Shandy Gledhill
Children’s Film Critque
FANTASIA
The American animated film Fantasia, was
produced by Walt Disney, and released by Walt Disney productions in the year
1940. It consisted of eight animated
segments set to pieces of classical music, which was conducted by Leopold
Stokowski. Seven of these classical
music pieces were performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. The film has been rereleased several times
since its original release.
I picked this film for review, because I
could vaguely remember watching it as a child.
What I did remember was a fun, and beautifully animated cartoon, but
nothing very distinct. In fact after
watching it I realized I blended film memories together, but that’s beside the
point. What I mean is, my reflection on
the movie was genuinely good. I called
blockbuster, and had them reserve me a copy.
When I went in I picked up what they had waiting for me. I never went to the section it came from to
see if there were different versions available.
That night I watched the movie. It was beautiful. Scene after scene beautifully illustrated,
and displayed on film, which was the backdrop for a live Orchestra. Fantasia
was released to be performed in theatrical style to a live audience. While the
film played live characters such as the conductor and orchestra interacted with
it. I thought it was ingenious. I also liked the animation. It was more detailed than Disney has become
since the the beginning of the 1990’s. While I watched the film I thought of the
many different children I know that would love this film. The majority of the
various scenes had no talking, simply animation to music. The one segment I remember with talking was
the classic “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” I
believe that Mickey Mouse speaks once, and chuckles a few times.
I had a very hard time finding racism in
Fantasia. I noticed a segment that had
dancing mushrooms that I believed depicted Asian stereotypes. I had to look real hard to pick out what I
thought could be racist. Even when I did
this I thought some of the connections to racism were abstract. One scene had a beautiful white fish swimming
above black fish. I thought “hmmm, this
could represent something.” The scene I
thought had the most problems was called “The Pastoral Symphony.” This scene was a drawn out courtship between
male and female centaurs. In the
beginning, the female centaurs are bathing, and beautifying themselves. The male centaurs gallop to the meadow, and
woo the females. The centaurs mate up
according to color. This scene also
displayed female dark skinned, zebra centaur servants, who had a white male
master. I found one other section of
what I thought abstract racism. The
scene was where the god Zeus (a white male) was throwing lightning bolts on the
ground where the inhabitants lived. He
scared them. It seemed liked he enjoyed
it, and was doing it for sport or fun.
Next came the research part of the
film. I came across some information
that said in 1969 Disney cut out racism from the original version of
Fantasia. I learned that four short
scenes were removed from “The Pastoral Symphony.” These scenes depicted two characters in a
racially stereotyped manner. A black
centaurette called sunflower that was polishing the hooves of a white
centaurett. The second black centaurett
named Otika appeared briefly serving the white centauretts. Well that explains it. I had been looking for these characters since
the film sign-up sheet specifically mentioned them. I had rewatched that section of the film
looking for a yellow centaur named sunflower.
I had no idea what I was looking for.
Then I found an unedited version of Fantasia on the web. I couldn’t believe it. There sunflower was.
I have attached the original poster
advertisement for the release of Fantasia.
I have also posted pictures of Sunflower, and Otika. During my research I discovered that prior to
the internet finding information on these two deleted centauretts was quite
difficult. Nowhere in my research did I
find references to my abstract thoughts of racism within the film. I found one comment addressing the Zebra
servants and a racist depiction.
During my
research I found some people advocating for the uncut versions of this film to
be released. The reason was to preserve
the film from the time it was created in.
I personally see no reason to reproduce something that is extremely
wrong. The film is a master piece
without it. I think children will love
this film. I would recommend getting
comfortable with your children, and enjoying this movie together.
References:
1.
Wikipedia.org
Fantasia (film)
2.
http://the
animationempire.blogspot.com/2007/12/racism-in-animation-1-fantasia-bans.html
The Animation Empire
3.
Walt Disney Fantasia the original classic
4.
Web images of “Fantasia, racism”
