Rhett Wickham: Boo Who?
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It is here that Disney films come home, or at least closer to home than the more fantastical and bucolic French and Germanic settings of Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia. Bambi takes place in the allegorical forest of man � an obviously American woods in which the greatest threat is unseen, cold and calculating, an interloper coming from outside to wreak havoc and separating a child from his mother - a perspective one can�t help but feel is at least partially influenced by the national mood in those first years of the Second World War. Real villainy, true mythic evil, isn�t seen again in a Disney film after Bambi until the Headless Horseman chases Ichabod through the countryside of a classic autumnal New England night. Even here, he is faceless, literally. Then Disney goes back to European roots with Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan all in relatively rapid succession from February of 1950 to February of 1953. While all taking place outside of native soil, they play with a distinctly American feel. Lady Tremain�s evil seems much more real and otherworldly than the Evil Queen. And although it may be stretching things, I�ve often thought that there�s a supercilious and foppish Hitler lurking under Captain Hook, made to look impotent and silly surrounded by a dithering Smee and swarthy pirates who �signed up� in blind allegiance. We were regaining our gusto and our confidence in the indestructible and all-powerful optimism and spirit of a prosperous and impenetrable America. Certainly, the film mirrors America�s kinship with our English allies, with Peter Pan acting and sounding like a sometimes-pugnacious American street kid who rallies some vehdy vehdy English children in their struggle against the pirates.
From this growing American confidence, two legendary ladies emerge, each one arguably the most potent evil of all of Disney�s Post-War animated features, Maleficent and Cruella DeVil. The former being the coldest, most distant and mythically evil of all Disney villains up to this point, and the latter, while being a good bit more comic, was equally as heartless and certainly irrationally volatile and selfish. Maleficent is a calculating force in opposition to love, and Cruella is irrationally mean, putting the most loveable of all critters in the crosshairs of her intention � puppies for gosh sake! Were these naughty ladies able to reach such memorable and satisfying levels, in part, because a more optimistic generation had come to know the thrill of a national confidence unseen since 1937?
Regardless, the power of Disney villainy and its mythic strength seems to stop and stay here for nearly three decades. Not until Ursula rolls from the inky black of her conch cave did Disney villains have the same impact. You have to admit that it was a tough task to come up with a character more wicked than the world at large once Americans saw the war on television from 1964 through 1975, compounded by Watergate and the national embarrassment of a President forced to resign. The carnage of a war that couldn�t be won, a profound lack of faith in leadership and severe economic downturns had to have some collective influence on audiences willingness to empower phobic-objects as relatively innocent and impotent as Prince John and Edgar the Butler. It seems to me entirely plausible, as Dr. Mathis suggested, that Baby Boomers had grown up with the influence of parents and grandparents who knew something more wicked than any imagination could craft, and the only way to measure up was through the introduction of a kind of national cynicism.
So, was the atmosphere of American economic resurgence of the late 80�s and early 90�s, brief and fragile as the bubble was, part of what gave added kick to such nastiness as Ursula, Gaston, Jafar and Scar? Tough to sustain this premise, I confess. But consider this, in 1995 and 1996 � the debut of Frollo, the first male villain (or villain of either gender for that matter) to have as horrific a core as that of the Queen or Maleficent - the world was actually looking a good deal more hopeful with cease-fire announced in Bosnia, a budgetary surplus, and the hopeful re-election of an American President who had yet to fall from grace as a result of serious character flaws and perjury. Since then, can you point to a new Disney villain who has been able to compete as confidently with the nightmares of today�s headlines? I can�t.
Something else that Dr. Mathis and I discussed adds to this argument:
Rhett Wickham
I also wonder about people who have grown up in peace-time, per se, but who are still drawn to extreme horror or violence � and here I�m thinking in particular of films where revenge fantasies are played out, and Hostel is an excellent example of this where the hero gives the villain his comeuppance in an equally vicious and horrific fashion � I wonder if finding entertainment in such revenge fantasy isn�t born from some frustration or feeling of helplessness in a world where politicians fail to keep promises, jobs are harder to find, the disparity between classes is greater and greater, and young people don�t experience the same hope and opportunity of previous generations.
Dr. Andrew Mathis
Well, look at football games. People just go ga-ga over watching the team march down the field and score a touchdown. My early boyhood was in the depression era, and Saturday afternoon matinees, for ten cents, in the Western Tom Mix would get the bad guys and kids would hoot and holler and jump up and down. Those were pretty corny movies, as we think of them now, but it was pretty much the same thing.
