From Walt to Woodstock

by Brode, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780292702738
• ISBN10: 0292702736
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

With his thumbprint on the most ubiquitous films of childhood, Walt Disney is widely considered to be the most conventional of all major American moviemakers. The adjective "Disneyfied" has become shorthand for a creative work that has abandoned any controversial or substantial content to find commercial success. But does Disney deserve that reputation? Douglas Brode overturns the idea of Disney as a middlebrow filmmaker by detailing how Disney movies played a key role in transforming children of the Eisenhower era into the radical youth of the Age of Aquarius. Using close readings of Disney projects, Brode shows that Disney's films were frequently ahead of their time thematically. Long before the cultural tumult of the sixties, Disney films preached pacifism, introduced a generation to the notion of feminism, offered the screen's first drug-trip imagery, encouraged young people to become runaways, insisted on the need for integration, advanced the notion of a sexual revolution, created the concept of multiculturalism, called for a return to nature, nourished the cult of the righteous outlaw, justified violent radicalism in defense of individual rights, argued in favor of communal living, and encouraged antiauthoritarian attitudes. Brode argues that Disney, more than any other influence in popular culture, should be considered the primary creator of the sixties counterculture--a reality that couldn't be further from his "conventional" reputation.

Author Biography

Douglas Brode is a playwright, screenwriter, and journalist who teaches cinema studies at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	viii
Introduction Disney's Version/Disney's Vision
The World According to Walt	ix
1 Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll
Disney and the Youth Culture	1	(26)
2 Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky
Disney and the Culture of Conformity	27	(26)
3 The Man Who Says "No"
Disney and the Rebel Hero	53	(24)
4 Toward a New Politics
Disney and the Sixties Sensibility	77	(26)
5 My Sweet Lord
Romanticism and Religion in Disney	103	(25)
6 Gotta Get Back to the Garden
Disney and the Environmental Movement	128	(23)
7 "Hell, No! We Won't Go!"
Disney and the Radicalization of Youth	151	(24)
8 Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow
Disney and the Denial of Death	175	(26)
Conclusion Popular Entertainment and Personal Art
Why Should We Take Disney Seriously?	201	(28)
Notes	229	(2)
Index	231