My PMS tribute to the women of Disney cartoons was the first hint at my preoccupation with the phenomenon of Walt Disney. Really, the reason for my curiosity about the man himself is because of the surplus of princess-related propaganda that litters my house like so much pink, baby blue and purple garbage. The stuff of little girls’ dreams.

Disney’s World: A Biography

Disney’s World: A Biography by Leonard Mosley is the story of Walt Disney’s life, truncated to fit about 300 pages. And although all the facts are taken from official Disney sources e.g., the Disney Archives, the book portrays a lot of what I’ll call Walt Disney’s “crazy.”

Considering the nature of this blog, I have no interest in focusing on the genius of Walt Disney. Sure, he invented animation as we know it today (or so the biography claims), and Mickey Mouse (who I’ve always detested), and let’s not forget how his movies introduced the great American fiction of high expectations (I’m still waiting for my damn prince to show up and take me away from all this). But there was so much more to Walt Disney then all that other rubbish. I mean, I had no idea.

For example, good old Walt hated Jews and “blacks.” He didn’t believe women could be good artists and so all of his top animators were men. Women were relegated to the job of “inking” – that is, transferring all the drawings to plates using ink for some sort of purpose which wasn’t really made clear in the book, but I’m betting was extremely important.

Walt also smoked like a chimney (he ultimately died of lung cancer) and had a creepy aversion to sex as well as the fairer sex, but if he digged dudes then it certainly wasn’t alluded to in this book. He was a mean boss who never gave credit to any of his employees. His view was that of the paternal father figure who took care of his employees and therefore they should be grateful for his patronage and just shut the hell up about their low wages already.

In fact, Walt spied for the FBI for many years reporting on union activities. What I’m really amazed at by Walt’s life is his lack of foresight into his own death. He kept such a stranglehold on his company that he remained the sole “boss” until he died in 1966. Then the vultures swooped in and turned an already damaging source of social influence into a genuine phenomena of corporate greed and destruction.

Women continue to be portrayed as evil bitches or nonexistent entities in Disney movies (Shrek excluded), the false promise of the shining prince is still part of this country’s ongoing dialogue with its little girls, but only if you look like Belle, or Ariel, or Jasmine. What about the rest of us, I wonder? (we get to bitch about our crushing disappointment on blogs like this…)

The book is worth reading if only to marvel at the complete lack of social conciousness that Disney had. Perhaps he was simply a product of his time, but I’m almost positive that other prominent figures in the early to mid 20th century actually used their fame and influence for GOOD (ahem: Henry Ford anyone?) All the great things he created and initiated, up to and including Walt Disney World in Florida, appear to have been to feed his own internal drive to create something worthwhile…for…himself…

I give this one three tampons out of five, mainly because it’s a great way to justify your innate and unspoken hatred for all things Disney.