Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (27 page)

Many of the “social constructionist” theories of identity seem to discredit the very core of the
auteur
concept—that “identity” is created through a social situation rather than through an essential inevitability.

Feminist writers as well as those concerned with issues of race and sexuality have used this concept to challenge the dominance of the white heterosexual patriarchal system—destabilizing the essentialist ideas of this order by asserting that gender, racial and sexual identities are “a kind of impersonation and approximation . . . a performance that produces the
illusion
of an inner . . . essence or psychic . . . core.”12 Such concepts have been used to deconstruct the importance of the established pantheon of mainly straight white male
auteurs.
13

Interestingly, while some cinema studies programs have begun to devalue courses on individual
auteurs,
the importance of the individual experience of filmmakers has risen again through studies of race, gender and sexuality in media. Work in this area considers it vital to know that a filmmaker is African-American or female or homosexual (to take only a few examples) in order to fully appreciate the work being examined. The analysis of such critically conceived movements of the 1990s in American cinema as the rise of African-American directors or “New Queer Cinema” are fundamentally based on
auteur
concepts—but this time studying Spike Lee or Gregg Araki instead of white heterosexual men. While this development may seem to be a willful ignoring of the problems inherent in assigning agency or “authorship” to an individual, Richard Dyer points out that “not believing in sole and all-determining authorship does not mean that one must not attach any importance whatsoever to those who make films and believing that being lesbian/gay is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon does not mean that sexual identity is of no cultural and historical significance.”14

While not denying the sociohistorical determinants that have factored into a particular filmmaker’s self-identity,
auteur
studies can bring 140

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to light an individual’s material social position in relation to ideological and cultural discourse, which will impact upon the texts s/he creates.

How an individual self-identifies (by gender, race or sexual orientation) would tend to affect that individual’s outlook on society and his or her place in it. The various discourses analyzed by Foucault and others attempt to categorize each individual. With the individual internalizing these conceptions, it becomes difficult (if not impossible) for him or her to conceive or articulate a sense of self outside of the matrices laid out by hegemonic discourse. For the purposes of this work, then, it is important to realize that as an artist self-identifies as “homosexual,” that artist agrees to certain definitions of sexual identity (instead of a more free-floating conception of sexual desire) and that this identification may impact his or her work. In this way, social constructionist theories can help
inform,
rather than
deconstruct,
an
auteur
analysis.

Just as one can analyze the social performativity of gender, race and sexuality, one can examine “authorship” as a performance of identity.

“All authorship and all sexual identities are performances done with greater or less facility, always problematic in relation to any self separa-ble from the realization of self in the discursive modes available.”15

Conceptualizing “authorship” as a performance gains strength from historical evidence of publicity campaigns meant to encourage regular filmgoing audiences to think of certain films as expressions of a certain filmmaker’s temperament long before Truffaut ever noticed that “certain tendency.” Certain directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Cecil B. DeMille were just as famous to customers as the stars who appeared in their films. Their fame was encouraged through poster art, press junket interviews, and even trailers for upcoming films in which they performed their role as “author.” The preview for Welles’

Citizen Kane
is narrated by himself specifically presenting the viewer with his work in progress. DeMille often made short films ostensibly showing the behind-the-scenes operations of a major film production, but actually working as publicity for his latest picture and making certain that everyone knew who was responsible for it all. Hitchcock’s weekly performance as host to a television series cemented his image in the popular consciousness as a unique and recognizable filmmaker.

By recognizing the importance of the audience in conceptualizing an individual as an
auteur, auteur
studies can also be informed by rather than threatened by the emphasis on reception in media studies. A

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141

reader must acknowledge an author had an important hand in the work being read in order for the author to have an importance in the making of meaning. If an audience member does not know who “Howard

Hawks” or “Frank Capra” are, then s/he can’t ascribe intentionality or personal signature to the work. On the other side, if a viewer
is
aware of a supposed author, s/he can ascribe a personal signature that might not even have been put there intentionally. Obviously, if an audience is made aware of an author who is homosexual, that will encourage them to interpret his or her work through a homosexual framework regardless of whether or not all the facets discovered were purposefully placed by the “author” to comment on issues of sexuality.

The importance of reception in
auteur
analysis also challenges traditional critical precepts. Audience members can decide to assign “authorship” to someone other than directors or director/screenwriters.

The study of star personae and their affect on film meaning acknowledges who audiences often consider the largest makers of meaning.

Similarly, various critics have at points made
auteur
cases for writers, cameramen and producers. (Certainly, producer Walt Disney so successfully performed authorship of his studio’s output during his lifetime that many customers thought Walt drew all the cartoons himself.) The collaborative nature of film brings a number of talents to bear on a final product, and each has some small effect on the film that would have been different without their involvement. A spectator can choose to focus on the contributions of any of these artists—the production design, the music score, the special effects technology, etc.

