
Tolkien Expressed a “Heartfelt Loathing” for Walt Disney - jedwhite
http://www.openculture.com/2018/05/j-r-r-tolkien-expressed-a-heartfelt-loathing-for-walt-disney.html
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chevas
The worldview of Tolkien and Lewis was deeply inspired by their academic
understanding of medieval cosmology. Dwarves and other fantasy creatures were
not strictly "made up", but were types meant to reveal the reality of
invisible spiritual and celestial creatures within the model of the universe.
Disney's treatment of said creatures was barbaric in their minds as it
completely missed the theological and philosophical significance they were
supposed to communicate.

~~~
Trill-I-Am
What was the theological and philosophical significance they were supposed to
communicate?

~~~
erikpukinskis
I’ve been (slowly) reading the Silmarillion, so I can try to answer (although
I never read Lord of the Rings).

From what I can surmise the elves represent preindustrial humans. The Maiar
are elemental forces (fire, water, etc). Not sure what the Valar are exactly,
lesser gods of mythology I guess.

Within that landscape play out all manner of basic lessons, the importance of
different crafts, the danger of vengeance, etc.

I guess “bippity boppity boo” and the patron saint of class mobility didn’t do
it for Tolkien.

~~~
andrepd
One of the central themes of Tolkien's world is 'decay': The world was perfect
at the very start, then Melkor ruined it. The Third Age is merely a faint
shadow of the Elder Days, the future is even fainter still, etc. Elves are
understood as old beings, part of nature as it were. Abandoning middle-earth,
fitting in that pattern of decay, of 'now is a shadow of the past'. Analogy
with modern history is, according to Tolkien himself, "completely foreign to
my thought".

Also, Valar and Maiar are greater and lesser Ainur, primordial spirits. Angels
might be the closest thing, not elemental forces.

~~~
thisrod
> Analogy with modern history is, according to Tolkien himself, "completely
> foreign to my thought".

Which, of course, strikes everyone except Tolkien as hilarious, seeing that he
wrote LotR in the 1940s.

~~~
DrScump
Tolkien was more influenced by World War 1 than WW2.

~~~
magduf
WWII was basically an extension of WWI. WWI was remarkable in that it was the
first really mechanized war, and for the time, a really huge war unlike wars
before it, which is why it was called "the Great War" before WWII happened. It
was a real turning point for western society.

I think you can see a big parallel in LOTR here, with the Elves/Hobbits/etc.
basically being pre-industrial peoples, while the "evil" forces were
industrial societies: they felled trees, burned forests, causing widespread
destruction to build their society.

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drblast
I know the feeling. As a very young boy I saw an anime adaptation of The
Little Mermaid that was a faithful adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's
version and thought it was incredibly moving.

A few years later the Disney version came out, and the production value was
incredible while the story and all meaning was just lost.

And the messages Disney sends to young girls, in particular, are horrible.

~~~
jjeaff
The messages that old Disney movies send to girls were a product of their
time. I think the more modern Disney movies send excellent messages to girls.

~~~
cm2012
Certainly better for girls than almost anything anime.

~~~
bo1024
Oh man, you have got to watch some Studio Ghibli. Try Spirited Away or Howl's
Moving Castle.

(edit: based on another of your comments you seem to be fully aware that there
is great non-sexist non-objectifying anime out there, so your "almost any"
comment is confusing. I don't know much about anime, but I've been watching
some of the highest-recommended and rated films and they've all been great
about this in my opinion.)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
The OP said "almost anything anime" \- _almost_. The majority of anime are not
Studio Ghibli. We could be discussing anime (and manga) tropes for a very,
very long time but there's a clear trend of a very disturbing portrayal of
women (actually, "girls") in anime. "Oversexualised" only begins to scratch
the surface.

While there are certainly mature, grown-up anime with characters that make
sense (try Your Name for something newer than Ghibli) a great big chunk of
anime are just childish.

~~~
bo1024
Two different measures on the same set can put "almost all" their probability
in different places. I guess it depends how you are discovering anime.
Speaking as someone who started at zero and just started watching the most
popular and highly-rated films, I encountered very little that's childish and
oversexualized -- quite the opposite as compared to classic Disney. So via my
discovery process, almost anything anime is great and compares well to Disney
for kids. So from my limited experience, I think dismissing the genre like
that with a negative stereotype is misleading.

