Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Who’ll get the Fairest Review of All?

Mirror, mirror on the wall…who’s the fairest of them all? This may be the most famous line from a fairy tale to date. This line has been used as a trope, a literal question, a sensuous musing, and a terrifying demand.

The story of Snow White seems to be everywhere these days. The version of the tale with which we are most familiar, and from which this line comes, is from the Grimm brothers’s version of the tale. We have our difinitive translation of the Grimm interpretation from D. L. Ashliman. He translated that most famous line from its original German.

Snow White seems to be everywhere these days–Never mind the iconic Disney version and the never ending reiterations of the story that have graced the fireside, the stage, the silver and the small screens in the past–she is everywhere being reinterpreted at present.

I know I’ve been singing this tune for a while now. Fairy tales have virtually overrun the entertainment industry…check out another blog that I posted yesterday on my facebook. Here tis:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9174410/Mirror-Mirror-How-Hollywood-fell-for-fairy-tales.html

In large part this latest Hollywood obsession is related to the success of other fairy tale franchises. However, the choice of story seems of particular interest. What the industry has often dubbed “girl-power” stories are the order of the day. Snow White has traditionally been understood as a story of anything but “girl-power”.

A princess, who lacks any identity other than her physical beauty is opressed by a dark mother figure. She retreats to the forest for protection, and domesticates with a group of small men who allow her to cook and clean for them until she falls victim to a the spell of the dark mother and is saved by true love’s kiss. That’s the story in a nutshell…at least its Disney version.

The newer attempts at the “Snow” story approach it somewhat different. Snow’s character is more developed and, frankly, she’s a bit tougher. I’m not going to go into all the different versions, from ABC’s Once Upon a Time to the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman and the version that is still in the works where Snow is an English princess in China and the “dwarves” are seven swordsmen. Today, I’m going to explore the most recent film version, “Mirror Mirror”.

This film, released by Relativity Media on March 30, 2012 is a farcical version of the fairy tale. When I originally watched the trailer, I thought to myself…”really guys?? Is this truly necessary?” I’ve been really judgmental about it…really not even sure if I wanted to watch it. I went to see if earlier this week…by myself…as I wasn’t sure how badly it was going to suck. Even the guy working the popcorn stand scoffed at me when I told him what I was going to see. I popped into the theater, only to note that NOONE else was there, and I waited for the film to start. Five tweenage girls did finally make it in for the movie…giggling the whole time. that’s six of us in the theater, mind you.

Basically, the writing did suck, but it was tongue-in-cheek-cheesy in a way that would appeal to kids. It put me immediately in the mind of the Shelley Duvall series of short films that came out in the early 80s called Faeire Tale Theatre.

Much like this version, there were big names attached to it. It was cheesy…CHEEEEESSSSSY! But really, anyone who was ANNNYONEEEE in the 80s was involved with this project. We are talking the late Christopher Reeve, Robin Williams, Matthew Broderick, Shelley Duvall, Terri Garr, Jeff Bridges, Liza Minelli, Bernadette Peters, Vanessa Redgrave, and so on and so on and so on…

I LOVED these as a kid. I recently aquired the whole set on DVD, and when I watched them I realized that they really weren’t that good. The production quality…the whole schmear…yeah…not that great. But the talent was amazing.

Wonderful people involved with these projects…which made me wonder why these amazing actors, who I know can do better, produced such silliness. Perhaps the answer to that is the material in fairy tales is archetypal, and as such, it can be played many different ways. And, if that is the case, then I guess fairy tales can explore both the light and the dark in psyche…well, obviously they DO do that, by virtue of their characters, but in their presentation, they lend themselves to comedy and drama together.

Such is the case with the newest silliness, Mirror Mirror.

*Warning: Spoilers coming. If you don’t want an actual review of this film, don’t read any further.*

Basic plot looks a bit like this:

A princess is born to a loving royal couple (and so it always starts). The queen, of course, dies and the king is left alone to raise the princess. He becomes lonely and confused so he decides to take a bride. Then, he goes off to battle to fight a beast plaguing the kingdom and, of course, never comes home…leaving the princess in the hands of her stepmother.