RW
But it�s so much more realistic now, and so much closer to something that we can�t control because it isn�t mythic or fantastic.
AM
I think one of the big mistakes parents can make is not becoming aware of what normal ego development in children is all about. Up until about eight, kids can get into fantasies and if they�re so darn real that it scares the bejeebies(sic) out of them, once they gain mastery over that they crave more blood and horror in order to gain more mastery, and that�s how the addiction takes place. One of the main preventive things is for parents not to let their little kids get exposed to it.
RW
There�s a real difference between being overexposed to fantasy violence, no matter how realistically it�s depicted, and still being able to maintain some empathy and understand the difference. It seems to me that line is getting blurred more and more.
AM
Look on the national level: the President is playing on the primitive feelings of the populace � we�re good and �they� are bad. We aren�t allowed to talk about what �we� did to the native Americans, but we can lecture on how horrible what �they� did to Armenian refugees was. I think that for some adults we need these scary things because we keep working at it rather than working it out. We�re using violence as a way to treat post-traumatic stresses that we all share. But it�s not the right treatment.
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That stress, that shared stress, surely feels something like what our parents and grandparents felt in December of 1941. But it was the first time back then. Now�now it just feels too familiar. But I still didn�t have an answer as to why my living, breathing Hag stalking the streets of America�s second largest city had such a powerful effect? Granted, few if any Hollywood residents want to be faced with the possibility of someone that even plastic surgery couldn�t help. After some consideration, I�ve concluded in part that when the most innocent of nightmares can be made as real as the faceless terrorists claiming lives both here and abroad, one can feel profoundly helpless. What if a very real Maleficent were lurking in the Ukrainian mountains, and a flesh and blood Cruella were stalking the streets of London? It would be too much for some. Alas, it would be hardly anything to others. While it doesn�t entirely make sense, I can�t help but feel that movie villains born of a more innocent time may have more curative power than their contemporary counterparts.
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Finally, there is the power the costume gave me. Whether power over anxieties that so many of us share these days, or gaining some control over the feeling of having lost something, either way, the more terrified the response to my presence, the more delight I took in having some control the varying degrees of my menace. Not a malicious control, but one that made me feel, even for an evening, less vulnerable and more connected to something primal. But that urge to purge, that silly thrill in chilling people never overwhelmed my better instincts, and I never felt an impulse to be cruel or to torture my �victim�, as I always backed away and even gave a wink or two to reassure the more petrified pedestrians that it was all just a trick, a guise, a temporary scare. It surely was childish, I confess. And what�s wrong with that? So it was less than adult of me, but it was still a sweet return to a place where something that had scared me as a child, something over which I had gained some mastery, could thrill me in way nothing else could these days. Taking off the nose and wig and chin filled me with a little sadness � a sad kind of longing that nostalgia can trigger. That same melancholy has always held greater sway for me than seeking ways to overcome the dread of a world that offers up fresh horror with every headline. Maybe I just don�t want to face the fact that I�m not detached and selfish enough to survive very long outside of my limited privilege as an over-educated upper middle class white guy who uses Disney-centric websites to express my opinion.
Nevertheless, every Halloween before and since, both as a child and an adult, I have reveled in the spooks and specters of the Haunted Mansion, electing the fantastical over the ferocious, and turning up the chills on my favorite holiday to just the right level with visages of icy queens and mountain dwelling devils as opposed to the more popular carnage of contemporary cinema. A truly happy Halloween. It works for me, and for some others. Nevertheless, the time has come to confess that part of the appeal is a longing for control once again; a longing I believe so many of us secretly share, now more than ever.
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Rhett Wickham is STILL paying off his student loans. He is a regular editorial contributor to LaughingPlace.com. and the publication Tales From The Laughing Place. He works as creative development and story consultant in Orlando and Los Angeles where he lives with his husband, artist Peter Narus, and their adopted �son�, Cooper � a flat coat retriever and dachshund mix. Mr. Wickham is the founder and principal of Creative Development Ink�� doing creative consulting and writing for animation, film and themed entertainment. Among his recent projects is �I�m Reed Fish� for Executive Producer Akiva Goldsman, which debuted at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and the upcoming feature �Love Easy.� Prior to working in feature animation production, Mr. Wickham worked as an actor and stage director in NYC. He is a Directing Fellow with the Drama League of New York and in 2003 he was honored with the Nine Old Men Award from Laughing Place readers, �for reminding us why Disney Feature Animation is the heart and soul of Disney.�
The opinions expressed by our Rhett Wickham, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted October 30, 2007