Consequently, it might be quite possible to do a homosexual-based
auteur
analysis of the work of orchestrater Thomas Pasatieri (who worked on the scores for
The Little Mermaid
and
Dick Tracy
[1990]), or producer Lauren Lloyd (who Disney recruited to become Vice-President of Production for Hollywood Pictures), or casting director Tammy Balik (who worked on Touchstone Television’s
Ellen
). An analysis of lead animator Andreas Deja serves as a case in point. Openly gay, Deja has announced in various interviews that his sexual orientation has had its effect on the characters he draws. In drawing the villainous Jafar for
Aladdin
(1992), Deja admits to conceiving of the character as a gay man

“to give him his theatrical quality, his elegance.”16 Although Deja has worked on a number of different types of characters, he has been most assigned to two types of roles: male villains and hypermuscular men. In 142

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the first category, Deja has worked as lead animator for Jafar, and for Scar in
The Lion King
(1994). Both are overly refined, fey and seething with frustration for feeling that their talents and abilities have been overlooked. One can read Deja’s “sensibility” contributing to the history of campy “gay-tinged” villainy in Disney (as analyzed in chapter 2) by watching how Jafar arches his eyebrows in disdain, or in the sneer that curls Scar’s mouth as he endures the heterosexual patriarchy in which he finds himself.17

In the second category, Deja has led the animation of Ariel’s broad-chested father, Triton, in
The Little Mermaid,
the lead character in
Hercules
(1997) and, combining both of Deja’s recurrent motifs, the boorish Gaston in
Beauty and the Beast.
All these characters present an exaggerated ideal of the masculine body, with massive shoulders, chest and arms, tight waists and rugged facial features. Although each character is slightly different in design, all three spectacularize the male body in a way rarely seen in Disney animation prior to
The Little Mermaid.
18 In describing his conceptualization of Gaston, Deja looked to “these ridiculously vain guys you see in the gym today, always checking themselves in the mirror.”19 This quote describes how Deja’s work simultaneously revels in and yet humorously deflates the “body fascism” that became a noticeable aspect of urban gay male culture by the 1980s. Deja gives the design of these characters “appeal,” but also makes their muscularity so outlandish that it verges on the laughable. If there is one moment in all of Deja’s films that encapsulates this tendency, it is the “Gaston” number in
Beauty and the Beast.
A narcissistic tribute to the character’s manliness, Cynthia Erb suggests that the number is a “queer homage . . . to the male chorus number from the musical tradition . . .

little more than an elaborate fetishization of the powerful male body.”20

At the same time, though, Deja’s depiction of Gaston baring his hairy chest, flexing his muscles and stomping around in boots takes on a level of absurdity, ridiculing the hyper-masculinity that Gaston represents.21

Deja’s acknowledgement of the effect his sexual orientation has on his work marks a new era in reading subtext into Disney. His comments give legitimacy to reading these characters through a “gay sensibility”

because they have been “authored” by an openly gay man, regardless if the “homosexual author” is the formal overseer of the entire project.

Yet, as the influence of “muscle queens” on some of Deja’s work indicates, the “authorial” position allows a specific reading influenced by a specific sociocultural identity—
not
a free-floating “queer” reading.

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143

GIVING A BEAST HIS SOUL: THE IMPORTANCE

OF HOWARD ASHMAN

One might consider the work of openly gay or lesbian directors working within the Walt Disney Company (such as Emile Ardolino, who directed
Three Men and a Little Lady
[1991]) the strongest texts for discussing lesbian/gay authorship during the Eisner era. As the above discussion shows though, a number of film personnel can be considered
auteurs
in differing circumstances. Film’s collaborative process is especially apparent at a studio like Disney, where a “corporate” style often seems to take precedence over any individual artist’s viewpoint, and one cannot deny the importance that multiple artists bring to animated features like
The Little Mermaid
(1989),
Beauty and the Beast
(1991) and
Aladdin
(1992). Andreas Deja’s contributions have already been recognized, but other talents also figure strongly. Linda Woolverton’s script for
Beauty and the Beast
attempts to put forth a more progressive attitude toward women than had been expressed in
The Little Mermaid.
22 Directors Ron Clemente and John Musker signaled the revival of the studio’s animation in their first project,
The Great Mouse Detective
(1986), before moving onto directing the more financially successful
The Little Mermaid
and
Aladdin.
23 Jeffrey Katzenberg, as Vice-President in Charge of Production, also had final say over all of these films and became increasingly fascinated and involved in the animated projects—even helping rewrite the final scenes of
Beauty and the Beast.

Even with all these contributors, though, certainly the most prominently discussed authorial presence in these films has been lyricist Howard Ashman. Most critics signaled out Ashman’s work in the fashioning of these films, and general audiences seemed to regard Ashman’s first project with the studio,
The Little Mermaid,
as the start of a new “Golden Period” for Disney animation. This regard was strengthened when
The Rescuers Down Under
(1990), the animated feature released between
The Little Mermaid
and
Beauty and the Beast,
and without Ashman and his writing partner Alan Menken’s involvement, performed poorly at the box office. Furthermore, Ashman worked not only as a lyricist for both
The Little Mermaid
and
Beauty
and the Beast,
but as a producer as well. There are also reports that he functioned as a story consultant for
Beauty and the Beast,
overhauling certain plot points and helping conceive of some key characters. Dan Rather’s analysis of
Beauty and the Beast
places special emphasis on 144

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Ashman’s contributions, as do a number of reviews of the various animated features on which Ashman worked.24 Cynthia Erb states plainly that her theoretical dissection of
Beauty and the Beast
“is predicated upon the assumption of at least partial gay authorship, apparently traceable to creative input from producer/lyricist Howard Ashman.”25 This recognition was furthered within the studio as well.

Around the time of
Aladdin
’s release, Katzenberg was quoted as saying, “We have two guardian angels. One is Walt Disney, who continues to touch every frame of our movies. The other is Howard Ashman, who continues to touch every note of our movies.”26 At the end of the credits to
Beauty and the Beast,
the studio added a tribute to Ashman, honoring him as the man “who gave a mermaid her voice and a Beast his soul.” With such a salute to Ashman’s talents included within the film itself, it would be hard to
not
consider Ashman as the
auteur
of this trio of animated musicals.

Although Ashman was the not the arbiter or final decision-maker on what projects the studio would produce as animated features, the three projects Ashman was involved with are all adaptions of popular children’s tales that already had a history of importance in gay culture.