretty endemic to most cultures, but America in particular. Times have (somewhat) changed. It’s the Tribal problem boiled down to its most basic element: Jews still looked pretty pasty, so “we” must be on the same side. Shudder.
So refreshing! To have that biting sarcasm that starts the video not spiral down into a one sided, cynical black hole of projected nihilism, but instead retain its humanity and end up being an eloquent and nuanced reflection on an above average film, is astounding.
she really pulled her punches tho. ‘isn’t it the viewers fault for watching it?’ could be applied to *any* movie, like say, Song of the South.
The problem is that we want to make mere humans an absolute. We do not accept the notion that people have nuances, and we are not perfect. Awful persons can have a bright side, and bright persons can have awful flaws.
Agreed. Someone can be a crap person and an awesome employer. Those things aren't mutually exclusive and evidence for one is not necessarily evidence against the other. Whether or not he personally was good to his employees, the philosophy that Walt Disney built into the company now has it paying it's hourly employees to be quarantined at home. Just because Walt Disney may have secretly been a jackhole doesn't mean that anyone should disparage the current iteration of his company. It has plenty of it's own current and far more sinister faults to be held accountable for.
I think that's one of the big problems. People hear equal opportunity and think it means equal result. It doesn't. Just like it doesn't make sense to hold a whole race accountable for what one of it's members does, or for what it's previous members did. Revisionist history exists because everyone is the hero of their own story. No one wants to be associated with the bad things that were done, especially when they know and believe that those things were unacceptable.
This is a brilliant comment. The entirety, but imo especially :
"It has plenty of it's own current and far more sinister faults to be held accountable for."
&
"People hear equal opportunity and think it means equal result."
&
"Revisionist history exists because everyone is the hero of their own story. No one wants to be associated with the bad things that were done..."
Gold star to you! ***
Especially in the case of modern-day Disney juxtaposed with Walt Disney's Legacy. People often jump on the fact Disney was an anti-semite, a showman, and had a multitude of vices, among many other awful truths. They act like that is the largest issue the company needs to address when really it's not. They are a full-blown monopoly and much like the rest of Hollywood, they don't take risks when it comes to promoting new ideas, such as equal representation in their films. Yes, Walt Disney was a complicated individual and a man of his time. We should be opened to understanding the entire truth of who the man was but at the same time, that can't overshadow the modern-day problems his company has.
A problem many people have today is not only that people are put on pedestals and treated as they can do no wrong. Many started hating on Miyamoto after something he said changed the course of the Paper Mario games. I too disagree with him, but that doesn't make him a bad person.
You can like something a bad person likes and not be a bad person yourself. I like my steaks well done as they are safer to eat that way and I don't like them bloody, and I don't drink alcohol. That doesn't mean I support trump. Maybe Miyamoto didn't like the Paper Mario games, but that doesn't make him a bad person. People like different things, and that's okay. What people like or doesn't like does not determine what kind of person they are, it's what they do and how and why they like it.
@@BostonMBrand There's no solid evidence that W. Disney was an anti-semite.
"sincerity is for giiirls" hahahahah so perfect
oh hey it's paint
paint's for girls!
Love you John! 💙How are there only 2 replies?
@@alyssabeaulieu Well ...
There once was a comment from Paint,
But reactions to it were rather faint,
'Cause the brains, though they'd try,
Had no witty reply,
So the comment quite lonely remained.
So true
Excuse me, Lindsay, but I think everyone, even the most loyal of Walt's fans, can agree that the patron saint of all that is good and pure about humanity is, was, and will always be, Mr Rogers.
What about Bob Ross?
Bob Ross, Mr. Rogers, and Steve Irwin are the Cinnamon Roll Trifecta.
>Mr Rogers
Yeah... About that...
tom hanks is gonna portray him too lol
@@RunikaMori I absolutely hate asking this question with every fibre of my being but: what did he do?
I learned a long time ago to treat any movie that is "based on a true story" as fiction.
12:45 okay right here... Reminds me of the story my mother told about a trip she took in the 1960's to Disneyland with her grandmother. Great grandma didnt like the place at all. Some man from the park asked her how she liked a particular exhibit she did not hold back her contempt. When the man left, mom went to her and said, horrified, "Do you know who that was?!"
Yep, twas Uncle Walt himself.
One thing that everyone misses: Royalty ALWAYS got married to "someone they just met". It's only been since the 20th Century that this has changed.
True dat, but it usually wasn't love at first sight. Some arranged/practical marriages did eventually turn into love matches (as did the one of Maximilian of Austria and Maria of Burgundy, who married for strategic reasasons), but some didn't, like the one of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who killed his lover and himself.
Not to mention that royalty had Disney-esque spontaneous marriages even less often than the peasants did. Even if you'd never met your fiancé, you still knew a laundry list of reasons why the two of you should be together. They'd generally be (theoretically) cold, calculated factors like politics and economics, but that's more knowledge than most of the classic Disney princesses had.