One thing I did love about this scene was that they had it told by the wicked queen in a room with a zoetrope (an early animation wheel). This was a great homage to the relationship between fairy tales and animation in our myths and culture. It set up an environment of self-anachronism from the very beginning. The queen (Academy Award Winner Julia Roberts) cracks jokes as she tells the story (“the people danced and sang…apparently noone had jobs back then”). The queen is one of those (sadly not so rare) people who thinks she is funny when she really isn’t.

She doesn’t come off as being particularly powerful, other than the one moment where she pulls Snow White’s hair and reminds her that it is important to know when one is beaten.

The narrative is a pretty clear socio-cultural statement about selfishness in government. The queen is so preoccupied with her own amusement and her own beauty that she has taxed the kingdom into the ground. The people are starving while the crown maintains a “let them eat cake” attitude. Snow White, inspired by her loyal servant and cook (Mare Winningham, Turner and Hootch and St. Elmo’s Fire) goes out into the realm to discover what it is really “like out there.” She realizes that her step mother is mismanaging the kingdom. Ironically enough, ehhhhm, or not, this film is being released at the beginning of what proves to be an epically awful election year.

While she is out, she comes across the prince who has been bested by “bandits” aka the dwarves with hydrolic legs. After releasing the prince from the dwarf-bonds, Snow returns to the palace to give the queen some sass. The queen sends her out into the forest to be slayed by her royal bootlicker (come on…Nathan Lane??!…he ain’t no Chris Hemsworth…when confronted by the dwarves, he screams and runs away).

Saved by her diminuative division, Snow joins the bandits in their forest habitat. Through the experience of training to be a bandit, and fight back in the forest, Snow develops her backbone, and figures out what SHE wants her identity to be.

Meanwhile, the queen has decided that she wants to marry the young prince in order to glean his wealth to her own kingdom…mind you, this prince has already met/fallen in love with Snow. Unable to MAKE the prince love her, she gives him a potion…a love potion that turns out to be a puppy love potion. Consequently, he agrees to marry her because…really…whose dog WOULDN’T do anything to make their human happy?

Snow and the seven kidnap the prince (this wicked queen really isn’t very powerful is she??) and take him out to the forest where they try everything known to human kind to break the spell…everything, that is, EXCEPT true love’s kiss. Oh, and by the way, in this version, the queen doesn’t trick Snow with a poisoned apple in the forest, hence she is not under a spell…THE PRINCE IS…

Snow offers to kiss the prince who is weeping about how much he misses his queen…how he “longs for the nector of her skin”…HUH??!! and after much hemming and hawwwing (well, it is her first kiss after all) she plants one on him.

It is an interesting true’s love’s kiss moment because, as per usual in the contemporary princess tale, the feminine overtakes the hero quite literarally taking him for herself on her own terms, and also because the true love’s kiss moment takes place between two people who are awake, alive, and aware that the kiss is about to happen.

The feeling function person that I am also loved this moment because you can actually see the moment when the prince goes from rejecting her (cause she is not HIS QUEEN) and kissing her back. The actor (Armie Hammer who played Leo DeCaprio’s love interest in J Edgar did an excellent job committed and displaying feeling in that moment, which I always admire in an actor.

Then, the queen shows up with the beast that has plagued the kingdom and, again as per usual in the contemporary princess tale, Snow goes out as the hero to face the beast. The prince breaks his way out of the house (where Snow has trapped him and the seven for “their own safety”).

Again, the hero is neither simply masculine or feminine as the two unite for fight the beast together. Luckily, they don’t kill the beast. Because she is a heroine, Snow feels the pain in the beast’s eyes and releases him from a spell which binds him to the wicked queen. The beast turns out to be her father (Sean Bean)…and there is much rejoicing in the kingdom.

