To speak well or poorly of Walt Disney is almost as dangerous as commenting on Arabs and Jews, Catholics and Irish Protestants, or confrontations of Republicans and Communists.
If you say you, love him, you get a Christmas bomb in the mail. If you confess he fell from grace on occasion, "Fantasia" freaks bite your ankles, eat onions, breathe in your face.
For Uncle Walt was the man you loved to hate or hated to love, whichever way you'd have it. He was the worst kind of creature to intelleatuals high, low, or in-between, liberal or conservative, because he was that odd beast Paradox. The animal that fits no cage. The genie that escapes the bottle.
And Paradox is bitter medicine to even your brightest American. We prefer our tonics straigh. We want our heroes to be all of a piece, and if they're not we must pretend they are.
So behold Walt Disney who when he sketched out Pinocchios and Dumbos was too saccharine, or when he scared us with Snow White's witch or Sleeping Beauty's dragon was too terrifying, so keep the kits away; or when he showed nature red of fang and claw and dining on flesh was much too real – cover your eyes, children!
He was the man, then, who could never win. We marked the cards against him. Disneyland, we cried, would never be built. And, er, even if it was built, it would never thrive. And,er, hell, if it thrived, then it couldn't be any good, could it?
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