The Magic of Disney Animation, Part VII: A New Identity Crisis, Age-Appropriateness, and Dramatic Irony

But It's So . . . Serious
In the mid-Nineties, the Disney studios made a few animated features that pushed storytelling into more ambitious and mature territory. And while all were brilliantly animated and represented new styles for the company (and have their fans and merits, to be sure), they nevertheless generated controversy and divisive responses for their respective subject matters. Not to mention they tested the limits of their not-really-age-appropriate "G-ratings," given by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) at the time, as well as challenging the "status quo" of the company's wholesome reputation.

Produced and developed simultaneously with The Lion King, 1995's Pocahontas, for starters, was hailed by a majority of executives and animators as the more successful project. In comparison, it was, perhaps, a greater risk to make a film based on the Native American legend. The results, ironically, were below expectations.

Though it did feature impressive art direction, incredible attention-to-detail in its human characters, a powerful score by Alan Menken (including the Oscar-winning nature ballad, "Colors of the Wind"), and a strong female lead (courtesy Glen Keane's supervising animation and actress Irene Bedard's beautiful voice work), the film took on themes of colonization, racism, and pantheism, as English settlers set sail to 17th Century America and Captain John Smith meets and falls in love with the Native chief's daughter, with animal sidekicks, Meeko the raccoon and Flit the hummingbird, providing comic relief.

1995's Pocahontas

But that's nothing compared to 1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Adapted from Victor Hugo's classic novel about a deformed man, named Quasimodo, who longs to be part of the world he sees everyday from the cathedral of Notre Dame in 15th Century Paris. Encouraged by friendships with the beautiful gypsy Esmerelda (an outcast herself), the dashing captain of the guards Phoebus, and three wisecracking gargoyles (two that are amusingly named after Hugo himself), Quasimodo overcomes the reign of his sinister master, Judge Frollo.

Though reportedly not as heavy as the Gothic novel, the film adaptation still retains Hugo's themes of persecution, religion, tolerance, hypocrisy, and sexual tension (mature elements that should have, by no means, warranted a G-rating to begin with). And speaking of Frollo, the film practically opens with the tyrannical judge (who "longs to purge the world of lice and sin") murdering Quasimodo's mother and trying to drown a baby. If that's not enough, an entire music number, titled "Hellfire," is devoted to the villain's twisted worldview, as he objectifies Esmerelda while failing to recognize the frailty in himself.

This controversial segment (the filmmakers compare it to Fantasia's "Night On Bald Mountain" sequence) notwithstanding, the rest of the music by composer Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz (who also collaborated on Pocahontas) is breathtaking, haunting, and evocative, in the spirit of Les Miserables and Amadeus. It even has powerful statements about faith and hope for the less-fortunate. The thing is, there is something a bit askew when expressing serious themes in musicals, especially if they're targeted to kids and families. Sure, classic musicals like The Sound of Music and West Side Story are hallmarks in the genre, but that doesn't that mean all of their songs or lines (especially from the latter) are worth reciting, no matter how amazingly written or stirring the soundtracks might be.

1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Audiences had reportedly found both Pocahontas and Hunchback "too dark" for the Disney animated brand (similar things were said for 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit and 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, both released under the studio's more adult-oriented Touchstone Pictures label), that the makers of 1997's Hercules decided to up the humor and comedy, along with its subversion of larger-than-life Greek mythology and pop culture sensibilities. (Directors Ron Clements and John Musker had used this latter element well before in Aladdin.) Even if the titular hero (voiced by Tate Donovan) is arguably a bit whiny as he journeys to prove himself a hero in order to return to Mount Olympus, many of the other characters make up for it. From the diminutive training satyr Phil (voiced by Danny DeVito) to the wisecracking, temperamental adversary Hades (hilariously voiced by James Woods) and the sassy Meg (voiced and sung by Susan Egan), these characters deliver in spades.

But that doesn't diminish the film's dark imagery (including Godzilla-sized monsters, and a bleak Underworld with a chilling river of death) and excessive violence (so much punching and body slamming). On top of that, some of the songs have some spiritual misguidance, including the opening three-part number "Gospel Truth," which will easily put off more discerning viewers and families, no matter how rousing and inspiring of an anthem "Go the Distance" may be otherwise.

Ratings vs Age-Appropriateness
Animated films since Walt's time have been appealing to all ages. Established by Motion Picture Distributors Association of America (later, MPAA) president William Hays in the 1930s (the same decade Snow White was released) the Ratings Code was designed to follow censorship guidelines in terms of what was and was not acceptable or permissible in Hollywood films. That changed in 1968, when succeeding president Jack Valenti established a new rating system that was "voluntary" in allowing parents to determine age-appropriate content for their children and the like. The G- and PG-ratings have been there since, and all of Disney's animated classics had been approved for "general audiences," until 1985's The Black Cauldron, which was criticized for its dark subject matter, but barely escaped a beyond-parental-guidance-but-not-quite-restricted PG-13 label (a middle-ground rating created at the suggestion of filmmaker Steven Spielberg one year earlier).

