The Heart and Soul of Modern Animation

The cartoons of the past that people most readily identify with are those created by Walt Disney. The legacy he bequeathed to animation and the American psyche has left an indelible imprint upon Western Civilization through the simple retelling of fairy tales. The Disney Empire began with a simple cartoon titled “Steamboat Willie” which put Mickey and Minnie before an audience eager for distraction.

This comical, but hugely influential cartoon, would become the basis for modern animation as we know it. Yet for all the story telling devices available through incorporating techniques such as exaggeration, anticipation, secondary motion, and appeal the writer finds the Disney style to give little to the art of storytelling except bland anthropomorphized idealism and a myopic view of good vs evil, gender roles, race, class, and acceptable social mores.