Yeah Justinian and Theodora are the only royal/ imperial couple I can think of who actually married purely out of love (at least on Justinian's part- she was an "actress-" and thus he had nothing to gain by marrying her) although with Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon love and strategic alliances appeared to have both been factors
I love how everyone immediately jumps to explaining the obvious after a comment like this. So you're telling me forced or strategic marriage is not the equivalent to actual love with another person? Why thank you for the enlightenment. Romanticizing these royalty tales, and especially girls sucking that junk up like a Dyson dropped on a beach, is probably one of the worst cultural effects we have Walt Disney (and cinematic drama in general) to thank for in the "What holds women back" department. And all this searching of meaning in your ancestors stories and accolades, and using that to boost your own sense of worth, is as empty as a white supremacist taking credit for the inventions and achievements of "white culture". It's just another form of the tribal pride a civilized society should be moving away from, not celebrating. We decided we were done with royalty and colonialism centuries ago and it is depressing how much imagination effort is still put into undoing that gigantic societal leap. There is only bad and worse royalty, similar to pirates... If you're lucky, they just take your labor/money to fund their lifestyle. If you're unlucky, you find yourself chopped to pieces in the garbage disposal of an embassy. Certainly would make for an interesting plot twist in the next Aladdin.
Actually, they had to court one another, and that took more than a couple of days, lol.
Wait, WAIT....Ralph and his disabled daughter didn't exist?? SO SAD! I loved Ms. Traver's relationship with him in the movie.
On the other hand, I'm not too disappointed.
I'm disabled. I have been all my life. I also studied broadcasting in college and I've always been confused somewhat with Disney's (and the media in general) lack of portraying characters who have physical or mental challenges. But then the most profound thing came out of Disney's Hunchback when Quasimoto sings this line....
"Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives.
Heedless of the gift it is to be them.
If I walked in their skin, I'd treasure every instant.."
That wasn't Disney, so much as it was the songwriters being awesome.
Disney's stuff IS rose-colored...while the world is not. But, things are not hopeless...they just don't come from a mouse.
I could say much more, but will stop here.
*Nailed it*
i totally didn't completely choke up looking at a little girl hugging Mary Poppins im not crying YOURE CRYING
Lindsay Ellis be like: Stories are like onions. They have LAYERS
I'm pretty sure "pirate bride slave auction" wasn't even a thing among pirates, so I have no idea where THAT came from .
It was just a rapey pussy auction. Making them "brides" was an earlier attempt at revisionism / p.c.
That's even one of the more horrible conotations that that and early details in the ride (look up: pirate with brassier in PotC) are trying to soften! about pirates going and Raping the townspeople.
I only saw Saving Mr Banks once, so forgive me if my memory is a little foggy, but I remember the scene between Travers and Disney in London seemed to focus on the "healing power of art" and its ability to repair the past through the power of imagination. I felt like this scene was the movie's answer to its own existence. The Walt Disney Company knows that the relationship between Disney and Travers was not nice or pleasant, and that they didn't reach a nice resolution by the time Mary Poppins premiered. But just as both Disney and Travers used art and fantasy to repair their memories of their fathers, the Disney company did the same with Saving Mr Banks. It retold the story to heal the divide between the two creators. In some ways, it absolutely is propaganda designed to make the Disney Company appear more benign and wholesome (they only wanted to bring the magic of Mary Poppins to the masses, it certainly had nothing to do with making money!!). But I did appreciate that they acknowledged that storytellers "restore order with imagination", to rewrite unpleasant memories into optimistic stories. And as you said, they softened and sanitised Walt Disney, but they extended the same courtesy to PL Travers.
Otherwise known as 'lying' or 'making stuff up to feel better about yourself'. Obviously they aren't going to get into all the nitty gritty, that's not flattering, not necessary, or even entertaining so why bother, but I'm sure there's a philosophical discussion to be had in answering where the lines between alternate history, revisionist history, propaganda, entertainment, and healing re-tellings of stories vs lies are... One that I'm not gonna have because whew, lol
Me- *feels smart*
Lindsay- "It reads like propagandistic corporate apologia for giving up ones intellectual property for the greater good of commoditfication of mass consumption which - you know - it is."
Me- *frantically grabs dictionary while sobbing*
Griffin Hines same.
We are only at our wisest when we admit what we do not know. And we are only at our bravest when we seek out the answers.
Don’t worry! She had to dive into the Thesaurus beforehand.
She plays the “I’m an intellectual card” despite the fact it turns off many viewers.
No need to throw a dictionary at your viewers.
Im not even a native english speaker, but I didn't find that hard to understand😅
@@FelonyArson it's not hard to understand, no, but it's very elegantly phrased; if I'd written that sentence, I'd've been proud of it.
‘Feed the birds’ gets me every time. Such a beautiful, emotional song.
I finally watched Saving Mr. Banks recently. I have to admit that I was surprised. Disney was rather honest about the company's flaws. Danger of ultra capitalism? Totally there. Walt as a smoking,drinking businessman who desperately wanted reality to be more like our dreams? Present. Escape from poverty as a motivation deeply rooted in trauma and pain? Check. It's still a pro-Disney take,each flaw carefully explained. But it did feel like the artists honestly believed those explanations. They weren't attempting to deceive,or presenting anything that they felt false. So while adaptational changes were made, I can't call the film propaganda. I was invited to interact with the work,to meditate on it's themes and ideas. For me,that's the bar. Artists can have opinions all day. The question is,do they present those opinions as indisputable fact? Or,as a more honest alternative,do they present multiple sides to those viewpoints,inviting conversation? I do think the film falls firmly into the second category.
If I could say one thing, it's that Saving Mr. Banks hints at the possibility that if Disney had never fallen ill, there could have been a very strong chance he could have been taught about how socialism could really do so much good and that he could have tried to turn the tide against late stage capitalism.
