DEEP DIVE: Two types of characters epitomise Disney like no other: princesses, and animals. But while Disney’s portrayal of female characters has left much to be desired with change only happening relatively recently, the studio giant’s treatment of animals is still sorely lacking, as Nina Copleston so deftly explains.

In recent years, Disney has been scrutinised for its overt - and covert - discrimination. There is undeniably sexism, racism, ableism and a severe lack of queer representation in these films - which, in some part, Disney is making an effort to shake off. Only last week, it was announced that Disney/Pixar will not edit out a same-sex kiss in the latest Buzz Lightyear movie, despite this causing the film to be banned in 14 countries.

One of the main ways Disney/Pixar has told stories is through its animal characters such as Bambi the deer, Dumbo the elephant and Nemo the clownfish. In fact, animals have been involved in Disney storytelling since its very first film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Disney is even given to poking self-aware fun at itself on this point - in 2016’s Moana, the demi-god Maui says to the film’s titular protagonist “If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you're a princess."

But what are these stories telling us about animals? Is Disney waving the flag for animal liberation - or digging itself a speciesist grave?

There are so many Disney films about animals. Most of them do not seem to be part of the cultural zeitgeist, largely forgotten and swept into the dusty library of Disney’s unsuccessfuls. One such film is Charlie the Lonesome Cougar (1967), which follows a cougar as his natural instincts start to kick in after living with humans for most of his life. The film ends with Charlie returning to the wild - a seemingly pro-animal rights stance which argues that wild animals do not belong under human rules - but the use of four real cougars to play Charlie sparks animal welfare concerns.

Indeed, the use of real animals for Disney films was incredibly common, particularly in the True-Life Adventure series that Walt created - a group of films designed to entertain and educate the audience about the animal kingdom in a nature documentary-style, and still being made today, quite differently, under the name DisneyNature. These films were largely praised; The Vanishing Prairie (1954) won an Academy Award - but in this series, and indeed in other films using real animals such as A Tiger Walks (1964) - animals suffered in order for these pictures to be filmed.

The most disturbing example of this is the film White Wilderness (1958), an addition to the True-Life Adventures series, which was uncovered by CBC Television in 1982 to have staged much of its ‘footage’. A polar bear falling down an Arctic hill was really filmed in a studio in Calgary - the bear having been pushed down the ice by crew members. Horrifyingly, one scene showed huge numbers of lemmings jumping off a cliff to their death. The accompanying narration stated that this mass suicide was not purposeful; the animals were migrating and mistook the Arctic Sea for a lake - something they thought they could cross (but drowned in instead). However, it was revealed that lemmings would never actually follow these migration patterns in the wild and jump to their death in this fashion - and that the whole thing had been set up. Lemmings had been bought and shipped to Alberta, placed on turntables to create frantic movement, and then driven off a cliff and into an expanse of water - with editing software making these numbers look far greater. Murder of animals… for fake footage. 

This appears to be a pattern - Disney films often have the glimmer of an animal-centric stance - but have quite a different impact. 101 Dalmations (1961), for example, was quite revolutionary in its clear message that using animal skin for fashion is cruel(lla de Vil). At the time, cheaper pelts were becoming available for people of all classes, and so highlighting the ethics of animal fur by using a puppy - an animal universally adored - was shocking. It is worthy of praise that Disney highlighted this issue, but would it not have been more pertinent, perhaps, to depict the life of a mink or a cow whose skins are engrained elements of the fashion industry, and less obviously ‘adored’? And, despite the anti-cruelty messaging, what happened in reality? The number of dalmatians in puppy mills spiked as people demanded a dalmatian for themselves, wanting a piece of another sentient being for themselves with little regard to the wider picture or the animal’s welfare.

A similar occurrence happened after Finding Nemo (2003). This beloved film promulgated that fish should be swimming free in the ocean, not clustered in tanks in peoples’ homes. What happened? Demands for clownfish as pets rocketed meaning huge numbers were swiped from the ocean, contributing to a huge decline in their population in coral reefs and achieving the exact opposite of what the film was suggesting. When Finding Dory (2016) was set to be released, marine scientists and environmentalists were hugely concerned that the same would happen again with clownfish and blue tangs (Dory’s species). Professor Burke de Silva of Flinders University, warned that while clownfish can be bred in captivity, ‘ornamental fish’ such as blue tangs cannot - so must be plucked from the ocean and then shipped to pet shops and aquariums.  Burke de Silva stated that “about 90-95 per cent of marine shops found in aquarium shops come from the wild”. Indeed, Finding Dory also hinted through the Marine Institute that many aquariums, claiming to rescue and rehabilitate fish so they can eventually return to the wild, end up exploiting those fish for profit and human entertainment.

However, there are many Disney films that seem to champion animals such as Dumbo (1941) and its exploration of animals in the circus industry, and The Fox and the Hound (1981) with an anti-fox-hunting message. Taking a glance at Dreamworks, we have Madagascar (2005), anti-zoo; Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002), anti-wild-horses-being-kept-and-trained-for-human-purposes; Chicken Run (2000), anti-factory-farming. Whilst all of these films may not be entirely animal-rights based, they certainly ignite interesting conversations for young children around animals - indeed, many cite Bambi (1942)’s anti-hunting message as a tragedy that never left them.

