Walt Disney and Children’s Cinema: A Journey to the Source
Paweł Sitkiewicz
pawel.sitkiewicz@ug.edu.plUniversity of Gdansk (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2039-9154
Abstract
The article deals with the myth of Walt Disney as a legendary author of children’s films. For several decades, Disney was convincing journalists and the public that he created cinema for an adult audience, which he defined in a rather specific way. He also argued with everyone who accused him of making pedagogical mistakes. The plots of animated feature films produced by Disney also prove that for many years he did not want to be considered as an educator, even though his films attracted the youngest viewers from the very beginning of his career. The author asks why someone so radically distancing himself from children's cinema became a businessman specializing in family entertainment. (Non-reviewed material).
Keywords:
children's film, Walt Disney, family entertainment, fairy tales and cinemaReferences
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Authors
Paweł Sitkiewiczpawel.sitkiewicz@ug.edu.pl
University of Gdansk Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2039-9154
Film and media historian, Associate Professor at the University of Gdansk. He writes about animation, film culture of the 1920s and 1930s, and history of comics. Author of four books, including Polska szkoła animacji [Polish School of Animation] (2011) and Gorączka filmowa. Kinomania w międzywojennej Polsce [Cinematic Fever: Moviegoing in Pre-War Poland] (2019). Co-author of the lexicon Powieści graficzne [Graphic Novels] (2015), edited by Sebastian J. Konefał.
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