At their wedding, Snow is approached an an old begger woman (the evil queen whose magic has turned against her). This begger woman attempts to give her a big, red shiny apple. Snow refuses it, cutting it and handing it to because “it is good to know when we are beaten.”

Before:

;

;

;

After:

With that, they all live happily ever after…

In the end, it is all about mirroring…the mirroring between opposites…young and old, rich and poor, masculine and feminine, responsibility and careless, integrity and selfishness. The whole time I was watching

, I couldn’t shake the idea that these film makers were really attempting to instruct the tweens who would find this film so irresistible.

Without being moralistic, this film attempts to teach the golden rule. Like Katniss and so many other heroines of this generation, this Snow knows that she must participate in life in order to thrive. She needs to be active, not passive, protective, but not necessarily aggressive. She is all about balance.

Is it Oscar worthy? No. Does it need to be? I would also say no. Cute, yes, and interesting archetypally because of the way in which they retold this most captivating of mirror tales.

“The Hunger Games” movie–A postmillenial Theseus.

I went to see “The Hunger Games” this afternoon with the hubs and my (soon to be–this week) 13 year old niece Lizzie. I’d been looking forward to seeing it for a while now, especially since I’ve been so excited about this amazing soundtrack put together by independent, folk-y genius T-Bone Burnett (pretty much all of which they chose not to use for some reason COMPLETELY unknown to me. I’ve resisted these books for a while now both because of the disturbing nature of the stories and because they were endorsed by Stephanie Meyer (always a red flag for me). 

*Note: I have not read these books yet, so I will base this analysis on the film version.

The basic plot of the story centers around a 16 year old woman named Katniss Everdeen whose skills in hunting and survival are well known to all. Katniss, her sister Primrose, and her mother live in a post-apocalyptic version of the Appalachian mountain area in North America. They live in a nation called Panem (a name that comes from the latin phrase meaning ‘bread and circuses’), specifically in a poverty stricken area known as District 12. Each year, in punishment for an uprising against their “Captiol,” each district is required to send 2 youths–ages 12-18–one boy and one girl (24 all together) as “tribute” to compete in a completely manufactured and unfair competition in which one of the tributes emerges victorious from the games after killing or witnessing the deaths of the 23 other tributes. Katniss volunteers to be tribute from her district after her 12 year old sister is chosen at her first “reaping” (the ceremony that chooses the tributes, of course). 

Also chosen from her district is Peeta Mallark, a boy that Katniss knows from school and one to whom Katniss owes a small kindness of bread that he once gave while her family was starving. The story follows Katniss and Peeta as they are transported to the Capitol for prepartion for the Games (which are meant to look like they are outside, but are clearly in a hollographic “stadium”). Short version of the story–22 of the tributes die during the struggle, but Katniss and Peeta survive due to a rule change, not to mention the threat of mutual suicide, that allows the two of them as “star-crossed lovers” to be crowned the winners of the games.

My IMMEDIATE thought while watching the film was…whoa…this is so very Theseus and the Labyrinth of them. Immediately upon returning home I did some digging and discovered that, indeed, Suzanne Collins attributes inspiration  for her book to the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. According to the myth, every three years the king of Crete requires Athens to provide a tribute of 7 youths and maidens to be consumed by both the labyrinth and the monster that lives in the center of it. Some say that Theseus volunteers as tribute and some say he is taken by force (although he IS a prince of Athens), but either way he finds his way to Crete and while preparing to be forced into the labyrinth he meets the king of Crete’s daughter, Ariadne. The princess is immediately smitten with Theseus. She goes to Daedalus–Crete’s master craftsman best known for the wax wings he and his son Icarus used to fly off the island. Daedalus gives Ariadne a thread or “clue” that helps Theseus (after he slays the minotaur) find his way out of the impossible labyrinth.

The motifs are impossible to mistake. Self-reliant, tough hero(ine) meets impossible odds (which are, of course, ever in her favor) and wins for the good of all. Game. Set. Match. Right?! 

