so the other night i was watching a documentary on walt disney and they were talking about how fantasia probably would have been more successful if world war II hadn’t broken out which nixed more than 40% of their overseas box office sales
and one of the guys being interviewed said something like, “if fantasia were a hit, who knows what kind of experimental animation we’d be seeing today?”
i almost started crying
WHY CAN’T I LIVE IN THAT ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
I thought I lost this shirt years ago, but I just managed to find it again alongside a bunch of others. This baby’s going into the T-shirt rotation for my Florida trip.
(Source: octopussoir-, via danizorz)
(via vvulf)
Though not the most famous part of Fantasia, The Pastoral Symphony is probably the most infamous. When the film was originally released, it included a little Black centaur who followed the others and waited on them, filing their hooves and dressing them. Around the time of the civil rights movement, the little centaur, Sunflower, was edited out of the film.
Today, there are people on both sides of the issue: those who agree with the decision to remove the racist sections of the film and those who believe in purity of art and preserving what was considered inoffensive at the time. I’m personally in the second camp. I believe it’s important to be able to look back and say “see how much things have changed?” We should be able to watch a movie as it was intended to be seen, to be able to see for ourselves how wrong something is, and to learn from it. Films are supposed to be historical records of the time in which they were created. As wrong as the Sunflower segments may be, they are still a point in American history that cannot be ignored. It’s more offensive to remove the stereotype than to show the film to children and say “Don’t you think this is wrong?” Let us make those decisions for ourselves, don’t censor them for us.
Aside from the Sunflower controversy, The Pastoral Symphony is a happy little frolic through Greco-Roman mythology, bursting with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Still fun, though.
Prior to watching Fantasia for this project, I hadn’t seen it in probably 20 years. I have the videotape in a box somewhere, but I doubt it was something that got much play in my house. Watching it now, I remembered, of course, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but beyond that, not much. I was surprised when the Dance of the Hours came on, because I suddenly remembered it. It’s amazing, how things can sit in your memory without giving you any idea that they’re there.
It’s a cute little dance, giving faces to the hours of the day. As morning fades into noon, the ostriches give way to hippos. And as afternoon blends into evening, elephants take over. And when night falls, it’s the crocodiles (or alligators?) who reign supreme. But night doesn’t last forever, and soon enough, morning must start again, bringing back all the players of the day to get back in line and start the process over again.