The movie was pretty inaccurate though. Mary Poppins gave up her life for her son after battling Ego.
Okay, that was good xD
*I'M MARY POPPINS, Y'ALL*
Pretty sure thats the wrong franchise. Actually, Mary Poppins reached out through the force to stop Michael from killing Jane, giving Jane a chance to strike down Michael.
I heard Mary Poppins was told she would give birth to the Messiah despite being a virgin and be worshipped by the world ever after
I really hope this is a ratatouille reference and I’m not just going insane
Dr. Revisionism or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Disney.
It's interesting to think about just how much Disney's revisionist telling's of history have affected and shaped how we who were raised on Disney viewed different people and periods in history in out youth. Thank you once again for another thought provoking and intellectually satisfying film theory essay video Lindsay!
Uhh Disney movies are for kids. Are they supposed to make kid cartoons "historically accurate" complete with misogyny, religious zealotry, primitive medicine, and bad hygiene?
"Hey kids, it's Alladin - brutal warlord who owns a harem of enslaved women who have no choice but to breed!!!!"
I'm not saying they're supposed to be accurate, I'm saying that these films shaped the way that we saw, and the way some might still see, certain time periods, people, and cultures in history. I wasn't saying they should shove their movies full of realism, though that would be a nice change of pace.
Jocko No. But they don't have to whitewash it either.
Jocko Jonson Hunchback of Notre Dame? Though it was cleaned up a bit and they tossed in some gargoyles for jokes.
On that, just a thought. It seems people cry harlot when historical narratives show only the clean stuff, but if they portrayed it, they'd portray them all as horrible times where everything presently bad at the time would affect everyone presently alive! It just makes me wonder, if in the future they'll complain that most of everyone in 2017 America was racist whenever there's certainly a majority that isn't, and is against it, despite it's uprising. Major events in history can often be bad, but a lot of good ones are really just homely lives of people not worth writing a drama about, I think.
Little known fact.. Disney's cough was often fake... 😉 he coughed to alert his employees that he was coming and it gave them a few minutes to get ready. (Old employees said that after they heard the cough they'd tell others that "Man is in the forest".. bambi code for "look busy the boss is near." )
I laughed out loud at this! Not just a 'LOL', we're talking 'BRIAN BLESSED'S telling em to keep it down' loud!
That's true but two years before he die, he have a lot of problems because he smoke like a truck
I had a teacher who smoked cigars, we smelt him before he entered the class room.
I'm curious who claimed Walt, who died of lung cancer, coughed out of esteem for his employees to appear busy, and not because his lungs were filled with carcinogens.
We’re whalers on the moon
We carry a harpoon
But there ain’t no whales
So we tell tales
And sing our whaling tune
I love how Lindsay can open a video essay talking about a subject that, on sight, has nothing to do with the title or thumbnail, and while most YTers would have to reassure their audience that they’re going somewhere with the subject, Lindsay gets the benefit of the doubt because she’s just that good at weaving a narrative together when most people would never be able to make the connection.
The pirates ride “wench auction” has been replaced with a literal hen auction, with the women holding chickens. I guess it’s a cheeky nod to the original
Lol too cheap for new mannequins.
that sounds pretty cool actually. it gets rid of what some people may find problematic, but doesn't take away too much of what others are nostalgic about. not bad
How long until PETA demands they change it back?
You should see what the ride was like in the 70s. More rapey, less bridey.
The new scene feels alright and fits in almost as well as the original did, I just don't like that Ms Red is now a pirate and a "sassy kickbutt female" in it.
Lindsay, this is so good. You always create high-quality content, but like these recent long-form analytical pieces have been brilliant. It's like sitting in on a lecture in a class I didn't know I wanted to take.
Thank you for all your hard work and research!
Ah man, I would have loved a hour long version of this.
Same!
Same.
Same.
Saaaame, this was so well done.
Was just going to post the same comment.
That little girl meeting mary poppins made me tear up a little. And I'm at work :/
"it's what got her through the last year in the hospital" 1. Lay down. 2. Try not to cry. 3. Cry a lot. I just watched Jim Henson's funeral and this video got recommended, so I'm a little primed to cry I suppose.
"socialism curious" goes right on my tinder
Man, I just feel bad for authors whose works are adapted in a to them unsatisfying way.
At least her financial benefit was immense: not only did Travers get a cut of the movie's immense profits, people bought her books again!
Adapting books is kind of a crapshoot. JK Rowling loves the Harry Potter movies, but to a fan of the books they leave A LOT to be desired. Why the didn't animate it, I'll never understand.
Agatha Christie is calling on the other line.
This happens not only with books. Robert Props invented office cubicle to make office spacy and less confined. He hates his invention.
Victor Gruen, architect and father of american malls hates how his ideas were twisted too.
But my favorite story is story of John Sylvan, creator of coffee pods. He thought that his system will be used in a office, where u don't have to clean coffee machine because someone left it dirty, etc. You get the coffee you want every time, just how you like it, also it might be cheaper alternative to starbucks, dunkin donuts, etc. He hates his invention, because for companies coffee pods became what blades are for shaving razors, what cartridges are for printers. Also whole landfills now filled with just coffee cups.
Well there is an easy solution to that... DON'T SELL YOUR BOOK RIGHTS!