Bambi was, again, quite a revolutionary film - its animations were much more realistic than Disney had created before. Walt was determined the animators should draw these animals true-to-life, and thus the team studied deer acutely to draw every movement and facial expression. This had its issues though - animator Mel Shaw recalls being led to a room with cages of animals like rabbits and skunks for them to draw and study. Joe Grant, story artist, said there were ‘live deer running around the studio’. Similarly in the Lion King - a lion was brought on stage for the artists to draw. Walt seemed desperate to portray his animals correctly but did not consider their own needs when doing so.

This, perhaps, was Walt’s downfall with animals. He supposedly loved animals - he lived in rural Missouri as a child and grew a deep fondness for the wild. He is quoted as saying “that’s what it is - a feeling of freedom with the animals and characters out there [...] everything is free and beautiful”. He appeared to revere animals in some way, and want to capture this through his animation, but in doing so ignored that animals cannot be captured, or distilled, into animations or storylines - but have desires and wants and needs all of their own. Indeed, despite Walt idealising the ‘freedom’ of animals, it was his decision to open the glorified zoo in Disneyland and keep animals there in captivity. In fact, there have been reports of animal cruelty in the Disney animal parks since their inception.

Diving back to the films, it can also be difficult to ascertain whether Disney anthropomorphises animals so that they do little other than express human attributes. Indeed, Mickey Mouse himself, the poster-mouse of Disney, has nothing to do with actual mice and is no more than a symbol of American moral obedience. Disney seems to rank some animals above others, but all animals as lesser than human with the one possible exception being the film Brother Bear (2003) which explored this hierarchy quite effectively. Indeed, Home on The Range (2004), which depicts a farming idyll dramatically removed from the reality of farm animals’ lives, even mocked the consumption and domestication of these animals; they joke about being eaten with lines such as ‘what is this the frozen food section?’

The use of non-human animals appears to be an accessible way for children to understand human emotions, and often does little to represent what the real animal experiences. This is difficult - anthropomorphising can help us to build empathy for animals and understand that they have feelings too, but it reiterates the idea that animals can only be validated through the human lens. Interestingly, often in Disney films, humans turn into non-human animals to learn lessons or values - The Beauty and the Beast, The Emperor’s New Groove and Brave being obvious examples. However, the humans are desperate to return to their own species, and their animal characters only serve to better humanity and not to promote animal needs. Furthermore, in a plethora of Disney films, wild animals are owned by people as pets such as in Tangled (2010) where Rapunzel owns a chameleon. In other films, animals are used as commodities such as in Bolt (2008), in which a dog who is tricked into thinking his life on a television show is ‘real life’ so that he will perform and entertain viewers more dramatically. This assumption that an animal’s value is only relative to what they can provide for us is wrong.

In the early Princess films – such as Snow White (1937) and Cinderella (1950) - the animals not only are drawn very simplistically and not like their real-life inspiration at all (Disney animator Andreas Deja calls the animals in Snow White ‘flour sacks’), but they appear to simply be there to serve and worship the princesses. Cinderella, perhaps, enters a more mutually beneficial relationship by saving Gus, for example, but there still seems to be a differentiation of importance here, perhaps even a hint of a class system with the animals being not just sentient but possessing of human-level intelligence, yet nonetheless always subservient to the human characters. This is argued to have changed in later Disney films - such as in The Little Mermaid (1989) where Flounder and Sebastian express their own views more openly even when they are at odds with Ariel, not simply worshipping and following her unquestionably. Sadly, Ariel is pretty dismissive of her friends’ feelings - when she learns that humans destroy ocean life, she still wants to join the human species despite knowing her friends and family may suffer. Pocahontas (1995) treats animals differently, like family, equals even, and her affinity with nature is in stark contrast to the brutality of John Smith (representing the colonial atrocities of claiming land and destroying indigenous culture and knowledge). The wild animals juxtapose Percy, the ‘pet’ dog of Governor Ratcliffe, who is not treated as an equal but as property.

It would be amazing to say that things have changed for the better. And, in some ways, perhaps they have. With the dawn of CGI, real animals are used less in films although it does still happen - in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), a capuchin monkey suffered greatly on set. However, animal rights messages can become watered down such as in the remake of Black Beauty (2020) which forgot the very essence of its source text (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1877) and was human-centric rather than telling the story from the horse’s perspective. The One and Only Ivan (2020), however, did explore the issue of capturing animals for human benefit.

There is no simple conclusion here - Disney has, in many ways, highlighted animal welfare and rights issues - hunting, conservation of marine life, ownership, animals used for fashion, animals in entertainment - and yet its impact in real life is difficult to track. This could be, perhaps, because fundamentally Disney - whilst having affection and appreciation for animals - still views animals through human eyes, and as helpers to human wants. If Disney really considered non-human animals as just as worthy of moral consideration, and symbols of freedom, they would not be held captive in Disney’s amusement parks for human titillation. And if Disney films fully expressed that we should stop exploiting animals for our own gain, wouldn’t there be some greater positive impact in reality?

Nina Copleston is a writer and non-human animal rights champion. Having been concerned with social justice issues such as disability rights and homelessness for years, Nina turned her attention to the rights of non-human animals and the moral inconsistencies rife within society's attitudes towards animals. Determined to make a difference, Nina hopes to highlight these inconsistencies with her writing.

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