ABSTRACT

Identity politics shape Disney features, particularly through childhood selves, belonging and the absent mother. 'Self' is addressed through acting classes in order for animators to achieve a deeper sense of realism and believability within the character. The cultural power of Disney spans the length and breadth of animation and has arguably shaped our understanding of it more than any other studio. Innovative, bold and driven by the desire to absorb American audience in values rooted within both modernism and traditionalism, Disney remains something of a paradox. Disney's stamp on American identity is overpowering; it is political and moral, subversive and violent. Film director and montage pioneer Sergei Eisenstein was unlikely fan of Disney. He admired drawing as a 'form of magic', and embraced 'primal plasmation' within Mickey Mouse cartoons. Human fallibility became motif to highlight a protagonist's journey of 'self' within Disney's cinema, in order for them to understand their flaws and overcome them.