Disney was a hardass and an extreme capitalist, but he did apparently hate being called 'Sir' or 'Mr. Disney', and got rather exasperated with his secretary who wouldn't stop. He eventually drew a cartoon portrait that he hung on her wall that had a sign saying, "Down with 'Sir'!"
*Mary Poppins is a film I appreciate more now as an adult than as a child.*
Child me loved the penguins, and the slapstick, and the colorful whimsy.
Adult me loves the genius of the songs and their range from silly humor to somber lessons.
Feed The Birds is this subtle allegory about kindness and altruism. About seeing those less fortunate and encouraging empathy.
A Spoonful of Sugar is about optimism and perspective. About focusing on the small good things in life in order to bear the bad.
Most people see Mary Poppins as this surface level colorful musical. But, I think the underlying emotional messages of the story are truly brilliant and sincere. And therein lies the greatness of the movie.
Well, and Julie Andrews is practically perfect. In every way :)
Mary Poppins made me laugh as a child, and cry as an adult. And yes. She is.
As a kid, Feed the Birds always made me cry. Something about the poor old lady, most likely cold and homeless made me upset.
As an adult, this is still true and I almost always leave the room/fast forward over that part because it depresses me soooo much.
Proof how good a job they did.
still.
Mmm! This is the kind of level-headed Disney talk I love to bits! I love Disney history and Walt's life has always fascinated me, but there's so many rumors out there that have people thinking he was all good or all bad instead of just seeing as a person.
I love Saving Mr. Banks, even when I knew it was taking a few liberties with the actual historical context, and I think you articulated exactly what makes it so great. Fantastic video! :D
Whenever Walt Disney comes up, someone says he was a Nazi. They also act this was something that was never said before.
Yeah. I mean, Walt Disney was a cutthroat capitalist who wasn't the perfect PC individual that he tried to sell himself as, but he made a living selling people a lot of really artistic, genre-defining, films that changed the landscape of cinema. Even if the man was a tyrant to work with, I feel like what he managed to create is worth it because you kind-of need to be able to separate what someone's responsible for creating and the person that they were, which is always going to contain some good and some bad to it.
dracocrusher Well, that's just the thing about capitalism: Walter Elias didn't create these artistic, genre-defining films, it were the artists he employed. Under our socioeconomic system Walter simply appropriated their labor because he had a piece of paper that read he owned it.
TennelleFlowers I can't quite agree with Lindsay's take. Walter's movies and shows pushed a broken, toxic moral system. If you need to erase the bad parts of your past - your own personal or that of your country - in order to feel good, enjoy happiness, it's a false happiness that won't last long as the negative legacy builds up and comes crashing down on you. (And that's not broaching the hyper-consumerist crap.)
+Doyle Harken You under represent the role of a producer. Did he draw each cell, did he write each note, did he type each word? No. But without him NONE of it happens. Something like Fantasia is conceptually his idea (though he'd already done something similar), he brings together the artists, musicians etc. Without him Mary Poppins is a barely remembered (culturally speaking) set of books. They also carry his philosophy of what he wants to achieve through these creations. No question he's a capitalist but you can't diminish his agency in what was created.
Erase maybe not, but are you saying we can't also occasionally escape? Are you presuming we don't grow up? And the toxic moral system is hard to respond to because you don't site anything, just a blank statement. I've read too many people analyse Disney films and get them fundamentally wrong to really know where you're coming from.
At Walt Disney World I met a military family who were so excited to escape their serious life and meet Mickey. I thought, yes. This is why people come to this theme park. People are not deluded. They need a temporary escape from reality.
People are extremely deluded. Seeing things as they are is miserable and difficult to live with.
I watched this after your Death of the Author essay, and it’s a pleasingly odd juxtaposition. Years ago, visiting Disneyland with my young girls, we saw Mary Poppins, and they had to meet her. They were always grimy little kids, getting into everything, and several layers of sunscreen had made them worse. They were nervous about it, but I said Mary Poppins understands children should play hard. It’s how you act, not how you look. They were exceedingly polite, and the actress primly complimented them on their exquisite manners. They were incredibly happy. And ten minutes later they were absorbed in something else, and only remember the incident as a story I remind them about. A real author invents a character, that character is appropriated, is watched by real children, and the children want to express their love to a real actress interpreting the character. The story of the interaction is told and read here, and perhaps sparks some memory in the reader. In any case, as adults we all saw Saving Mr. Banks, and hated it. TLDR, life is a gordian knot of events, memories & imagination.
That part about divorcing characters/stories from their setting made me thing of a concept called "Mukosekai" used in Japanese animation (and video game design) to describe the ethnic ambiguity of anime characters largely as a result of the progenitor of that art style (Osamu Tezuka) basing it largely off of Disney's cartoons. That's probably why similarly to Disney films characters in Anime are homogenized in a way that makes them more distinctly "Anime" than the background their are meant to portray on screen.
This video is practically perfect in every way
As a person who has always loved art and has constantly questioned dilemmas such as "Should we tell kids the truth or sugar coat stuff for them?", this is an incredibly pleasant thing to watch. It opens discussions that truly interest me, and it's amazing that I can learn this much. Granted, I may not understand all of this entirely because I'm still growing, but that's the beauty of the internet. I can go back to this in a year or some months and see it in a clearer picture (IF youtube allows it, damn).