1997's Hercules

Almost twenty years later (and interestingly enough), Pirates of the Caribbean became the first film in Disney's history to be given the "Parents Strongly Cautioned" rating (outside of their Touchstone and Miramax subsidiaries). Ironically, this rating has become the norm for most live-action cinematic blockbusters nowadays, particularly from Marvel and Lucasfilm (both owned by the Mouse House for almost a decade). No animated feature in Disney's history has ever been given the teenage-rating, and I hope it doesn't come to that. I will say, though, if Hunchback were released today, it would most likely qualify for that rating. (The upcoming live-action version of Mulan rightfully did, unlike its G-rated counterpart.)

To be fair, many of Walt Disney's classics contain scary elements that remain so today. From Snow White's terrifying run through the woods, to Chernobog's demonic mayhem on Bald Mountain, to Ichabod Crane's nightly encounter with the Headless Horseman, and the tragic death of Bambi's mother, hypersensitive parents reportedly still complain about how such scenes traumatized them as kids, as well as their own children. On the other hand, those respective films were of their time, considering the change in trends and styles and audience sophistication over the decades. (Remember the blockbusters of the Eighties?)

Still, any animated feature above a PG-rating in the Nineties would seemingly hurt the brand, and alienate the company's (and film's) target audience. Looking back at Pocahontas, Hunchback, and Hercules put together, many may wonder how the people who rated each of these movies got away with endorsing their content as kid-friendly without even some parental supervision. Now, I'm not suggesting these films are bad because they were rated the wrong way, nor am I saying that these films should be forgotten entirely. (To reiterate, they do have their merits.) What I am suggesting is they can be learned from, for better or worse, in order for people to make better choices and disclaimers for what the films are like and what they represent.

2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire

In the end, it shouldn't be about the ratings. (They're more like guidelines, as they say in Pirates of the Caribbean.) It's about age-appropriateness. To their credit, all but five of the Disney animated films in the 2000s received PG-ratings, mostly for their action or intense scenes of violence, and deservedly so. But many of them (especially in the early part of the decade) weren't well-received, though some of them have gained better reception and even cult status in subsequent years.

Take 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, for example. The same team behind Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback (including directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and producer Don Hahn) wanted to make a film that challenged the perception of Disney being all about princesses and musicals and fairy tales and talking animals. At the same time, they wanted to pay homage to classic blockbuster adventures like Star Wars and Indiana Jones (one of the ambitions the makers of The Black Cauldron had as well), as well as a category of Disney adventure films of the 1950s (like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) that most of the public had apparently forgotten. (Quite a cinematic thrill that Pirates of the Caribbean was released two years after Atlantis.)

The Fifties were a radical period of innovation and exploration for Walt and his team, venturing beyond animated films and into different endeavors like television, live-action moviemaking, and of course certainly theme parks for the whole family. The crew behind Atlantis reportedly wore shirts during production, which read, "Atlantis: Fewer Songs, More Explosions."

With that in mind, Atlantis' story gets right into action and doesn't let up, and its visual effects and animation style (inspired and consulted by comic book artist Mike Mignola) are spectacular. Meanwhile, it does take its time with most of its colorful characters, including eager linguist Milo Thatch, mine-digger Mole, surgeon Dr. Sweet, teenage engineer Audrey, and explosives expert Vinnie. The story, though, seems formulaic and rushed at times (especially in its second-half), focusing on the discovery (and defense) of an apparently-dying lost city.

Fitting as the studio was going through a middling period at the time.

2000's Dinosaur

Is This the End of Hand-Drawn Feature Filmmaking? 
Because many hand-drawn features (Atlantis included) hadn't done well with audiences in the early 2000s (at Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, and Warner Bros), many industry insiders and studio heads believed that making CGI movies was the wave of the future, considering the financial success of such hits as Fox/Blue Sky's Ice Age, DreamWorks' Shrek, and Pixar's Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

Even Disney had made a couple CGI features by the middle of the decade. 2000's Dinosaur (2000) had fully-digital characters set against live-action backgrounds--technology and hype that was groundbreaking at the time, but hasn't aged a lot. (It is notable for James Newton Howard's incredible score, which has become a staple soundtrack for various Disney animation montage videos on YouTube, including this one.) 2005's Chicken Little, meanwhile, took its cues from the classic "sky is falling" fable--with a sci-fi twist-- and peppered its silly story with colorful (if Saturday-morning-cartoon-esque) characters, including some voiced by late acting veterans Don Knotts, Garry Marshall and Adam West.

As for the studio's hand-drawn division, 2003's G-rated Brother Bear was set against the American landscape hundreds of years ago, as a young Inuit hunter is turned into a bear and journeys to the Northern Lights to change back into a man. Despite only a few emotionally-resonant scenes and some good voice work from Joaquin Phoenix (as the titular Kenai), the late Michael Clarke Duncan (as a massive grizzly), and "McKenzie Brothers" Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis (as a pair of Canadian moose), the story is a bit convoluted, as well as heavy-handed and murky with its angst-ridden characters (too intense for G-level kids) and spiritual elements (i.e., pantheism, animism).

2004's PG-rated Home on the Range follows a trio of dairy cows on a mission to find a herd-stealing outlaw and save their farm. With the resemblance of screwball shorts a la Goofy from the Forties and Fifties, the movie does have silly and hysterical slapstick comedy, what with a wannabe-ranger horse, a one-legged jack-rabbit, and a yodeling adversary.

What's ironic is how G-ratings were perceived heading into the 21st Century, how certain ratings were (and are) considered "risky" depending on their contexts or audiences or both [2], and how hand-drawn animation, compared with most CGI, became "a scapegoat for bad storytelling".