What do you think about Walt Disney? Let's chat!

Correction: The homophobic Mickey Mouse comic I show was actually written and drawn by Floyd Gottfredson, who drew the Mickey Mouse comics from May 1930 onward until his retirement in 1975. Sorry about that. I think it still fits in my argument, though, because of how it showed what Walt was fine with being under his brand and name (it was still signed by him).

Mister Rogers came to mind while watching your video when he wrote,

“Sometimes people are good,
And they do just what they should.
But the very same people who are good sometimes,
Are the very same people who are bad sometimes.
It’s funny, but it’s true.
It’s the same, isn’t it for me…
Isn’t it the same for you?”

As a Jew can I just say that you can definitely be antisemitic and be against the  Nazis. Lots of people who fought in WW2 were still antisemitic and the fact they were against the Nazis does not excuse this. While I have mixed opinions on Disney the US war propaganda was probably more about American patriotism than a hate for what the Nazis were doing.

People tend to forget the Sherman Bros. were both first generation Jewish Americans. And two of his 9 Old Men - Milt Kahl and Marc Davis - were also Jewish. He was known to make jokes and use insensitive terms. But on the other hand there was Gyo Fujikawa, a very talented Japanese-American artist who later became a successful illustrator, and who had to leave California after Pearl Harbor to escape the forced internment, and Walt personally visited her to offer his sympathy and told her "you shouldn't have to go through this just because of your background."

it's so difficult to talk about him either he's the most vile evil greedy human being or you put him on a pedestal and he's grandpa walt can do no wrong "my childhood" must be protected. there's no nuance or intelligent conversation based on fact

He was definitely not the world’s greatest person. Yes, he did say and do some super messed up stuff, in his earlier shorts (which was wrong and should be talked about). However, there is absolutely no proof to support so many things that he allegedly said/believed. No, I won’t use the “it was a different time” because that doesn’t excuse anything, but the amount of false information around Disney is also upsetting, because it’s just inaccurate.
There’s just so much nuance with this, It’s just confusing.

Thank GOD for this video. I've always found that talking about Walt online is usually not worth the effort, given people see zero nuance and believe every single thing they hear. Its easy to hate Disney as a company (girl, same), but we can have conversations about the man behind it all without making stuff up and treating it as fact. He wasn't perfect, he wasn't a saint, no one is. But he also wasn't a cartoonish tyrant either.

Probably the best way to describe Walt was as you said towards the end, "a man stuck in his ways". He could very much be the caring, generous, creative guy his larger-than-life persona would suggest, but he was also still a man with deep flaws who made deeply questionable choices, usually for business reasons but sometimes for misplaced personal reasons. Like anyone else, all we can really do is fight the urge to put him on a pedestal and take him for the sum of his works.

This video perfectly summarizes my feelings.  I’m a massive Disney fan.  I’m also Jewish and queer.  Some people are unwilling or unable to discuss this topic with any nuance.  I love the art of Walt Disney, and I’m very inspired by his accomplishments.  That doesn’t mean that I think he’s above criticism, and it doesn’t mean that I approve of everything he ever did.  At the same time, there are a lot of false stories about Disney, and people often speculate about things that cannot be proven or disproven.  Walt Disney did good things and bad things.  He wasn’t just “Uncle Walt” and he wasn’t simply an evil tyrant.  He was complicated, as many human beings are.

This video just proves that we need to take a bit of our celebration for Walt, and give it to those marginalized members of the company. Floyd Norman, the Sherman Brothers, Mary Blaire, Bon Gurr, just to name a few, were all able to become incredibly influential pioneers within the company, known for their incredible work alongside being trailblazers for being who they were. Let’s give them some kudos

I think the value in saying “they were a product of their time” or “it was a different time” is not to absolve someone of all wrongdoing but to remind us that we shouldn’t assume ourselves to be inherently superior to the generations that came before us.

We have the benefit of growing up being told that things once thought of as right and acceptable are in fact wrong and always have been.

There is no reason for you to believe that if you had grown up in their time being fed the same information they had that you wouldn’t have thought the same as them.

I sometimes think of the things that are seen as right and/or acceptable now, and how they will be judged by future generations. Disposable plastic. Driving gas cars. Industrial agriculture. Assigning gender at birth. Punitive justice systems. Commercialization of basic human necessities like housing, medicine, and food.

I think about how these generations will look back and think “how could these people live in a society that accepted these things.” The truth is we don’t get to decide what society we are born into and not everyone has the privilege of completely separating themselves from all the negative parts of society. As an individual all we can do is enact whatever small change we are personally capable of in order to marginally improve the objectively flawed society in which we live our lives.

This is not a excuse however for older generations living today, who have all the information we do, and still choose to stand by the antiquated values of their youth. I do not subscribe to the absurd notion that the old are incapable of understanding anything new. They choose not to, either because they don’t care or because changing would inconvenience them.

Wow. This is a long comment! I guess it’s just something that’s been weighing pretty heavily on my mind lately. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Nobody is perfect, not even Walt Disney. The kind-hearted, optimistic films he made may not be a representation of what he was like in real life, but I do think its represents what he wanted to be

I totally think people should have an ultimatum for Walt Disney, he is a person and there is no good or evil completely.

Even those who knew him give highly opposing accounts of him. It seems to me when he felt you were his friend he was intensely loyal and supportive, but if he ever felt you'd betrayed him he could turn on you pretty hard.

It's nice to find a nuanced discussion about this topic - I've always seen Walt as a really, really savvy businessman who was good at what he did and charismatic. But I've never deified or villified him. He was a person, not an angel or a devil.
Thanks, Marlene!

I’m related to Bob Gurr and am so happy to hear that I’m not the only gay here.  I would love to hear more about him outside of the stories I’ve heard about him from my family.

I wonder if we’ll ever get tired of watching people get placed on pedestals only to be knocked off them by those same people later on when they realize they’re not the perfect caricature they often never claimed to be, or were clearly putting on a persona that wasn’t real. It’s that same parasocial relationship we build with all media, that has recently been given a name but existed for longer than we can imagine.

Above all else I think Walt was a creative genius, a capitalist, and a PR master. He clearly had a passion for his work and a dream in his mind that he pursued like crazy. He was a businessman who knew how to take that dream and make it something people would pay for and that would be enjoyed and treasured by people alike. He knew how to present himself to market his product and further his creative endeavors. And my own personal, opinionated, unfounded belief is that he is the kind of guy who may have biases and outright hate for a group but is willing to look past the things he deemed negative for the sake of creative artistry and capitalism. If he was antisemitic, he probably knew how to keep it from keeping away Jewish creatives. If he was homophobic, he probably didn’t want to know enough about his employees to know who was or wasn’t, if the work was getting done.

People trying to paint him as some hand-wringing bigoted villain are just as misguided as people who get frustrated when he isn’t an ally for equality on par with modern-day people. Very, very, very few people in his day were as open minded as we are now. Of course there will be instances of him being sexist, racist, and more- the majority of straight white guys back then WERE! It doesn’t make it acceptable, but we can’t look back and condemn him for not seeing this far into the future when he was raised in the time he was.

i feel like this is most certainly a case of “separating the art from the artist.”

starting this video with Rivers Cuomo KILLED me like I swear I can't escape him

If this isn't about a rogue Walt animatronic that got loose in the parks and menaced the guests, I'm going to be very disappointed.