THANK YOU for making so much interesting content and opening genuinely interesting (and not hostile) debates about artistry in general. You're doing the lords work, Lindsay
"Should we tell kids the truth or sugar coat stuff for them?"
I find proper perspective to be a good calorie-free substitute for sugar coating. Every time you speak to children about some situation that is not perfect, remind them that the past was worse. As a species, we are constantly maturing, and the problems of today are almost always a lesser version of past problems.
Children's entertainment is in a rather unique position that it can do amazing things that lead to or absolutely terrifying things. You can tackle those tough issues but still do it through a fantasy medium. That way, the message is still imparted but it doesn't just go for the throat which could cause kids to shy away from it.
Disney was definitely a complicated person, as we all are. Being a fan of someone's work certainly doesn't mean you can't look critically at said work or its creator. I think you exemplify that here! Your video essays are always very thoughtful.
We're whalers of the moon
we carry a harpoon
but there are no whales so we tell tall tales
and sing a merry tune!
I loved that episode!
A friend of mine says: "Maybe the message of Saving Mr. Banks is that a film as great as Mary Poppins justifies all the trouble and suffering that went into making it."
That was my takeaway. :)
As a Disney parks cast member, one who was working actually during the filming of Saving Mr Banks, I love this video. This movie has...flaws. A number of them, and that last scene always irks me but I gotta admit I get a lot of feels from this one. Especially Sherman Brothers ones...and maybe I got a little teary-eyed when it shows walk hearing Feed the Birds because it was his favorite and they sang it at his funeral and yeah alright maybe I've taken a few sips of the Disney kool-aid in my day.
Disney has it's flaws, the parks especially. Sometimes I get all caught up in the frustration of incredibly annoying business choices and guests deciding Disney wasn't absolutely perfect today so the store girl is responsible, but seeing a little kid meet Mickey for the first time? Kinda hard not to smile and feel some sort of way about that.
Besides, let's talk about what's really wrong in this movie. RIDES?!? They're called attractions, Walt!! Yes I know the carousel is a ride but it's the only one in the park, and you know that sir! Somebody needs to go back to Disney University! Also what are modern Chip and Dale doing at that premiere? Pretty sure they weren't even in the parks yet. THIS MOVIE IS LIES!
Yes I know they were created then, but I'm not sure they were characters in the park by the time this movie is set? Or if they were those were modern costumes. Just silly Disney nitpick
Maybe back in the day they called attractions rides?
Pretty sure that was a Walt insisted thing, they were attractions. Though to be fair, they are on the one ride in the park. The carousal is a ride.
To say nothing of Winnie the Pooh toys being in Travers' hotel room. I believe I've read/watched somewhere that Disney hadn't gotten the right to Pooh yet, or had yet to release anything Pooh related, when Mary Poppins was in production.
24:31 - I had a friend who worked down at Disney World for a summer, and she had a blog about it. She wasn't any main or film character, but she was a character actress, a "fairy godmother in training" working at the Bippity Boppity Boutique, and some of her best posts were talking about the little girls that she made smile or laugh just for a little bit by doing their hair or giving them a small present or showering them in "fairy dust" or something else adorable. It's a blogspot blog, if you want to look it up, but it made me cry a few times, just like this clip did just now.
I remember thinking a lot about this after seeing the movie - whether Travers was right to insist on keeping her creation, or whether Disney was right to adapt it. I wound up concluding that Travers, in fact, gave up "autonomy over her own creation" long before Disney ever entered the picture. She gave up that autonomy the moment she published her books and children read them. From that moment on, there were millions of different versions of Mary Poppins - one for every child who read the books - and none of them exactly matched what was in Travers' head. None could have. It's impossible, unless telepathy is somehow involved.
Way to give me flashbacks to my lit theory class! If someone is writing a piece on non-fiction I believe authorial intent should strive to be kept. When writing fiction? I understand the author wanting the heart of their story and the message to be intact, but insisting every little thing to be the same when stories naturally evolve and have a different meaning for everyone is just silly.
*death of the author intensifies*
But then Disney's version colonized the minds of most people who watched it, replacing the seed of her message with their own.
Okay that make a wish baby hugging Mary poppins made me cry😭... I live in Florida and have season passes to Disney world. I love going with my young niece and nephew and seeing them be so happy. I also love history and know none of the history presented at Disney is true to life, it's all been "Disneyfied". Thing is, I've got chronic pain, I've got clinical depression, and I can't watch the news these days at all(I read the headlines to know what's going on, but that's it). I go to Disney to forget about all this for just one day. One day I can go to a fairyland where things are not real, but it's a nice escape. Great video Lindsey, you always make me think💜
My main hope is that there is a better version of PL Travers' life. She was a fascinating, difficult, headstrong, mystically-oriented woman whose bizarre path through life had so little to do with the Mary Poppins movie (except her opposition and the money she made from it) that there's enough material left over for a full Netflix series. .Heck, even her time in Australia as a young girl could make its own movie, without the gloss that this movie gave it, as well-done as it was. I really enjoyed this movie...so many great performances and an interesting perspective on having to give up control for money (which is why Travers did it), even though that's a bit glossy, as well.
A great overview. You always show your work with these long-form essays, which i very much appreciate and enjoy.
Coming to Netflix: "Saving 'Saving Mr. Banks'"
Ha! I love it.
