Walt Disney a Nazi?

It's not like the films he made before weren't propaganda, anyway. Have you seen Dumbo? SO racist.

I've never heard anyone say that Walt Disney wasn't an American patriot. He certainly accepted contracts (after all, they were guaranteed money in an age when little of it was to be had), and he never seemed to speak out against the war. I haven't read an in-depth biography, of course, but it's not mentioned on Wiki, and that's sort-of a big deal.
 
Disney certainly was an American patriot, pre-WWII, during WWII, and  post WWII.  He was a firm believer in American technology and progress and that showed in his TV show and how Disneyland was constructed and run while he was running it.

You can find some sort of "propaganda" in most any film or cartoon, there would really be no point in making them unless the film maker has some sort of point of view.  Some are just more subtle than others
 
bearfan said:
I am not sure that is quite right, a fair amount of Disney (as with most studios) produced movies for the war effort (as they were not excempt from being drafted like anyone else), Disney released Bambi in 1942, Saludos Amigos in 1943, The Three Caballeros in 1944, Make Mine Music in 1946, Fun and Fancy Free in 1947, Melody Time in 1948, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in 1949, and Cinderella in 1950
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Bambi was the least feature film before the war. The others you mention that were released during war time and in the following post war years, when the company still were under staffed, are collections of small animated shorts. Disney studios didn't have the time, the animation staff or the creative freedom to start a cohesive and full time work on a real feature film until Cinderella was made. When you look at those titles you mentioned, they are all sub par to Disney standards because Disney did not have the staff or the time to actually produce quality feature films at this time.

Ok. Perhaps DIsney was an American patiot. It is hard to find any American who is not  :P What I am getting at is that. I, personally, do not think that Walt Disney organized and came up with these propaganda films. I don't think for a minute that Walt Disney told his staff, the ones remaining at war time, to animate Hitler as this and this kind of person, or to set up this massive propaganda production of films and cartoons all of his own.  This all came from the US army and government. Thats the case I am making. That Disney studios were very much under control during the war.
 
Yes, of course it did. Disney contracted out his studios to the government, and they told them what to make. It's like, try to buy a 1944 Ford car. You can't do it, because Ford contracted out their factories to make tanks and aircraft. Pretty well everyone was a part of the war effort. And you can far more credibly tie Henry Ford to the Nazis than Walt Disney.

All that being said, post-war, Disney used American "patriotism" and anti-communism to try to break SAG and other influential Hollywood unions.
 
Okay maybe I've misunderstood  some of the previous posts in that case. Yes Walt Disney was patriotic enough to contract out his studios to the government during the war time for the sake of lending a hand to the county like so many other instituions and workplaces did. I thought you meant, he was patriotic enough to make these cartoons on his own  :blush: But it can still be said then, that it was not really Disney who made propaganda movies...It was the government still, using his studios and some of his staff as a tool for the propaganda. What Disney probaly really wanted to be doing is making cartoons as he did pre World War 2. The list that bearfan gave with the titles released by Disney in the 40s had more Disney fingerprints on them than all the propaganda material..
 
Yes, more Disney-the-man fingerprints on it, but Disney-the-studio is really apart from those pictures; Walt Disney himself went to South America to make the films he released in the early 1940s. The animators from Snow White were making propaganda films.
 
It's hard to know what kind of cartoons he would have made, based on what he did before and after the war, I think it can be assumed that at least some portion of the cartoons during the war would have been to support the war effort even if he had not contracted to do so, though probably not the extent that actually happened.

I do think it is hard to understand the economic/life style sacrifices most Americans made suring WWII (certainly not to the same extent as those in Europe/Asia) since it has not really had to happen since.  I know from relatives alive at the time talking about many things that were taked for granted (basic food goods, anything made of rubber, and metal) being not available, women who never worked working in ammo factories, etc.  Superstars like Ted Williams (and a fair amount of baseball/football players) joining/drafted into the Army and actually fighting, etc From what I know about Disney, I think he was of this spirit and would have done his part for the war effort even without the contracts to do so.

Thankfully, we have not been in a "total war" like this again.  Beyond anyone who lost a friend or family member in Iraq/Afghanistan the average American really does not feel the effects of the war much beyond some higher gas prices and an additional federal deficit. 
 
LooseCannon said:
It's not like the films he made before weren't propaganda, anyway. Have you seen Dumbo? SO racist.

I've never heard anyone say that Walt Disney wasn't an American patriot. He certainly accepted contracts (after all, they were guaranteed money in an age when little of it was to be had), and he never seemed to speak out against the war. I haven't read an in-depth biography, of course, but it's not mentioned on Wiki, and that's sort-of a big deal.
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I've never seen dumbo, care to explain. And "Education for Death" just freaked me out. Especially the ending. I can't believe people made cartoons like that back then. Bearfan's last post made me think,if there was another world war and the government had modern company's like Nickelodeon make propaganda cartoons like this, what would they be like? I could kind of imagine the older franchises doing war shorts but I couldn't imagine a Spongebob cartoon in the same vein as "The Fuhrers Face".
 
I'm sure they'd find a way. And just go see Dumbo, and be prepared to be shocked at how incredibly racist it is.
 
I don't wanna :P I just got home so I will watch it later, perhaps tomorrow. I'm sure I have it on DVD somewhere.
 
LooseCannon said:
I'm sure they'd find a way. And just go see Dumbo, and be prepared to be shocked at how incredibly racist it is.
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It has been years since I saw this, I'll see if any relatives with small kids have it.  I do not think I had this when my kids were little.
 
LooseCannon said:
I'm sure they'd find a way. And just go see Dumbo, and be prepared to be shocked at how incredibly racist it is.
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I haven't seen Dumbo since I was a kid, so obviously I wouldn't have been able to consider it racist.... I'm going to have to watch it again.
 
I re read a portion of a Disney book on this period.  Even though Snow White made a ton of money, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi had all run way over budget and all lost tons of money.  Dumbo was profitable as they changed their production process to make the films cheaper.  Even with that, Disney was millkons in debt, had a big labor strike, cut loose half of the staff from their peak by the time of Pearl Harbor.  In part tbis was due to being to ambitious in doing too many features at once and the loss of European revenues.  Disney actively sought out military contracts (including with the canadian navy) as a way to pay down debt to allow them to move forward with lower production features,  The South American movies were subsided in part by the government and seen as a new market to replace europe.

This is from" An Animated Man"
 
Interesting. So they approached the military to make propaganda films? Not the other way around? That changes what I said about modern cartoons then.
 
I would say they approached each other, the military put out a "call for contracts" and Disney answered the call quickly.  he (and by he, I mean the Disney studio) also did the animation in the Why We Fight series.  Disney did not like doing all these technical movies, he liked stories much better, but finanically they had to.   Between this and right after the war a $1M loan from RKO, some live/animated mixed films (ala Song of the South), and the Real Life Adventures series (nature documentaries that were really popular and cheap to make), doing some corporate films,  and when European currency started to stabilize post war, Disney got back on a sound financial footing.  

In part, prior to this, they suffered (as some internet companies have) from massive growth without a good plan for it, that is why Pinoccio lost over a million dollars, the cost overruns were massive due to constant changes and Disney trying to oversee three features and some of the shorts all at once (while planning 2 more features, and future add-ons to Fantasia).
 
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