Tracey Mollet and Jack David Zipes' Opinions of Disney

Zipes and Mollet Summary

Tracey Mollet is a modern history researcher. She received her BA from Oxford and her MA from Leeds. Primarily she researched the Nazi regime in Germany, from 1933 to 1945. However while she was working on her MA she became more interested and captivated in the animation produced by the famous Disney Studios during World War II. This particular subject has not been researched or studied on: which made her even more interested and motivated. Her theses on her research paper argues that Disney Productions since 1932 presents as an adaptation mechanism for the depression of the era. She used mainly the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs story to support her argument that Disney recreated the literary world in a way that helped societies to deal with the great depression. She stated that the new literary ideas or reforms helped focus in having hope and being optimistic and happy endings.

“Despite the undeniable fanciful world of Disney’s shorts, it would be a grave mistake to associate people’s attachment to the Disney brand as nothing more than a desire for escapism.” (Page 113) She indicated that the society needed something that they could not identify with to “escape”. She also claims that Disney changed fairy tales and made it more fit for the American society. Disney portrayed the “American dream” of happily ever after and happy endings. She concluded that Walt Disney changed social myths and dreams in to a transformational literary form, and helped the grey and cloudy America have a little hope.

Jack David Zipes is a retired Professor at the university of Minnesota. He received his BA at Colombia University. Further more at Universit...

... middle of paper ...

... Zipes completely dislikes the idea of Disney using original stories to tell his modified versions of stories. He states that Disney was just selling what sold best in the right time. I also understand Zipes points. Disney did not get here to the point of having multiple TV- channels and get to build a whole empire by caring about the society. But knowingly or unknowingly you cannot ignore the positive influences on the American society and literature.

In conclusion both researchers have great points, and even Mollet acknowledged Zipes in her article. Mollet sees more of the positive effects of Disney: optimism, sign of hope, etc. Zipes saw it as just not very good version of original stories. It is a subject that has not been researched on a lot. I believe there should be more research done on the subject and more interesting revelations would be made.