If Katniss is meant, as Collins suggests, to embody the archetypal image of the hero as once understood by the ancient Greeks, then amplification of her character serves as a way to understand the particulars of OUR version of the archetypal hero.

A couple of things come to mind.

1). Unlike Theseus, who is motivated mainly by the pursuit of his own glory, Katniss is motivated by devotion–devotion to her sister, to fellow tributes, such as Rue and Peeta and by devotion to hope.

2). Her extreme self-LESS-ness is what causes her to become both a hero and a pariah (to the political powers that be). It is her empathy that makes her different than the other tributes, and her WILLINGNESS to sacrific that sets her apart.

The attributes of a culture’s hero often indicate the values that are central to that culture. The ancient Athenians prized intellect, resourcefulness and bravery above all. To me, it seems that it is this ability to empathize that lacking in our culture. In a culture such as ours–one that is built on the consumptive reality television that “The Hunger Games” critiques, the ability to empathize and sacrifice are values we intuit have value but cannot indicate directly. Much like Mary Shelley’s subtle original subtitle for Frankenstein, (The Modern Prometheus) Collins has presented us with a subtle, yet powerful re-interpretation of an ancient archetypal image. 

And, in the process, she has made a fascinating statement about the commodification of life, the dangers of fame, class conflict and fascism. Not to mention the wild card use of adolescents as controversial subjects of these stories…but that is another blog.

Go see it. Two Thumbs up. FINE HOLIDAY FUN!

A Blog in Praise of the Sea

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge — myth is more potent than history — dreams are more powerful than facts — hope always triumphs over experience — laughter is the cure for grief — love is stronger than death.” 

- Robert Fulghum

*In honor of my recent trip up to Cayucos, and in honor of the fact that I truly believe that, at least to me, the voice of the sea speaks to the soul, I’ve decided to share a small bit of autobiographical work of archetypal reflection. I wrote this in the summer of 2009, which was the last summer of my classes at Pacifica. The class was Myth and the Memoir…the assignment was to explore a personal experience of the archetypal. Enjoy!

In praise of the life of the sea.

–I have always belonged to the ocean. Lakes, ponds, creeks and rivers hold very little interest for me, but the ocean energizes me in a way that really nothing else ever has. I can remember being three years old, walking on the beach and just marveling at the gifts of the sea. Crawling on the edges of spiny rocks–you know, the kind that poke at your feet, and gazing down into the kinds of pools that Steinbeck wrote about made me feel like Alice peering through the looking-glass. I have always been curious about the communities that lie beneath the azure waves and the rocky foam.

When I was seventeen and had my brand spanking new driver’s license in hand, I often took my sweet little green convertible for a ride up to San Simeon, home of famed publisher William Randolph Hearst’s “Castle.”

A view from the 1

There are many cliffs on that rocky stretch of Pacific Coast Highway One, and San Simeon is essentially the last stop before long stretch which heads approximately 100 miles north to Big Sur and Monterey. To me, this area always felt like the edge of civilization, a place where Artemis’ dark hunting grounds meet Aphrodite’s stunningly sensuous birthplace, the sea.

I craved this interaction—the wild landscape jutting out into the foamy realm of possibilities. I often hiked out to the edge of the cliffs, and stared at the waves for hours; a lighthouse in the distance, the cries of the elephant seals ringing into my ears over the crash of the waves.

The seals in all their glory.

I felt at home there, more than I did in any other place I’d ever been. When I discovered the Celtic stories of the selkies, half-human, half-seal creatures, dangerously vulnerable to any human who finds their skin, I thought to myself, “AHA! Now I understand! I must have been a selkie in a past life, or at least be born of one.”

