Was Walt Disney Naughty?

Dante doesn't mention it, but I'm sure there must be a special place in hell reserved for biographers.

Not all biographers, to be sure, but for a certian type: those who write the inevitable highly-critical “revisionist” biography of a famous person after his death. The act itself is inherently cowardly, and inherently dishonest: the subject, no longer alive, can no longer defend himself, let alone sue for slander. It is done with the soul of a Lee Harvey Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan: the perpetrator seeks fame and fortune from the accomplishments of someone else, while at the same time destroying those accomplisments and their true author. Even if the accusations are true, they can serve no purpose, after the subject is dead, and so necessarily are the sin of calumny even when they are not a libel.

On YouTube, I recently ran across such a piece, done by Britain's TV 4, on Walt Disney. Their claims against them, as I could isolate them, were the following:
That he employed women in the relatively menial job of inker, but did not employ them as illustrators.
That he was anti-semitic.
That he took credit for everything the studio did, though he was not in fact the artist.
That he was actually a lousy artist who could not even draw Mickey Mouse.
That he fought unionization of Disney Studios.
That he was an informant for the FBI.
That he testified in front of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, and named people as Communists.

Let's look at them one by one, in Disney's defense.

That he employed women in the relatively menial job of inker, but did not employ them as illustrators.

That's just good sense. Women would be better at inking than men, because they have greater manual dexterity. This is the same reason they were universally preferred, at the time, as secretaries. But to put them in responsible jobs requiring a very high level of expertise did not make sense, because they would almost always leave their jobs at marriage.

That he was anti-semitic.

This seems to be a total fabrication, perhaps an urban legeng. Disney hired scads of Jews for his studio, and many of his closest associates were Jewish. He donated to Jewish charities. He was Beverley Hills Bnai Brith's man of the year in 1955.

That he took credit for everything the studio did, though he was not the artist.

First, this is just good business. Aunt Jemima didn't really cook all those pancakes, either. Sara Lee didn't make all those cakes. Putting a single human face forward as spokesperson is of great value in establishing a brand, and in Disney's case, it was far more authentic than most. I'm sure no one really thought he drew all those pictures personally, did they?

Second, this follows well-established practice in the art world. In the case of sculptors or even painters, since the Renaissance and before, the named artist very commonly only supervised the work, with details left to apprentices. But, because it was his vision, it is still considered his work. Surely it is reasonable to do the same with movies?

That he was actually a lousy artist who couldn't even draw Mickey Mouse.

Disney may not have been as good a draughtsman as many he employed, but he was surely legitimately an artist. First, that is what he was trained in, and that is how he began—by drawing his first illustrations and cartoons himself. Second, anyone can see a single, unified vision behind the great Disney animations; anyone can tell there is one mind and one voice behind them. Anyone can see this voice was lost when Disney died.

That he fought unionization at Disney Studios.

Why wouldn't he? It was more or less his duty as an executive. Unionization is bad for business. Ask Detroit. But even so, Disney claimed later that he was not fighting against unions per se, and pointed out that Disney Studio recognized over thirty different unions in their operations. The problem was with this particular union, because it was refusing to allow a free vote of members. Disney claimed to be defending his workers' rights.

That he was an informant for the FBI.

This claim has apparently not been proven. But if so, why is that a bad thing? Isn't it, rather, the sort of thing one normally would expect of a responsible citizen, so long as the government is not oppressive? Aren't we more or less legally obliged to give the law enforcement authorities all possible assistance?


That he testified in front of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, and named people as Communists.

The actual transcript of Disney's testimony is available online.

http://filmtv.eserver.org/disney-huac-testimony.txt

In it, Disney says nothing unreasonable. He does not name anyone as a Communist, because, as he notes, nobody can ever really know. He gives the names of people he suspects are Communists, and explains why he thinks so. Why wouldn't he?

Of course, as has since been revealed thanks to now-released Soviet archives, the US State Department and the Hollywood Studios really were targets for Soviet penetration, and many there really were active Soviet agents, apparently including the first name Disney puts forward.

So where's the problem? There is a problem, I suppose, if you hold the entire idea of opposing and rooting out Communists to be illegitimate, and a violation of one's freedom of thought. Then Disney is guilty of something—along, of course, with most Americans of his time. But I think there is genuine room for the thesis that Communism as a movement was bent upon overturning the American system of government. If so, to actually sign up for the Communist Party would be, legitimately, the classic crime of treason. This is not usually considered a trivial offense. And concealing the identities of those you suspected of it would not be a patriotic act.

The real question, I suppose, is this: when, in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the Soviet Union targeted the American entertainment industry, the American press, and the American education system for infiltration, subversion, and conversion to their ideological purposes, did they succeed?