Oh, my! You have very strong feelings about her! I find Travers very complicated and probably felt very trapped, being (most likely) a lesbian caught in a very restrictive society. She was fairly terrible to her son, and that's the main thing I would probably deride her for. He wound up in prison and addicted to drugs, largely due to her inattention and coldness, I think. But still, historical characters don't have to be kind to be interesting to me, I don't think.
Not the biggest fan, mostly because the way the books were, simply could not be adapted and she was pretty cruel to Julie Andrews and the Sherman Brothers.
Wait, Travers was a lesbian???
New Lindsay video. Today's gonna be a good day.
You won't even have to use your AK.
Lol I was about to make that joke
Lindsey video, plus a disney movie with tom hanks AND Josh Lyman? OH WHAT DAY! WHAT A LOVELY DAY
Based on my flawed knowledge of Lindsay's drinking habits for youtube, I'm just gonna assume that all liquids in those disney cups are contraband alcoholic beverages
Not all. They actually sell alcohol legitimately at Epcot.
She did an “Around the World” challenge with friends at Epcot where you buy 1 drink from each country location. It’s hilarious and amazing
If you look in the comment directly under yours I can confirm that it was alcohol, as Lindsay said it was in a comment response.
And if you're at the Anaheim park, California Adventure.
someone's never been to epcot
Kids shouting Marxist remarks is my new favorite thing.
We call those “Remarkists!”
*booed off stage*
Love how every scene you're at Disneyland, you're holding a drink.
You went to Disney to do the Mr Banks video and now you're going to Paris to do the Hunckback video. AND I LOVE IT.
quiroz923 wow, really?
yeah
I love it when Lindsay talks about Disney.
Eliza-Victoria Batrin This makes me really want to see Saving Mr.Banks now. And I've never even seen Mary Poppins.
Tate Hildyard I haven't seen Saving Mr Banks either and now I'm really curious about it. However, I have seen Mary Poppins and I've also read the first book. I decided to treat them as two different entities, because otherwise I would've been pretty frustrated.
She loves Disney
Eliza-Victoria Batrin That’s pretty much how people should treat every book-to-film adaptation; they’re not one-to-one because: 1. What’s the point in that when you can just read it? 2. The movie (depending on the book) would be far over 2 hours.
Jazzy Tyfighter That is true.
“It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them-as long as it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).” - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981, letter 13.
Pretty much sums it up perfectly haha
Mary Poppins, the musical version, is interesting because it does a bit of a better job incorporating parts, characters, and character traits from the Mary Poppins books. At the same time, it still tells the Mr. Banks story and has the songs/themes that Disney wanted to sell. It is a good hybrid in my opinion.
To sum up the bad stuff known about Walt:
1. There's at least one credible source claiming that before the outbreak of WW2 Walt attended meetings of the American Nazi party. The main source of this claim is Arthur Babitsky who worked as an animator and animation director for Disney and was reportedly among the best paid, notably he did most of the characterisation work on the character of Goofy.
It should be noted that Art and Walt had a very hostile falling out after Art joined a strike to increase the pay of those at the studio who were paid the least. Walt fired him, but rehired him soon after because he was apparently a very good animation director.
He was also among those who worked on The Thief and The Cobbler, so that's cool.
2. On the 9th of November 1938 Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) happened, where at least 90 Jews were killed on the streets, 30,000 rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and 250 synagogues destroyed. This was news worldwide in the following days and weeks, as it was the first action of this scale by Germany.
On the 24th of November, Leni Riefenstahl a Nazi propagandist visited Hollywood.
Universal and Warner Brothers refused to give her a tour of their studios, Twentieth Century Fox put up a barrier to entry by refusing to give her a tour unless they received a request from the German consulate.
Reportedly several restaurants and bars even refused to serve her.
Walt on the other hand gave her a personal tour and screened her latest movie.
3. Walt hated the strikes and unions, and had their activities reported to police as communist action. He went as far as to single out a specific animator by name in a call to the FBI claiming he was a communist.
Those are the three worst things I could find about Walt.
Reportedly attended meetings of the American Nazi party, but only before WW2.
Fired some people who went on strike and reported them as communists.
Gave a Nazi a personal tour of his studio despite a recent and horrific Nazi attack against Jews being so widely known about that other studios and restaurants refused her entry.
Maybe he was a Nazi, maybe he wasn't, but he was on friendly terms with at least one, and willing to overlook a recent atrocity.
He attended as a plus one and wasn’t invited. The person who took him was pitching the idea for him to join. Clearly he didn’t feel the need to continue. However, Walt Disney showing the studio the Nazi propagandist, could be due to simply being ignorant. We don’t know what exactly what was going on with his brain. What I do know he made anti Nazi propaganda.
@@JBurrmon Under contract during a war at a time when expressing sympathies for the other side carried the risk of getting arrested or at least marked and spied on. Just saying
Yeah...I don't think Walt was an anti-semite (He worked with several hundred Jewish animators, none of whom have, even in retrospect, suggested he treated them differently, so, on a personal level, if he was an anti-semite, he was a very lazy one), but, as pretty much the only non-Jewish studio head in Hollywood at the time..I can see where it got started.
Also worried about the p'dough elements, too, as a whole?
I don't think you can reasonably conclude he was "willing to overlook" anything, just that he wasn't willing to reject and vilify a visitor that had distasteful views. Maybe he just wanted to listen and debate, we don't know.