Although I have never discounted this possibility, I later discovered that it was Aphrodite I was longing to discover during all those wind-swept moments on Hearst’s rocky coast. It was she who called me, birthed from a shell, hair roped in braids, glorious sea treasures anointing her body. Her scent was on my skin. I drank her in…sea kelp, sea anemones, salt, procreative energy. Is there any wonder so many of us love and feel so protective of the sea? Is it any wonder that its mystical energy  draws the soul? And, is it any wonder that Aphrodite–an archetypal image of the power love and beauty emits on the human psyche–is born of the sea? Truly, the sea speaks to our ability to feel and (excuse the pun) to be felt.

Second century Greek terra-cotta

The Death of the Academic Ivory Tower

December 21, 2012…this date has been the subject of all kinds of speculation regarding twisted interpretations of the Mayan calendar’s ending date. According to an interview with Mayan Elders posted on SERI’s (Subtle Energy Research Institute) website, the Mayan understanding of this time is not apocalyptic in the sense of linear history, but the renewing power of the coming of a new era. They suggest that what we are actually experiencing is the movement from a liminal space we have inhabited since the ending of the World of the Fourth Sun to the beginning of the World of the Fifth Sun.  Understood from their perspective, what is occuring is the opening of a cosmic channel that occurs only once every 26,000 years–the dissolution of the world as we know it, which has been in process for the past 25 odd years will have ended as the new is finally ushered into consciousness.

What does this mean for us? It means that there are many aspects of culture that are about to meet their demise. From the point of view of archetypal psychology, this newly opened cosmic channel is in the process bringing to light shadow aspects of our collective experience that 2012 offers an opportunity to dismember.

“The academy” will not be exempt from this period of change and dissolution. Specifically, within the context of the Humanities disciplines, the work of  the scholar has often been a haven for elitists who utlize the life of the mind as a platform to keep themselves alienated from larger humanity. Often called “The Ivory Tower,” this world  keeps important conversations and theoretical assertations safely ensconced away from those about whom these theories are often made. This is accomplished more effectively through attitude than through conscious design. A vicious cycle of shame and condescension keeps the free flow of useful ideas withdrawn from those outside the “tower.”

This “tower”, however, like many other structures is in the process of experiencing its own demise. The financial and social standings that once came with a higher graduate degree are beginning to unravel. More graduate students are completing degrees than ever before, utilizing such online platforms as University of Phoenix and National University. Masters degrees have become as common in this younger generation as Bachelors degrees were in the generation before. And yet, jobs are even more scarce and tenure practically unthinkable. In the context of a society that is becoming every more Spartan in its utlilitarianism, education is being stripped to the very basics necessary in order to find a job and fit like a good cog into the social machine. Where does the Humanities–by its very nature an undertaking intended to soothe the soul–fit into this kind of environment? I would suggest that the answer will become clear to us as we embrace the dissolution of our archaic notions of the “scholar”. We have an opportunity to be the actual soothing balm our culture needs during this process of dissolution, but that will require a willingness to set fire to our own “tower”. I suggest that this means defiantely reconsidering and perhaps dissolving our ideas of the kinds of topics that are considered scholarly, as well as our ways of engaging with these topics. While I am not suggesting that we sacrifice standards of excellence in research and quality of writing, I am suggesting that we reevaluate arbitrary paradigms, such as what Joseph Campbell called “high” and “pornographic” art. Contemporary societies have ignored the classic stories traditionally understood to be mythic. However, tragically, the importance of our popular stories, have also been dismissed, thereby stripping away an accepted outlet for for myth and ritual. In academic circles, where the ancient offerings of cultures past are perserved and appreciated, contemporary, popular myth and ritual making are often overlooked, or more commonly, ignored completely and dismissed. This presents a problem.  If we dismiss that which resonates with most of humanity, how then are we to connect with our soul(s), and futhermore, to orient ourselves in the context of planet Earth? These distinctions often keep us alienated in the “tower”, and bringing the life of the mind, the imagination, to a wider audience will help us become the cultural soothing balm that humanities scholars are intended to be.

