The Paula Gordon Show |
Walt Disney and Pablo Picasso are the two great visual imaginations of the 20th century, Neal Gabler tells Paula Gordon and Bill Russell. Describing Disney's role in popular culture, Mr. Gabler summarizes his mission: to deal with the architects of the American consciousness. |
Disney was an American "Everyman", not "an original", says Mr. Gabler. He outlines Disney's life then shows how Disney played to America's bubble of perfectionism, eventually drawing the world into its yearning for the impossible: the ability to bend the world to one's own will. Mr. Gabler describes the many ways Disney immersed himself imaginatively in his own creations, articulating how the absolutely self-confident Disney worked out his total belief in his mission and in his vision: to create what Disney considered a perfect world, the "eternal promise of cheerful solipsism." |
Mr. Gabler thinks of his approach as "method biography," he says, remembers the many ways Walt Disney lived in his (the author's) head for seven years, and compares the obsessive-compulsive nature of his own and Disney's work. Disney was very compartmentalized and not introspective, Mr. Gabler says, describing the consequences both in Disney's life and for his biographer. "Renunciation" was Disney's mode of operating throughout his career, Mr. Gabler says, and explains. Fully honoring brother Roy Disney's essential role in Walt's success, Mr. Gabler celebrates Walt's creative genius. |
With a bow to the maturity of animations able to bring Clark Gable, Carol Lombard and Cecil B. DeMille to tears over animated drawings, Mr. Gabler tells the story of Disney’s move from animation to live action. Disney's fantasy worlds are compared to his real world experiences in the Great Depression, the post-war era, in his business and the labor difficulties Disney brought upon himself. |
America's major transformation in the 20th century was a conversion of life itself into an entertainment medium, Mr. Gabler says. He summarizes his earlier work, relates it to Walt Disney and reminds us his work is diagnostic, not prescriptive. Mr. Gabler considers "Disneyfication” or faux experience in both negative and positive lights, then cautions against tremendous dangers of looking at the world through a prism which converts everything into a fantasy. Disney's dark side is acknowledged, his reputation reviewed and his contributions assessed. |
Disney's search for perfection culminated with his vision for Epcot, Mr. Gabler says, with a sober look at Walt Disney's anti-democratic, Mussolini-esque model city, which Roy Disney made sure died when Walt did. |
Acknowledgements The United States' role in the world heightens the importance of Mr. Gabler's meticulous, thought-provoking and entertaining evaluations of American culture. The rigor with which he pursues his craft is as exemplary as his courage and honesty are. We thank him for them all and we look forward to more. Fantasy has driven most American policies at home and abroad for half a century. Sadly, the rest of the world has also felt the draconian consequences of this make-believe, as witnessed most recently in America's aggression against Iraq. It's long past time to heed Mr. Gabler's caution against yielding to the allure of the fantastical false-hood that Americans, individually and as a nation, are in control. |
Additional Links: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination is published by Alfred A. Knopf. Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality and Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity are published by Vintage Books and An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood is published by Anchor Books. To fInd out more about the Norman Lear Center for the Study of Entertainment & Society where Mr Gabler is a Senior Fellow, visit their website at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. Susan Faludi shows how one American myth, distorted by Hollywood, has dominated much of the media circus surrounding 9-11.
Richard Rodriguez re-imagines American culture in terms of love, of skin shades-of-brown, and of a north-south (rather than east-west) axis. In The Middle Mind, author and critic Curtis White examines how market-drive media have enfeebled our imaginations. Tom King tells the story of David Geffen's role in America's entertainment culture in The Operator. ... and, here's a little background information on Paula Gordon and Bill Russell, the Program co-hosts. |
© 2007 The Paula Gordon Show.
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