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jedwhite
The Atlas Obscura article linked at the end has some other interesting quotes,
including another one from Tolkien Scholar, Trish Lambert, that “Here you have
a brash, American entrepreneur who had the audacity to go in and make money
off of fairy tales.”

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tolkien-cs-lewis-
disne...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tolkien-cs-lewis-disney-snow-
white-narnia-hobbit-dwarves)

~~~
ardent_uno
Why should he not make money off fairy tales? By making money he built a
company which has brought joy to millions of people over a near century,
employed thousands and created value all without doing any real damage to the
fairy tales which inspired him. It's a classic win-win.

~~~
user982
_> all without doing any real damage to the fairy tales which inspired him_

I agree with the rest of that sentence, but this really isn't true. Disney's
bowdlerized versions actually do harm and even displace the source material in
public consciousness.

~~~
dmckeon
For the non-Disney versions, try:

[https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Grimms-Fairy-
Tales/dp/039470...](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Grimms-Fairy-
Tales/dp/0394709306)

Spoiler & trigger alert - the princess discovers the true nature of the Frog
Prince not with a kiss, but by flinging him against a wall. Many of the other
stories are equally blunt, forceful, or realistic for the times they came
from.

Of note is the modern excision of the last phrase from the closing formula:
"And they all lived happily ever after until they died."

~~~
hodgesrm
> Of note is the modern excision of the last phrase from the closing formula:
> "And they all lived happily ever after until they died."

I think this is true of English speakers. In German everyone knows the
standard phrase "und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute"
("And if they have not died then they are still alive today.")

It's a sufficiently well known meme that people use it regularly in jokes.

Edit: added quote for clarity

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jonnycomputer
I think that this really sums up Tolkien's attitude best:

Tolkien did not think fairy tales were children's stories, and Disney treated
them as if they were.

~~~
bo1024
I have been trying to put my finger on the source of Tolkien's complaints, and
I think I agree with you here. Tolkien has a section about this in the essay
linked from the article.

[http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-
tolkien...](http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf)

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ekianjo
Too bad The Lord of the Rings movie got a Disney make over with the happy
ending where the Shire was never destroyed. This is so Non-Tolkienish that he
must have turned in his grave.

~~~
xg15
To be fair the Shire was on the _brink_ of destruction in the books, but in
the end got saved and restored to its old glory (with some additional elven
magic to boot).

If you wanted to, you could read it as a fantasy of a pre-industrialized
country getting threatened by industrialization but rejecting it and
continuing in their old ways (allegory, ha!).

So personally, I'd say the Shire plot has a happy ending in the book. I'd see
Frodo's fate and the general decline of the world as a bittersweet ending, but
those elements have been kept in the movies relatively unchanged.

~~~
ekianjo
> So personally, I'd say the Shire plot has a happy ending in the book.

No, because there were consequences of Frodo not staying in the Shire. That
was the whole point: you can't have your cake and eat it.

~~~
xg15
Yes, but that happened in the movie as well.

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zebraflask
This makes a lot of sense, when you think about the difference in their
storytelling aesthetics. High fantasy =/= kids' cartoons.

~~~
chrisseaton
No it doesn’t make any sense that you’d loathe someone because they have a
different artistic style to yourself!

~~~
peterashford
You can loathe another artist style though.

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INTPenis
Tolkien and Lewis should have taken a chill pill.

I enjoy Tolkien over Disney any day because I don't even view them in the same
league.

Disney took ancient mythology and did with it what could be compared to the
simplified version of Hawkings book "A Briefer History of Time".

In the case of dwarves I feel that it doesn't change anything if you
bastardize something that is already based on mythology.

If anything this to me new revelation about Tolkien is a negative rather than
a positive. Not that I care enough to make it that but I just don't think they
should have had such strong opinions on Disney's work when they were
themselves fully capable of creating amazing works of fiction.

This truly does seem like Oxford dons thumbing their noses at an American.

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neaden
Title makes it sound like he didn't like the person, article says he loathed
the media he produced, a pretty big difference.

~~~
arkades
> But he also called Disney a “poor boob” and lamented “What might not have
> come of it if this man had been educated—or even brought up in a decent
> society?”

~~~
Jtsummers
The article’s writing isn’t clear but I think CS Lewis wrote that.