Sending the Baby Off to College

A week ago tomorrow I dropped the finalized draft of  my dissertation in the mail to my committee chair. I’ve been trying to decide what to do with myself ever since. Although I’ve never had the experience myself, I imagine that this must be a bit what sending a child off to college is like. I have high hopes for this project. I’ve nurtured it the best I knew how and, I’m sure, there are things I could have done to make it better. I’m sure there are ways that I have neglected its needs as well as ways that I have exceeded expectations. All of this is true, but now I have sent it out to fly on its own.  This made me think about the Disney Parks commercial campaign with the “real” family memories. So I watched it again, and a line caught my attention this time that I don’t think I’d noted before. The commercial says:

“Disney memories are magic things that you can hang on to for all time…Disney memories keep our children young in our hearts for all time and color our tomorrows with the best of our yesterdays.”

This really expresses the point I was making in my chapter 2. Now, perhaps more than ever, we all need this kind of magic. Perhaps, now more than ever, I need to reinvent joy and reinvest in happiness. So, yeah, in the midst of my uncertainty, as I wait for news regarding the status of my dissertation “coed,” I’m going to Disneyland.

And, by the way, Happy Halloween!

Ritualizing Renewal

I’ve been on the road now (mostly) for over a month and am suddenly faced with the inevitability of getting back to work. It is amazing to me how things that constellate in one’s life also affect one’s work.

This has been the summer of distraction. In a whirlpool of  stuff-goings-on/stresses/family sadness, I’ve realized how easy it is to get out of the practice of thinking/crafting/working…Then along came my chapter on renewal, which I had previously thought would be so easy and fun. How difficult could it be to write a chapter on California Adventure as Pixarland and Disney’s process of renewal?

Ha Ha Ha!! Famous last words. Creativity is a muscle, like any other. And if I know about anything…it is the consequence of unused muscles.

So, now I find myself in the process of ritualizing renewal for myself. I keep questioning: What does that mean? What am I asking? What do I have to say? As I prepare to leave again (for a short jaunt to Seattle…I’m helping Britta move back to California), I find myself in the depths of all of this. Renewal…making new again…infusing with the energy of birth…Renewal isn’t about starting over. It is about re-inspiration. How does one bring back that kind of fresh, naiveté to a soul that feels jaded? These last three months have been full of actual, literal dreams from which I wake knowing they’ve occured and yet can’t remember. It seems that rebirth is on the cusp of my consciousness…

And Pixar: the little lamp that could…the PERFECT image of renewal. These guys have been working IMAGES and EXPERIENCES of renewal for over 30 years. How could immersing myself in them go wrong?? But it has. It has fallen flat. So, I return to questions about personal creativity, and (Disney legend/animator/producer) Don Hahn’s book on creativity. As he wrote so eloquently, creativity doesn’t spring spontaneously from the (Jungian) unconscious. It is hard work. It is the work of ego integration, and the process of individuation. It is about touching the shadow aspects of psyche, which, frankly, noone wants to do.

A large part of renewal is re-inspiration, or the willingness to do what is necessary. And something in the whole process of re-inspiration requires discipline and routine. It seems antithetical to me…it always has. Creativity should spring spontanteously from somewhere deep within the self, no? No…creativity comes from the hard work of observing and pounding the pavement of the imagination.

My BFF/Kittay-other has given me an example of the kind of discipline that creativity requires. She has made the commitment to write a song a day for one month and (EVEN BETTER) to post those songs to a blog for the whole world to see. She has been incredibly brave in taking this kind of step/chance. And for this, (not to mention the amazing songs) I give her mad props!

