Friday, June 3, 2011

Disney’s “Pinocchio”? Proceed With Caution


Disney's Second Animated Feature - 1940
I’ve shared my thoughts on Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and found it still has a lot to say to today’s kids. In this installment, I look at Disney’s second feature, Pinocchio, released in 1940 and based on the 19th century Carlo Collodi tale of a marionette who becomes a real boy. I can sum up my reaction with a 19th century nursery rhyme: when it’s good, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad, it’s awful. This is not for young children, at least unsupervised. By today’s standards, I’d give Pinocchio a rating of PG-13 at least.

Why this stern warning? It's because there are segments in this film so scalding and dark, they’re disturbing even to an adult audience. And there is no kid-friendly, understandable context for characters’ evil actions nor is there any justice or comeuppance for the wicked. Call me the one-woman Hayes Commission of children’s film, but it’s no wonder to me that this movie failed to find an audience in its day, even though it was released on the heels of the mega-hit Snow White. To its credit, Pinocchio is at times adorably wholesome with its charming, child-voiced main character, Pinocchio and its crowd-pleasing cricket, Jiminy. It features several wonderful and memorable songs, like “Give a Little Whistle,” “An Actors Life For Me,” and “I’ve Got No Strings.” And it features the most famous Disney song of all, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” that has become the Disney corporation’s theme song. Its animation is particularly stunning, especially the under water sequence when Pinocchio battles the whale Monstro to bravely save his father, Gepetto.

Where did this story go wrong? Italian satirist Carlo Collodi’s original story of Pinocchio was a slapstick tale, heavy on the slapping. The moment Collodi’s child-hating Gepetto finishes carving Pinocchio’s feet, the puppet starts to kick him, an ironic statement on the “joys” of parenting. The original character of Pinocchio was an obnoxious wild child who played many thoughtless, nasty pranks and was punished harshly in return. It’s a perversely comic 19th century time capsule reflecting a world where children (and adults) were often unfairly and savagely punished for misdemeanors and felonies alike. Compare this to Snow White, whose script took great pains to show how twisted and wrong the Evil Queen’s choices were, the Queen eventually paying the ultimate price for her wrong doing. There certainly is drama in Collodi’s source material, but when Disney’s Pinocchio team created a main character too similar to Collodi’s tough, willful wooden boy, Walt Disney himself had them revamp him into a sweeter, more innocent Pinocchio, which is probably where everything started to go wrong. This soft kid can’t fend for himself like Collodi’s wise-guy. The audience naturally feels protective of this softer, more vulnerable Disney Pinocchio and rightly so.

In Disney’s Pinocchio, a con-artist fox, J. Worthington Foulfellow, has only a chance at meager profit as his reason to betray and sell Pinocchio to puppet show impresario Stromboli, a rather chilling character motivation. And the smarmy way he tricks the hapless boy is just this side of sick-making. When sweet, innocent little Pinocchio is led away by the Fox, it reads like a modern toddler abduction. In contrast, the Wicked (would-be murderous) Queen in Snow White makes her jealousy and evil intentions clear, but the Fox, Stromboli, and an evil Coachman are malevolent for reasons that are never made clear, except for a suggestion that they’re “in it for the money.” Yet they behave more like characters who enjoy being evil for its own sake. These scenes are good illustrations of why children should NEVER talk to strangers, but there’s got to be a better way to teach that lesson.

And don’t get me started on the perverse sequence of the “bad boys” on Pleasure Island or as I see it, Entrapment Island. They’re spirited away by an evil Coachman (with the help of the Fox again) and actively encouraged, even enabled into misbehaving. They are then punished for their misdeeds by being morphed into donkeys as their pathetic, frightened cries for “mother” disappear into brays. Then they’re stripped of their clothing and tossed into crates marked with signs suggesting faraway destinations like “sold to salt mine.” As the boys’ crimes were smoking, drinking, and playing billiards, the sarcastic message seems to be, “You REALLY have to wait until you’re twenty-one to do these things or—trust me—you won’t like the consequences.” But in truth, it again feels more like every parent and child’s worst nightmare of abduction and permanent disappearance, the boys literally silenced as they weep for mother and plead for mercy. Once more, the context and circumstances of the abuse are allegorical, deeply cynical, and not easily understood by a child. Even an adult could find these scenes haunting. And the appearance of the Blue Fairy with the power of life and death neither honors nor negates religious belief; it merely confuses the issue. Simply put, a child should not approach this material alone.

