Technicolored Pachyderms are really too much for me...


Over this past weekend, my son decided to indulge in some classic Disney animation and had his Grandmother put on Disney's Dumbo, despite my protests.
It's not the easiest film for a mother to watch with her son. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, essentially Mama Elephant gets branded as 'mad' for trying to keep her baby from being humiliated by children. If you're a weeper like I am, the rest of the story doesn't matter. So what if baby defies the laws of physics by learning to fly with his gigantic ears...the point is that that Ms.Jumbo gets her baby taken away and it's heart wrenching.


Can't even handle this shit


With mama locked up, baby Jumbo "Dumbo" Jumbo Jr. (yes, that's -actually- his name) gets into all kinds of trouble with his good-for-nothing mentor Timothy Q. Mouse.

After taking him to see his caged mother, the mouse decides to cure the little elephant's hiccups with some water, which unbeknownst to him has been laced with clown champagne.

To cheer Dumbo up, Timothy takes him to visit his mother. On the way back Dumbo cries and then starts to hiccup so Timothy decides to take him for a drink of water from a bucket which, unknown to him, has accidentally had a bottle of champagne knocked into it. As a result, Dumbo and Timothy both become drunk and see hallucinations of pink elephants.(...)

Your brain on clown champagne


That's right folks: baby is drunk and hallucinating. Way to go there, Jiminy Timothy. This is how you get acid flashbacks. There's no way... NO WAY this elephant was hallucinating after ingesting some watered down carnival hooch. I'd like to suggest that perhaps it wasn't bubbly wine the pachyderm was drinking but rather a gallon of PCP.

Exhibit A:







And just like a bad Salvia trip, it's over. Either this circus is haunted, or maybe those clowns are just part of Operation Midnight Climax.
Elephants have been known to get sloshed - it's become such a problem that it's been a near and dear issue in the hearts of socialites everywhere. But side effects of their boozing generally range from drunk driving to death...and never hallucinations.

Perhaps the scene was put in as a tribute to prohibition; just a swift reminder of why they changed the legal drinking age from newborn to Irish back in the '30s. Or perhaps it was just as a way to segue into meeting the characters that would shape our hero into the flying elephant he is today.

Meet Jim Crow:

Be done seen 'bout everything when he seen an elephant fly...


Walt Disney was always an equal opportunist and fought for abolishing segregation amongst coloured and non-coloured persons of the United States for most of his life.

Art imitating life


Really, Dumbo is a fabulous film full of healthy morals and crisp humanism. It teaches children to reach for the stars and grab their dreams by the pony-tails and just ftheshitoutofit make it feel like a woman by doing everything that's absolutely necessary in reaching their goal. It teaches children that as long as mommy's not around, it's okay for Aryan little elephants to trust in the kindness of strangers, no matter what their skin colour social class. And finally, it teaches children that sometimes, you might have to do things that you find degrading and humiliating, but in the end, it will pay for mama's bail and that Clown Crystale.

"You want to be a star, don't you?"

Comments

Feminist Catalyst said…
I hadn't seen that movie through the "child napping" lens that you put it in. It's like an acid-tripping pro-lifer made this movie!
August 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM
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