If
you were to ask: what’s a classic example of an animated movie that’s not that
good but not bad, merely cute and harmless, Dumbo
is probably that movie. It’s neither as visually brilliant nor ambitious as
Disney’s previous three films, but its earnest enough and uplifting enough to
overcome most of its flaws.
Dumbo
a circus elephant actually called Jumbo Jr., is delivered to his mother (it’s
the father missing from this Disney story) by the stork and while initially
seen by the other elephants as cute, when he reveals his enormous ears he
becomes an outcast. Nicknamed “Dumbo” and continually mocked by the other
elephants and circus performers alike, he finds a friend in Timothy Q. Mouse
who decides to help Dumbo realize his potential and reunite with his mother,
who’s been locked away for a violent reaction to people jeering at her son.
Story-wise
Dumbo is very simple. In fact a lot
of the movie can be characterized as simple, including the animation and
characters, the morals, and the runtime (at just over an hour, one of Disney’s
shortest). That’s not entirely a bad thing though. It’s a basic underdog story
with an important theme about being accepting of differences and valuing those
differences. It’s a universal and very important moral we’ve also seen from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which
may explain why Dumbo is quite often featured in Disney merchandise geared to
the youngest demographic. It’s important his character’s struggle and this
story moral are learned at an early age. And it’s curious that all the human
and animal characters can speak, apart from Dumbo and his mother. Mute
characters have been seen in Disney before but unlike say Dopey, the muteness
here doesn’t represent comedy, rather innocence and childishness. Dumbo’s whole
character is just cuteness and sympathy which doesn’t make him interesting. You
feel sorry for him and his mother, locked away for trying to defend him, but
it’s only in how he’s treated that we feel for him. Which is where our villains
come into the picture. The elephants in this movie by the way, are so fucking
mean! It could maybe be understandable if they were fellow baby elephants like
Dumbo but as adults, their mockery and shunning is just cruel! Because of this
I like how the animators really made them grotesque in their own acrobatic acts
with mounds of fat and sagging skin. The Elephant Matriarch is voiced by Verna
Felton who would go on to voice the Fairy Godmother, and the Queen
of Hearts among other Disney characters (also debuting in this movie, Sterling
Holloway who would go on to voice a plethora of Disney characters culminating
in Winnie the Pooh). These elephants make fine villains because unlike the
Wicked Queen or Stromboli, they don’t have a maniacal plan. They’re just
assholes. And calling him a freak despite them all being in a CIRCUS is pretty
low. Same could be said for the clowns who are incredibly unsubtle in their
lack of concern for Dumbo’s safety or feelings. Timothy is Dumbo’s only friend
(though to me he comes off as more of a social worker) and the relationship
between the two is trying to be akin to Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. I think
it kind of works better though. In Pinocchio
we didn’t see a whole lot of Pinocchio and Jiminy together, thus why Pinocchio
kept getting into trouble. These two are constantly together and moreover every
time he’s on screen, Timothy seems to be encouraging Dumbo. The fact that Dumbo
can’t speak also gives Timothy more to do in terms of moving along the plot and
because of the frequent emotion in the young elephant’s face, more comes across
in less dialogue.
But
as I said, that animation isn’t as interesting to look at. It’s a lot more
cartoonish (including an anthropomorphized train), and still feels distinctly
Disney, but I just prefer to see more of the richness of Snow White or Fantasia,
especially in this “Golden Age” of Disney. Though well-meaning, at times Timothy
is a little too pushy that Dumbo prove himself better than everyone. It’s sort
of the overzealous coach syndrome that sometimes gets in the way of his
charming New Yorker personality (never thought you’d hear those words together).
The film also has a couple pacing problems due to its short run-time with some
developments glossed over and other scenes going on too long. All of these can
be attributed to the relative cheapness of the film’s budget, a necessary
measure after Fantasia wasn’t a
success. And with that conscious money-saving of the studio in mind, Dumbo’s pretty good. It could have been
a lot worse and you can clearly see that if possible Disney would have done
more with the idea. Most of their animation budget in fact appears to have gone
into one sequence, a sequence that’s neither great nor terrible, just immensely
weird. For a film so short, it spends ten minutes on a pretty unnecessary
sequence in which Dumbo and Timothy get drunk and witness “Pink Elephants on
Parade.” Setting aside the fact this is a Disney movie that incorporated
alcohol fairly heavily (and clearly booze spiked with LSD), the song and
animation conveyed as a hallucination of Dumbo’s, is one of the strangest
things anyone who’s seen the film has ever seen. There are trippy colours,
optical illusions, elephants turning into other animals, dancing, morphing, and
at one point a whole body is just elephant heads?… I can just imagine kids’
reactions to it’s out of nowhere slightly creepy imagery (it’ll certainly turn
them off to booze). It’s just mesmerizing in its’ surreality and ‘mindfuck’ is
really the only word to describe it. It has to be seen to be believed!
But’s
let’s address the REAL elephant in the room (Good one!) Dumbo is sort of notorious among Disney films for the pretty
obviously racist depictions of a troupe of crows who appear towards the end.
And I think with this reputation some would be surprised to find…they aren’t as
bad as you think. They’re stereotypes alright and the fact that they’re a bunch
of crows whose leader is called Jim is pretty insensitive; but in the context
of the story, they’re much less mean to Dumbo than anyone else. They make fun
in their “When I See an Elephant Fly” song but are much more jovial about it
and less intensely mean-spirited. They do come around, and in fact both
conceive the notion Dumbo can fly and help him realize that potential (yeah,
another thing people seem to forget is that Dumbo doesn’t fly until the very
end). They’re dated stereotypes for sure and at times cringe-worthy but they’re
not as derogatory characters as people seem to think. I certainly don’t think
kids today would recognize these stereotypes or derive them as representative
of an entire race.
And
in spite of that, Dumbo manages to be
a generally harmless film. It’s not a classic by any means but it’s a perfectly
decent movie with a perfectly decent moral and characters. The hurdles Dumbo
goes through are real enough to invest in as are the emotions conveyed. I admit
even I was rooting for him in the elephant pyramid bit and the whole “Baby
Mine” scene where he briefly reunites with his mother is a tearjerker. And of
course “Pink Elephants on Parade” deserves to be seen just on its own. In the
end it’s a story about being different and not letting that get in your way,
which is a message that has always been important for kids. It’s touching and
somewhat memorable, much better than a cost-saving movie could have been, but
not quite good enough to warrant a Tim Burton remake. Just wanted to remind
you, that IS happening!
Next week: Bambi (1942)
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