There are some wonderful sequences in this film, too. And the animation is nothing less than stunning. The Disney creative team took the techniques they pioneered during Snow White and pushed them even farther to create a visual masterpiece in Pinocchio. But when I find myself using the word “perverse” to describe a cartoon, I suppose what I’m really saying is what I said up front: proceed with caution. Adults and older kids will find an ambitious, sometimes sweet but often dark piece of animation. If you’re okay with that, you’ll find a visual and emotional stunner in Pinocchio. But parents should see to it that younger kids give this a pass.

14 comments:

  1. Oddly enough, most actual children seem to have no problem "approaching this material" or processing its "lessons." As with any film, the viewer gets out of it largely what he or she brings to it.

    Obviously, no one should be made to watch material for which they are emotionally ill-equipped. So if a film that your child enjoys is too "perverse" for you, the remedy is clear; you, the parent, should not watch it.

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    1. Just got a fresh comment on this story; realized you deserved an acknowledgment of your comments, which believe me, I appreciate. Wish I'd get more. I wrote my review of Pinocchio from a very personal perspective, relating my own horror at the donkey scene; also, my mission is to make recommendations for parents for their kids' viewing. I'd hate for anyone to figure, "hey--classic Disney! Let's just pop this in the ol' dvd player," without warning parents that earlier Disney can be pretty raw at places. Disney is so gentle and p.c. today, I feel parents can benefit from a warning. At least I hope so. Point taken on my pretentious tone; I teach in a comm. arts dept.; also I tend to use the same words over and over (and over). It's a constant battle.

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  3. I was never allowed to watch Dumbo as a a kid. My mom was really disturbed by the bullying that apparently goes on in the movie. That and Twin Peaks were the only things I wasn't allowed to watch when I was a kid, so it made an impression on me.

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  4. I have always thought that this movie sent an angry and unforgiving message. The innocent goes into the world with no training, education or protection and is savagely punished for every misstep along the way.

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  5. I personally find Collodi's Pinnocchio quite dark as well (when he is hung by druids, his feet burnt off like matchsticks and a cockroach (as close as it comes to Jiminy Cricket) is taking the piss out of him? Pretty unbearable for this 8-year-old boy!

    That said, many of your points are well-taken. What gets me the most, and you don't really touch on, is that he is responsible for losing his father. It is HIS FAULT! That's a pretty heavy trip to lay on little minds, and one I'm not sure I've ever recovered from.

    Still, I find it a cohesive, stunning work, dealing with deep, dark themes in a manner than can (for better or worse) be easlily apprehended by children.

    It is my favourite Disney film with the possible exception of Bambi.

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  6. Well,no classic Disney movie should be watched by a child without a parent. That's why they are called FAMILY films. They are intended to be enjoyed by families.

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  7. "And there is no kid-friendly, understandable context for characters’ evil actions nor is there any justice or comeuppance for the wicked."

    Guess what? Sometimes things that kids experience in the real world provide no kid-friendly, understandable context for characters' evil actions. Sometimes there is not any justice or comeuppance for the wicked. Sometimes there's only comeuppance for the foolish.

    That is what the whole morality lesson of Pleasure Island is meant to invoke: act foolish, disregard your duties (all the children go there willingly to avoid their studies), and you'll become nothing more than a jackass working at manual labor for all your life. Compare the current unemployment rates among those with a college degree, those with a high school degree, and those who dropped out of high school.

    The kids at Pleasure Island can't control or understand the actions of their tormentors, and they don't need to in order to escape their fate. In the movie at least, Pinocchio escapes before his translation is complete... so while there may not be the promise of justice for the wicket in this scenario, there is a promise for redemption for the foolish.

