Originally Posted By familyguy I great response from somone who actually knew and worked with Walt (a minority nonetheless: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://floydnormancom.squarespace.com/blog/2014/1/8/sophies-poor-choice">http://floydnormancom.squaresp...r-choice</a>
Originally Posted By Daannzzz Has everyone read the whole text of her quote and the context it was taken from?
Originally Posted By andyll >>Has everyone read the whole text of her quote and the context it was taken from?<< <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2014/01/meryl-streep-emma-thompson-best-speech-ever">http://www.vanityfair.com/onli...ech-ever</a> IMO it certainly seemed the point she seemed to want to make is that Walt hated women and refused to give them a chance and threw in the typical Walt is a racist and anit-Semitic just to re-enforce her point. I guess Streep never heard of Mary Blair who started working with Walt 2 years after that 'letter' I thing Walt believed Blair was a pretty decent animator/artist even for a woman. However I long ago gave up caring what actors think or say.
Originally Posted By leemac <<I guess Streep never heard of Mary Blair who started working with Walt 2 years after that 'letter'>> To be fair that is the only example you will be able to find. It wasn't Nine Old Men (and a women or two). I've always thought that Streep was a little....odd. A little too self-absorbed for her own good but she does have a point. He never had a senior female executive at the studio AFAIK. I don't recall any woman getting a significant credit on a movie either. The theme parks had Alice Davis and Mary Blair but I can't recall any others. I'd wager that most of Hollywood was like that. Walt made a historic misstep by associating himself with Joe McCarthy and his reprehensible HUAC. We are all fallible after all.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Unlike musicians I couldn't care less about the politics or personal views of actors. Honestly, who cares what Streep's opinion of Walt Disney is and why would she think anyone would give two squirts of pee about it? Unless her skeleton closet is empty she better hope that one day, when she's long gone, someone doesn't stand at a podium and say something disparaging about her.
Originally Posted By hopemax > The theme parks had Alice Davis and Mary Blair but I can't recall any others. < Harriet Burns, but I think that's basically the trio.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>We are all fallible after all.<< That's what I guess has me so baffled anytime these topics come up. The response is basically, "Know I know Walt wasn't perfect, but..." then spend six paragraphs explaining why any criticism whatsoever of Walt is rubbish.
Originally Posted By familyguy Could have been that at the time, based on the culture and society of the day, there weren't many women even pursuing that type of career, so that the pool of women to fill those positions was much smaller. When the pool of men pursuing those careers is in the thousands and the pool of women is much smaller than that, it makes sense that the ratio of men and women staffed would be much different.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The theme parks had Alice Davis and Mary Blair but I can't recall any others.> Harriet Burns. I think Streep meant more to praise Thompson than knock Disney. If Thompson had been playing Olivia de Haviland and the movie was about her battles with Jack Warner, she'd probably have praised Thompson/de Haviland and chided Warner for his similarly dismissive view of women. Disney was hardly alone in his attitudes and I'm sure Streep is aware of that - but he's the mogul in question for this particular movie. If she'd chided Warner, I doubt anyone would have blinked. Disney is kind of a secular saint to some, though. I revere the guy for his best qualities, but don't deny the other (or that many of them were par for the course of the day - which doesn't mean they can't be criticized.) Post #3 still says it best.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Could have been that at the time, based on the culture and society of the day, there weren't many women even pursuing that type of career, so that the pool of women to fill those positions was much smaller.>> I've no facts to back it up but the studio relied on female talent during the war so you would have thought that at least some of them could have had a long and successful career at the studio. Instead it was a very male-dominated place in Burbank.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Harriet Burns, but I think that's basically the trio.>> I guess the point was that all of them worked for men. Alice didn't have much clout at all. I guess Walt listened to Mary but the rest seem to have been directed by men. Worth adding that Disney remains a very male-dominated executive team - except in the "usual" fields like HR and PR. No female has headed Parks & Resorts or the Studios AFAIK.
Originally Posted By leemac <<That's what I guess has me so baffled anytime these topics come up. The response is basically, "Know I know Walt wasn't perfect, but..." then spend six paragraphs explaining why any criticism whatsoever of Walt is rubbish.>> However Walt isn't Jack Warner or Carl Laemmle or Darrryl F. Zanuck. His company and his descendants have gone to great lengths to preserve his legacy and also to hide his history (and in some cases even rewrite it). So I don't think the criticism is unfounded as he is almost a movie character himself today.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Judging Walt's behavior by the standards of today is a little harsh. Almost no one had female executives in that era unless it happened to be in a school or hospital run by nuns. I'd rather have a Disney with no female execs than a Disney with another Cynthia Harris...
Originally Posted By leemac <<Judging Walt's behavior by the standards of today is a little harsh.>> Totally agree but the problem with modern day media and PR is that when you put someone on a pedestal it is a game to try and get them knocked off. I've never understand the overzealous attempts by both the Company and the family to paint Walt as holy than thou and to edit out stuff like the drinking and smoking. That just seems very strange. I'm not sure there are many people in public life who have had their past "airbrushed" to that extent.