Edit: soz, distasteful isn't a strong enough word, I'm definitely not trying to minimise it be using soft language, it just wasn't my point.
I miss Nella. Would love an update on her.
Casi Hamilton Me too. Me want Nella!!
On twitter you can see that they went together to Disney to film this.
I'm new here, who's Nella?
ElliNyan One of Lindsay's best friend. Back when Lindsay was The Nostalgia Chick, Nella would guest star in most of Lindsay's videos and help with the writing/filming. The other is Elisa who would also show up quite a bit and occasionally reviews vampire stuff.
Nella does the editing and writing for these things, IIRC.
Lindsay Ellis: Critiquing and justifying our love for the Mouse since 2007. ^^
Seriously, I couldn't be happier with this video's message. We know Walt wasn't perfect and we know Disney sanitizes and de-fangs most of the cultures they cover in their films...but does that rob them of all their artistic merit? I don't think so.
Knowing Pocahontas is a horribly inaccurate movie doesn't change the nifty animation details in Colors of the Wind, like that wonderful pastel lineart or shadow play of the hawk across John Smith's armor. We know Sleeping Beauty sends the worst possible message to girls with its titular character, but the dragon fight is still pulse-pounding. We know Lion King is Hamlet-meets-Kimba-meets-some-African-myth (Kyle Kallgren will know), but we still cry when Simba shakes Mufasa, telling him "we gotta go home" and he doesn't wake up.
Lindsay's unique superpower is celebrating things she loves while still acknowledging and analyzing their flaws. More people could stand to do this, I think.
And for the record, I really enjoyed Saving Mr. Banks, even as I acknowledged its propagandic portrayal of "Uncle Walt."
First Guardians of the Galaxy, and now Futurama (even if just as a stepping stone to the real topic)?!
Oh Lindsey, whenever I decide to hold onto you, you reward me. Thank you!
Coming back to this video after Fox merger. Remember the best thing for everyone is if you sell your intellectual property to Uncle Walt everyone
This was really smart and well thought out. It's almost exactly what I struggle explaining to my friends all the time who can't understand why I like Disney and particularly Saving Mr. Banks. Definitely subscribing
I dig the giant sombrero and the mexican martini as you critique cultural appropriation. nice touch.
who needs parenting , when you have video essays like these
oof... I felt that
Lindsay, don't ever change. Brilliant and insightful as always.
I think, if I'm remembering correctly, Walt's parents had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak in the house he had bought for them. So maybe Walt was still feeling that wave of regret while working on Mary Poppins.
Great job Lindsay! I liked the "it can be both!"
It's insane how excited I always am to see and upload from this channel.
I just got back from seeing a Princess and the Scrivner video about how Anne of Green Gables' Netflix show was giving the happy fluffy story a more realistic and honest interperatation on what life was like then- VERY DARK, while still keeping it's genuinely sweet moments intact.
I would LOVE to see a Walt Disney bio that portrays him as a fully realized bad and good human being that would shock and generate understanding to people like the new take on Anne of Green Gables!
I definitely like this particular video essay. Also, concerning the lack of people educating themselves, I remember after the movie coming out talking with people about the movie and I would usually comment on how Travers did hate the movie for a long time afterwards. Every single one of them was shocked. I think a lot of them were so convinced by nostalgia of Mary Poppins that they refused to see the movie as anything other than 100% factual (at least when it comes to the overall outline.)
The interesting thing to me, lost in all the rush to decry the film as propaganda to make Disney look good, is that it revises history in a way that makes Travers look good and, in at least one way, makes Disney look worse than he deserved. In the movie, Travers is incredulous that Walt doesn't seem to understand that Mary Poppins really comes into the Banks' lives in order to save Mr. Banks. However, anyone who has read Travers' book would know that is absolutely NOT the story she wrote. Mr. and Mrs. Banks are barely in the written work at all, and play no significant part in the story. It was the movie's writers who added that crucial detail. In the book, there really is no discernible "mission" for Mary Poppins. She simply comes into the lives of the children, does strange/impossible things, and eventually leaves.
Fry's line "That's not an astronaut it's a TV comedian! And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife." is my all time favourite line in Futurama. One of those great gags that make you burst out laughing.
It's the very casual way Fry says it that makes it funny.
I love saving Mr. Banks for a while it was my favorite movie. It really hits you with her emotions when she’s joking even to when she’s flashing back to her sad childhood!
Your long-form video essays are my favorite. Every time a new one pops up, I can't wait to grab a snack, plop down on the couch, and watch it at least twice in that first sitting. Thank you for these fantastic pieces!
I love how you can like something and still discuss it's flaws. It's so interesting how so many people have a really hard time doing that- it must play into cognitive dissonance. I binged watched your channel a few weeks ago, and I'm glad I subscribed, you have such great content.
18th century piracy was full of slavery. A lot of the pirates were themselves escaped slaves. History's most famous pirate ship The Queen Ann's revenge was a slave ship Black Beard stole from slavers.
People aren't cargo
@@maksuree no it what black beard supposedly said to the captain the Queen Anne's revenge when he asked what the cargo was.
Cool, don’t want to take my daughter on a non historical pirate ride and have her see crying sex slaves, it’s not accurate anyway so it doesn’t matter. The movie has zombie pirates! They aren’t historically accurate
Lot of the pirates were also anarchist in practise
«Feed the Birds» should be Bernie's campaign slogan.
