Dumbo

After nearly a decade and a half, Walt and the gang at Disney reminded me why I loved their animations as a kid. Older and wiser I still find myself in love with the classic heartfelt tear jerking story line. Now, having seen the film from the aspect of an anthropologist, I can truely see how Disney animator Ward Kimball describes Dumbo as "one cartoon feature with a foolproof plot." Hitting the big screen in 1941, only months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, America was full of life in every aspect. Walt's creation depicts this energy of a nation full of ambition from the first scene to the last. What could be more defining of America at the time than the United States Postal Service. The always reliable mail service is beautifully portrayed by a stork clothed in the good ol' red white and blue delivering an invaluable package. Even with the struggle of trying to deliver a baby pachyderm, the thought of not delivering the package is out of the question. Walt's air tight plot has the mail industry run right into another booming American industry, the railroads. Traveling all across the country, the animators bring life to a train showing its struggles of mountains and weather. Like the mail service, quiting is not an option. When the circus makes it to town you can see the imagery of the hard working American as humans and animals alike work under horrible conditions throughout the night to construct the big top. The Disney team brings to light many of America’s problems as well. How about Dumbo’s bubble dream with its pink elephants marching and dancing and skating and multiplying in a passion of metamorphosis? It’s hard not to view this as one big acid trip. Is this Walt’s way of showing us America’s facination with drugs? The biggest problem seen in the film is America’s dark history of racism illustrated as a group of black crows smoking and grooving to the sounds of their initially despised jazz music. Ironically isn’t jazz seen to be one of the only genres of music invented by America? The Disney animators flip the script and depict Dumbo, not the black crows, as the one who’s been beaten, made into a clown, and socially driven into the ground. After a heart felt monologue by the circus mouse, which seems to be directed more toward the viewers as a cry to end the stupidity of racism, the crows turn a 180 and show Dumbo how to fly. Maybe Walt is trying to tell us that if we learn to see past stupid problems such as racism, America with all its energy and ambition could learn to fly.

sam sandoval.... out