Mickey Mouse is a figure created through animation who is internationally famous even today, Mickey Mouse episodes shaped stereotypes in the 1900s. Gale Resource in Context shared the history of how Disney started. Walt Disney started working for Kansas City film Ad company in 1919 as his first film job. Disney started his company in 1923 (93 years). He started his company with his brother Roy. Their first studio was a tiny studio in Hollywood. Their first famous character was Oswald the Lucky rabbit. “These [Oswald the Lucky Rabbit] cartoons reflected a higher quality of animation and experimented with a variety of visual effects, particularly the manipulation of light and shadow”. The Disney company's distributor disagreed with Walt about his ideas for Oswald and took 4 or Disney's 5 animators, this made the Disney brothers start doing everything themselves, the making and distributing of their cartoons. After their old distributor took away the animators and destroyed the idea of Oswald, Mickey Mouse was born (or rather, Mortimer mouse.) Disney also invented the idea of cartoon characters that are both in color and sound, Steamboat Willy was the first to display this new idea.
Everyone in America grew up watching some type of Disney animation, but has anyone ever asked how the cartoons, shows and movies made by Disney has shaped our beliefs? From Student Resources in Context, the author provides pages of information on all the movies that Disney has made along with all the equipment he has made to make them. Disney helped with (now known as incorrect) views of racism in the 1930s to 50s. The author of the article, Steve Hanson, is American but since the argument is about American values, it is better to be written by an American than a foreigner that may have a biased view on Americans, which is why the source is accurate.
Steve Hanson wrote about the beginning of Disney and how Walt started working in the advertising business and eventually started working in his own studio with his brother. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was their first major cartoon character. But after their distributor, Charles Mintz, decided against it and took away 4 of the 5 other animators Disney had, the brothers decided to do their own distributing and soon after invented Mickey Mouse. This was the first time filmmakers ever started doing their own distributing and most major film companies today follow Disney's example. This shows that Disney did not just create movies to influence others, his business plans changed film society as well. Disney's first color and sound production Steamboat Willie was an epic hit and "audiences were captivated by the idea that a character plainly drawn with pen and ink could actually sing and dance in rhythm." The trick was too create the sound first then create characters around the sound.
Future research includes finding out more about why the Distributor did not agree with the idea of Oswald the Rabbit and why Disney's animators left.
I think it's interesting how Disney helped with views of racism because I didn't realize they talked about that. Your intro is really good but I think that you can add more analysis about what you think about the topic.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this post was interesting because I never new that Mickey Mouse was used as a tool to combat racism. The intro is good, and your analysis and evidence explain your topic well.
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