Either way, that’s not the same as _loathing_. It’s more dismissive and
pitying. Loathing suggests at least a strong dislike of the person.

~~~
jedwhite
The headline conflates 'Disney studios' with Walt Disney, which Tolkien
himself might be accused of also doing. The quote from Tolkien's letter is “by
the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).”

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hashfyre
What Tolkien was really inspired by was Norse, Gaelic and Germanic mythos. Not
to forget Middle and Old English Poems.

Norse:

\- The Poetic Edda

\- Prose Edda

\- Beowulf

\- Volsung Saga

Middle English:

\- Pearle, (The concept of The Ring being "My Precious")

Welsh:

\- Culhwch and Olwen, inspired Beren and Luthien (Silmarillion)

\- Red Book of Herghest (Welsh Vellum) directly inspired Red Book of Westmarch

Finnish:

\- Kalevala (Story of Kullervo) inspired Children of Hurin (Silmarillion)

German:

\- Nibelungen and later work Der Ring Des Nibelung, inspired The One Ring and
the myth of Broken Sword reforged.

Norse:

\- The names of Gandalf and the 12 dwarves are directly taken from Prose and
Poetic Edda

\- High Elves / Gray Elves are inspired by Norse Calaquendi / Moriquendi

\- Balrog and the Bridge of Khazad-Dum are direct allegory to norse fire giant
Surtur and the Birfrost (recently depicted in Thor: Ragnarok)

Celtic:

\- The Elves of Middle Earth (exiles) are based on Celtic fae gods, the
Tuatha-de-Danan

References:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influence...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influences)

~~~
olavk
For some reason people seem to gloss over one of the strongest influences on
Tolkien: Christian mythology. It is like it is hidden in plain view.

~~~
khrm
Yes. Even though I am not Christian, I can recognise that. Faith permeates
everywhere. It's not hidden. People know their history.

------
skookumchuck
I like both, in different ways.

~~~
i_am_nomad
You possess an important key to happiness, then. The ability to appreciate
both a perfectly prepared scallop risotto and a 7-11 steak taquito.

~~~
duncan_bayne
I have seen so many people made miserable by an inability to do this.
Especially once they earn a bit of money, and experience the 'good life'.

I _really_ love fine craft beer. But can still sit down happily in a cheap pub
and drink a jug of Victoria Bitter. It helps greatly to have entirely distinct
mental categories in such cases.

~~~
fratlas
+1 for bringing aus beer culture into this. I lived in China for 3 months and
once I came back, VB tasted as good as any craft beer - a luxury. My friends
thought I was crazy, but it taught me just how relative our experiences can
be.

~~~
m_mueller
I think living in a totally foreign culture is essential to recognizing the
actual values (and fundamental issues) of your own society. It also gives you
perspective on what‘s human, what‘s culture and how to relate with any other
human regardless of th latter. Was quite the eye opener for me. I hope more
people can and want to do it in the future.

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DrScump
I highly recommend the three-part John Batchelor interview[0] of the Zaleskis
on their book about the Inklings (including Tolkien and Lewis):

[0] [https://audioboom.com/posts/4420047-the-fellowship-the-
liter...](https://audioboom.com/posts/4420047-the-fellowship-the-literary-
lives-of-the-inklings-j-r-r-tolkien-c-s-lewis-philip-carol_zaleski-1-of-3)

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Antimachides
On the one hand I see where they are coming from. On the other I sure do enjoy
the genius of production of those old animations, particularly Fantasia. On
the one hand I understand the criticism that Spielberg torpedoed indie cinema,
on the other hand Empire of the Sun was a masterpiece. Two things can exist,
in their own right, meriting praise, yet opposed and unresolved.

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robotkdick
Tolkein may also have talked with trees, so a bit of a quirky fellow, for
which we can all be grateful.

~~~
chevas
There was a fascinating podcast on RadioLab about the intelligence of trees
and one of our writers wrote about it (this is a Christian publication about
weird stuff): [https://gospel.vision/discovering-the-mystical-
intelligence-...](https://gospel.vision/discovering-the-mystical-intelligence-
of-the-trees/)

I've started talking to trees since discovering this.

~~~
robotkdick
I hope I can one day work up the courage to talk with trees. I am talking to
birds to work up to it ;)

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_bxg1
"...he also called Disney a 'poor boob'"

[chef's kiss]