So, how do I do it? I think the first step is getting out…making this trip to Seattle…flying alone without a security blanket. This will be especially difficult for me. I have to own up to the part of psyche that needs to be nudged…the part of me that LIKES the exhaustion and resignation. Because, if i live in that place, I never have to risk. Some have suggested that I do a creative piece, and while I’m not ruling that out as a possiblity (and, in all actuality, a probability), first I have to fly. I DO hate to fly…

Mary Blair: Disney’s Animating Anima

Mary Blair–The lady of flair. Her name is familiar to many of us who are Disney fans. Recently, the Walt Disney Family Museum posted a blog about a new Mary Blair shrine available at the museum. She was one of Walt’s favorite artists, and one of the elite few chosen for the now fabled good neighbor trip to South America in 1941. Blair was the only WOMAN chosen for this trip (not to mention the FIRST woman to receive the distinction of Disney legend). She was an image of tranquility who met each one of Walt Disney’s challenges with the soulful eye of a poet and the joy of a child. Her quiet genius was captured during the 10th anniversary show when Disney and Blair presented early plans for It’s a Small World. But who was this amazing woman who remained content to contribute concepts, while staying in the background as a source inspiration for Disney fans fascinated by the esoteric?

She was born Mary Robinson on October 21, 1911 in Oklahoma. A naturally gifted artist, she was honored with a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute (which eventually became CalArts under Disney’s tutelage). After completing her course at Chouinard, Mary began to seek employment in the precarious environment that was the depression era art world  (not unlike our contemporary moment, ironically). She married fellow artist, Lee Blair, and soon began to work in the animation business.

In 1941, she went to South America, becoming part the Walt and El Grupo entourage. It was during this time that her style began to truly take its shape. Blair was fascinated by the bright colors and the physicality of South American folk art. Her work began to more closely resemble the dolls she saw carried by the children of Brazil, Peru and Argentina. This look became a part of what is now considered the iconic Disney look. It offers a different kind of caricature which, instead of providing a cynical outlook on culture, offers Blair’s special brand of innocence.

Walt Disney continued to be impressed by Blair’s work. Although she was not gifted in the technical aspects of animation per se, he considered her one of his most valuable artists. He loved her whimsical style, and continued to find ways to use her extraordinary talents.

Blair was entrusted with the concept art Disney commissioned for the animated features that are the crux of what has often been called the first Disney renaissance: Cinderella, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, and her artistic voice was colored by a fascination with the contemporary craftsman style of the mid-century era she helped shape.

 Her surrealist eye was a valuable asset to the Disney Studio and offered something about which few studios could boast; a feminine perspective. One might even suggest that Blair was Disney’s vehicle for positive anima (the feminine aspect of soul). She infused a much needed sweetness into an environment that was often oppressively possessed by the not so positive energy of the animus (the masculine aspect of soul).

Women at the Disney studio have generally been relegated to the ink and paint room, the stenograph, costuming and the duties of wife and mother. Sadly, this condition still continues. Even the brilliance of Pixar lacks the feminine as a physically iconic presence. Lasseter, Keane, Doctor, Bird, Stanton, Baxter, Hahn…they are all men. But women are present. They are everywhere in the background of Disney’s pantheon, doing much of the quiet, drudgery necessary in order to make the magic happen. 

Mary Blair, however, broke through the barrier of whatever version of sexism existed at the Disney studio. She did this through the power of her art, not by the kind of studio maneuvering that got animators like Art Babbitt fired, or by the kind of posturing that later garnered Michael Eisner the position of CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Blair simply did what she did best, presented the world as she saw it, in all its color and life. And Disney noticed.

Not only did he notice, he chose her to be one of the first female imagineers, handing her the project that would become the most iconic of her career. In 1964, Walt Disney was commissioned by Pepsi-Cola to build an exhibit for the upcoming New York World’s Fair sponsored by UNICEF. The exhibit was to be a gift to the children of the world.  Although the attraction’s song, penned by veteran songwriters (Walt’s boys), the Sherman Brothers, is notoriously infectious in the way that it tends to drive patrons crazy, it reflects Blair’s unique ability to combine silliness with social statement.

The boat ride she developed became the voice for Disneyland’s guiding ethos, not to mention a call for peace in the world. It is the outward projection of Disney’s anima; a wish for a utopian understanding of unity in diversity ala Mary (Our Lady of Flair) Blair.