Damn now I wish I (or someone) had thought of that in time. There could've been a parody of Feed the Birds called Feel the Bern
I've watch a lot of review shows, and I have to say you're one of my faves, Lindsay. I can't believe I haven't subscribed to you until now; all your vids are a joy to watch. You keep a level head, you present everything in a fair light yet keeping your stance firm and clear, and you hardly ever raise your voice or devolve into hyperbolic bile-spewing like so many other online reviewers.
Bravo Lindsay,Another spectacular episode. I too had something in my eye in that clip you added with that three year old meeting Mary Poppins.
I'm gonna have whalers on the moon stuck in my head for the rest of the day
WE'RE WHALERS ON THE- *pushes button*
Saving Mr. Banks is a fantastic movie, but I couldn’t get past its revisionist elements. I love the movie but feel shame that I love it because it’s not historically true. But, as you point out, it does have truth to it and maybe I don’t have to feel so guilty if I do educate myself on how things really happened, and enjoy the movie on its artistic value.
You don't have to feel shame for loving something, even if it isn't accurate. Stories, by their very nature, exist at at the whim of the one writing them. And the 100% actual thing upon which a story is based is, at its core, only one version of that story. Even a true event experienced by 3 people has three different versions of that event filtered through 3 different perspectives, all of whom may not agree even factually with the story itself. That is the freedom of writing a story: it can be whatever you want it to be for whatever reason you want it to be. Enjoying a story and believing in it 100% are not the same thing, nor should they ever be.
I LOVE Saving Mr Banks. The scene with Walt and PL Travers near the end at her home always makes me cry :'(
Disney has gotten so out of control that they’re practically selling out themselves at this point.
Hi, is me from two years in the future, it's only gotten progressively worse.
And I mean a full dive bomb of worse.
@@Foreststrike Hi. Me from 2024. It's gotten *very much worse.*
As a former Disney Intern, I greatly approve of your brilliantly thought out commentary as well as your dedicated practice to drinking around the world! Those were always the best days off.
Huh, I always thought the Whalers on the Moon thing was just some random Futurama thing they decided to do, where they do something ridiculous because it's a thousand years in the future. I had no idea it was an allegory for Disneyland.
But yeah, I liked this video, thanks a bunch.
Ambivalence. This video does a great job of expounding on why that's an important attitude to take.
Ambivalence is something I think both "4chan types" and "tumblr types" have a problem with when it comes to approaching the art/media they absorb and how they deal with uncomfortable aspects of the past, e.g. Disney and the issues of brushing over troubling issues of gender and race.
They both tend to see things in black and white terms, with the 4chan types tending to get defensive and reactionary when beloved and nostalgic media works are challenged, and the tumblr types tending to get puritanical and condemnatory in wanting to dismiss said works in their entirety when they have problematic elements.
The same work can be simultaneously progressive and regressive, liberatory and authoritarian, in different ways. The most appropriate attitude isn't to either condemn outright or defend outright, but to try to take a nuanced look at stuff like Disney (or videogames, or anime) and try to tease out what's liberatory from what's not.
You beat me to the 'ambivalence' punch but that's ok, you did a better job anyway. :)
I had a professor in college whose catchphrase was, "The text is ambiguous because the author is ambivalent." I find myself using that more often than I would've thought.
🙌👌
And this is why I stick with Reddit.
I agree when it comes to mere analysis and conversation, but when it comes to standards for how we should approach writing, viewing, and valuing movies in the present from the present or movies in the future from the future, the individual needs to take a more active stance. Otherwise the collective will not be compelling enough to change the status quo that is acknowledged to be problematic.
This is one of the best video essays I have ever seen by anyone. Ever.
why feed the birds? everyone know they work for the bOuRgEoIsIe
Not in Grim Fandango. In that game they work for the resistance.
I'm Merry Poppins, Y'all!
Only you can turn getting sauced at Disneyland into an intellectual discussion on literary merit and contextualization. Carry on.
How to monetize getting sauced at Disneyland. Lindsey style.
That's Walt Disney World in Florida. Disneyland is California
You put my exact complicated feelings about Saving Mr. Banks into words and I want to applaud you for it.
Honestly looking back on the content i used to enjoy ages ago in the channel awesome days, and comparing it to now. gotta admit, the more i've matured the less interesting doug's stuff has gotten and the far-far more enticing your, Allison, and Kyle's content has gotten. Like, seriously. Allison is still doing bad movies but her format has grown, Kyle- god i'm mad i didn't invest time into him sooner he made me go from being a hipster about Shakespeare to knowing huge chunks of his work- let alone the entire concept of higher art film, and loving every bit of it.
And you, Lindsay. You are a frickin treasure! your old stuff was way more considered than i had realized in my younger years, and your current stuff, between the video essays, the whole plate, and all your examinations of modern media and old, just, it's outstanding. Kinda out of left field and barely if not at all relevant to the disney examination- Though I've watched this video more than once and your other essayish stuff an embarrassingly oft number of times but I just, thought i should say it.
Oh- i didn't mention todd. he's great. always been great. hasn't changed his formula much but that's because it just works.
But yeah thanks for the amazing content throughout the years. if i get a pay raise imma try to throw some of it at you!
I just love how you got the castle in the most perfect shot ever