    Younger children may not absorb any of that intellectually, or even emotionally. But I hardly think they're going to be emotionally damaged by it. If anything is going to emotionally damage children, it's trying to shelter them within a sanitized bubble until they reach adulthood, at which point they'll be sent out into a world they are ill-equipped to deal with.

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    1. Very good points made; insightful; though often, in children's films (and books for that matter) the "bad guys" are put into a meaningful context, like Snow White's wicked Queen. She was obviously obsessed with her looks and jealous of Snow White, so we understood the WHY behind her actions. She was a bad person for specific reasons; in Pinocchio, seems like very evil characters operate for the pure pleasure of causing harm, which is pretty dark in ANY film, let alone a kid's movie (or family movie). If you want something to remain a metaphor, you have to leave it in people's imaginations, meaning leave it on the page. When you make your metaphor concrete, which you do in films or illustrations, they aren't metaphors anymore. They're drama. That's absorbed and processed in a different way than literature.

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  8. I have to go with Matunos and Jack Feerick here. I think it will be seen as a learning experience or as entertainment. In someways, it's this caution of children that makes them more fragile later. If you are that concerned I think you should make sure your child feels free to come and ask you questions about things like in this film. Children understand more than you might think.

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  9. The original Pinocchio is a dark, largely unforgiving story - far harsher than the Disney version. (As mentioned above, Pinocchio's feet are burned off; the Blue Fairy dies; even when re-united with Gepetto, Pinocchio works at difficult labor for years before being rewarded with a human body.)

    And if the Disney version is dark, so what? The Brothers Grimms' stories were sanitized from their earlier versions for mass publication, but even so, many were pretty dark. "Household tales" (the literal translation for what we call "fairy tales") are, because they reflect a world where mistakes can cost you your life. If sheltered suburban children can't deal with that without trauma, maybe the problem is in how today's hothouse children are raised - not in the original film.

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  10. Thank you, everybody, for the helpful comments. What's interesting about looking at a film like Pinocchio that's over 70 years old is that you see how the goal posts have shifted; what was once considered to be a softening up of a story to make it more kid friendly seems a bit harsh in 2011; every era has its idea of what's kid friendly, even 1940.

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  11. This is going to seem very strange, but I am 19 and I just realized that in a way, the scene where the boys are transformed into donkeys is my worst fear. I haven't thought about the movie in years and never really thought of it as that scary (or thought that much about it in general). However, we are reading Freud in college and my girlfriend and I were jokingly playing with free-association (I only really half-buy any of that kind of stuff), when suddenly the donkey scene from the movie popped in my head. The more I thought about it the more I realized that it was almost like the epitome of terror for me. I know that sounds odd, and I'm not sure I am verbalizing it correctly, but it's more or less true.
    Once I realized this I also realized that the worst nightmare I ever had was loosely based upon the donkey island scene (or at least in the same vein as the donkey scene), although I had never made the connection until now.
    I'm not saying that this movie created that fear. I just think that the dark bizzare cynicism of these mostly innocent boys being transformed into inhuman donkeys while crying out for their mothers struck the perfect chord of fear in me that subconsciously stuck with me ever since.

    To re-iterate, this isn't a tale of caution. I really think this story is specific to me. I just think it's interesting and confirms the fact that, at least to some people, this movie is horrifying. And this is coming from someone who is not easily scared. I don't find scary movies that scary, and am definitely not usually scared of children's movies.

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    1. I agree with you--I think that scene is very frightening. It certainly scared me! You don't often see an explicit depiction of a child begging for mercy in ANY film, animated or not, as you do in Pinocchio. And the finality of their punishment is pretty gruesome by any standard. Hard to just shake it off and go on enjoying the cartoon. In a sense, it speaks to the excellent job done by the creators of the film: we are drawn into Pinocchio's story and come to care for him. Just as Disney himself was shocked when people cried when Snow White feel into her "sleeping death," it's amazing how emotionally invested we become in "characters" who are mere drawings; but in a sense, all cinema is optical illusion; they're just "photographs," and "drawings," etc., but we believe in them, care for them, and are moved by them.

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