Originally Posted By leemac <<I'd rather have a Disney with no female execs than a Disney with another Cynthia Harris... >> Harriss Point understood though! Although there are plenty of former execs of the male variety who were worse!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt George Washington had slaves, so what? Is it revealing? Yes. Does it say something about his character? Probably. Is it appropriate to judge him based on today's social and political standards? Absolutely not. I will say that the one thing that raised my eyebrows about Walt Disney was when a link to the original Disneyland Prospectus was posted here and it contained details about a scene on ROA depicting happy slaves singing merrily on a riverfront plantation. Thank god someone (Walt?) had the good sense to not include something so offensive at DL before it opened.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I've no facts to back it up but the studio relied on female talent during the war so you would have thought that at least some of them could have had a long and successful career at the studio.<< In post 21, FamilyGuy had a link that doesn't appear to have gotten the attention it deserves. Here it is again: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://floydnormancom.squarespace.com/blog/2014/1/8/sophies-poor-choice">http://floydnormancom.squaresp...r-choice</a> An excerpt: >>Even in the forties, Mary Blair, Retta Scott, Bianca Majolie and Sylvia Holland showed they too had the right stuff. By the fifties, talented young women filled the ranks of Walt’s animation department and their names are too numerous to mention. For example, ever hear the name Phyllis Hurrell? She ran one of Walt Disney’s successful commercial departments at the studio. This was the early days of television and she made a ton of money for the mouse. You probably wouldn’t believe that Uncle Walt had a woman production head back in the fifties, now would you?<<
Originally Posted By Donny A friend of mine had this to say Douglas E. Marsh As many of my friends and associates know, I am something of a “Disney fan.” OK—I am a big Disney fan. I am also, in most cases, a supporter and booster. I am not, however, an apologist, nor do I claim to be anything other than a reasonably well-informed enthusiast who has had the good fortune to regularly contribute to a well-regarded Disney fan site for the last decade or so. Doubtless, many of you are wondering why I have not commented on the current flap concerning the awful, awful things Meryl Streep has said about Walt Disney. Truth to tell, my immediate reaction was similar (no doubt) to many of yours. Streep obviously is misinformed, or mean, or drunk. She must have gone off on a tangent, or credulously believed internet critics, or worse, decided to tear down one of America’s great cultural icons. But too many years of reading (and sometimes writing) these sorts of things have given me pause. My follow up reaction was, “What is the context?” Specifically, I wanted to see the text of the entire speech she delivered at the National Board of Review gala. Fortunately, that is available on the ever-trusty internet, here: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2014/01/meryl-streep-emma-thompson-best-speech-ever">http://www.vanityfair.com/onli...ech-ever</a> The speech (and it is a speech, not a free-associating rant as some have claimed) is well thought out, charming, witty, and addresses the actual subject at hand: Emma Thompson. Without going into a great analysis, I read this as a commentary on “difficult” women-- people like Emma Thompson and P.L. Travers-- and how they can be part of a greater group, “irascible” artists. And that is how Walt Disney ended up in the mix. There are two mentions of Walt within this somewhat lengthy speech. Here is the first: “Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn’t really like women. Ward Kimball, who was one of his chief animators, one of the original “Nine Old Men,” creator the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and Jiminy Cricket, said of Disney: ‘He didn’t trust women or cats.’ And there is a piece of received wisdom that says that the most creative people are often odd, or irritating, eccentric, damaged, difficult. That along with enormous creativity come certain deficits in humanity or decency. We are familiar with this trope in our business: Mozart, Van Gogh, Tarantino, Eminem.” Note that Streep is careful to support her comment with a statement from one who worked with, and knew Walt Disney. Experts (and armchair historians like me) may quibble with Ward Kimball’s assessment (he did have his own agenda), but that is beside the point. Streep was not making the claim that Walt hated women. Rather, she was building to her larger point, which will be detailed below. Here is the next, lengthier, section that deals with Walt: “Ezra Pound said, ‘I’ve never met anyone worth a damn who was not irascible.’ Well, he would say that because he was supposedly a hideous anti-Semite. But, his poetry redeems his soul. Disney, who brought joy, arguably, to billions of people, was perhaps, or had some…racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company’s policies, a gender bigot. Here’s a letter from 1938 stating his company’s policy to a young woman named Mary Ford, of Arkansas, who had made application to Disney for the training program in cartooning. And I’m going to read it here in Emma’s tribute because I know it will tickle our honoree, because she’s also a rabid, man-eating feminist, like I am. Dear Miss Ford, Your letter of recent date has been received in the inking and painting department for reply. Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that task is performed entirely by young men. For this reason, girls are not considered for the training school. The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink, and then filling in the tracing on the reverse side with paint, according to the directions. When I saw the film, I could just imagine Walt Disney’s chagrin at having to cultivate P.L. Travers’ favor for 20 years that it took to secure the rights to her work. It must have killed him to encounter, in a woman, an equally disdainful and superior creature, a person dismissive of his own, considerable gifts and prodigious output and imagination. But when we sit in our relative positions of importance and mutual suspicion, and we pass judgment on each other’s work, we’re bound to make small mistakes and misconstrue each other’s motives. Which brings me to award season…” The speech then goes on, quite sensibly, to laud Emma Thompson for her performance in “Saving Mr. Banks.” In all this, I am only truly aggrieved by one statement: “He [Walt] formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby.” That Walt was a member of the MPA is unassailable historical fact. That the MPA was anti-Semitic has been well documented. But it is also well known that Walt joined the MPA because he sincerely believed that they were leading a good fight against world Communism. And that’s a discussion for another time and another context. Note again that Streep has introduced an unassailable source for her comments—a letter from Walt Disney Productions, written to a young woman in 1938. Its presence here is not to portray Walt Disney as a monster, but rather to set up the thesis of this well thought out tribute. That any assumptions held by Walt were directly challenged by this “difficult” woman, described, by Streep, as, “an equally disdainful and superior creature.” As equally disdainful and superior as Walt? Exactly. Or, as in the words of Ezra Pound, “irascible.” The words “Walt Disney didn’t really like women,” or “He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby” certainly do make for sexy sound bites. And that, sadly, is the coin of the realm in what passes for public discourse today. If there was a phrase I would pull from Streep’s comments, it is this: “…when we sit in our relative positions of importance and mutual suspicion, and we pass judgment on each other’s work, we’re bound to make small mistakes and misconstrue each other’s motives.” Words of wisdom, in or out of context.
