A Bug's Life

Watch where you step! Today we’re going to take a brief look at Pixar’s sophomore outing, 1998's A Bug’s Life.

A more memorable way to spend 95 minutes?

The artists at Pixar Animation Studios really had their work cut out for them following the splash made by their first full-length movie, Toy Story. Actually, splash may not a big enough word to describe the tremendous impact the instant-classic had on the film industry … maybe a “huge kerploosh?” Having been first thought up in a 1994 lunch meeting between Pixar founders John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor and Joe Ranft (the same discussion which brought about plans for Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo,) their next film would shift focus from living plastic toys to another simple-to-render subject, the world of insects. Originally inspired by the fable of “The Grasshopper and the Ants” (until Stanton and Ranft realized that an actual grasshopper would simply take the food he wants,) A Bug’s Life tells the story of an independently-minded ant named Flik (voiced by The Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley,) who unwittingly hires a troupe of “circus bugs” to help protect his hive from a group of marauding grasshoppers, led by the villainous Hopper (a sinister Kevin Spacey.)

"Deeply inappropriate drunken behavior"

A quick note: I realize that this film includes not one, but two powerful Hollywood players whose reprehensible behaviour has recently come to light (Lasseter and Spacey.) Readers familiar with some of my other articles (such as The Devil and Max Devlin with Bill Cosby) would probably expect me to work this into my review; but to be honest I’m pooped from my ramblings on race issues in last week’s Dumbo article. Since I’m trying to keep this review brief, if it’s all the same I’m going to lay off the heavy topics this time around.

Still with me? Thanks.

Expanding the scope from Toy Story, A Bug’s Life tells a story about little creatures on a large scale. Spaces like burrows under trees or grassy knolls become huge, sweeping vistas that stretch out for (simulated) miles. The natural world, when seen through the eyes of our tiny heroes, becomes a very dangerous place, where even a gentle spring rain can bring fear and destruction. Perhaps taking a cue from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, the bug’s world is (literally) littered with gigantic items from the human world - creating a number of clever visual gags (such as P.T. Flea’s (John Ratzenberger) circus traveling around in a “Circus Animal” cracker box.) The “bug city,” a miniature metropolis created from garbage underneath a mobile home, is a cornucopia of gags piled one atop the other.

Ah, Bugopolis ... the 'Big Turd'

The cast is made up almost entirely of familiar voices, containing perhaps more celebrity voices than any other Pixar production before or since (‘B’ and ‘C’-list celebrities maybe, but well-known nonetheless.) Besides Foley as the heroic Flik, we have Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, comedienne Phyllis Diller, actress Edie McClurg (forever the “You’re fucked” lady from Planes, Trains and Automobiles,) a pre-Heroes Hayden Panettiere and Bullwhip Griffin himself, Roddy McDowall, leading the ant colony; the aforementioned Kevin Spacey and Richard Kind (in the first of his many Pixar roles) as the lead grasshoppers; plus Denis Leary, Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce, Lost In Space’s Dr. Smith, Jonathan Harris, Blazing Saddles’ Madeline Kahn, popular character actress Bonnie Hunt and Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett making up the ragtag band of circus bugs. Whew! Despite the relative “star power” of this cast (who all put in fine performances, by the way,) none of the characters really make as lasting an impression as the cast of Toy Story managed three years prior. The sole exception, however, turns out to be Pixar’s story supervisor Joe Ranft, who steals the show as the German-accented voice of Heimlich the caterpillar (doing his best Sergeant Schultz impression.) Ranft’s memorably silly character would go on to inspire one of the Disney’s most bizarrely lame theme park attractions, which we’ll look at in a future “Theme Park Rundown” entry (should I ever get around to writing it.)

I know nuzzink!

Like everything Pixar did until they dared to slap faces onto motor vehicles, A Bug’s Life was the darling of the critical community, garnering near-universal acclaim - though much tempered when compared, again, to the reception granted their first film. Besides being the follow-up to Toy Story, A Bug’s Life likely got an extra publicity boost thanks to the release of Dreamworks’ first animated release, the similarly bug-themed Antz. Produced by Disney refugee Jeffrey Katzenberg, Antz was rumored to have been rushed through production in order to beat Pixar’s pending release date (interestingly, Antz was moved ahead of Dreamworks Animation’s originally-planned first feature, The Prince of Egypt.) An ugly and very public feud was stirred up between Katzenberg and Pixar, with John Lasseter and Pixar founder Steve Jobs insisting that Katzenberg had stolen their story from his time as Walt Disney Pictures’ creative chairman. Katzenberg naturally denied this, claiming that the idea for Dreamworks’ film originated from a proposed film called Army Ants, which had been pitched to Disney’s animation studio in 1988. Deepening divisions between all parties involved, in the end both films did well critically and financially, since Dreamworks’ film was aimed at a somewhat older audience than Pixar’s family-friendly feature.

Oh the pain...

When all’s said and done, A Bug’s Life is only okay. A pleasantly entertaining film that keeps your interest for the entirety of it’s runtime, once the credits (set to the tune of Randy Newman’s sprightly “Time of Your Life,” which - like all the music in this film - sounds like it was left over from the Toy Story recording sessions) stop rolling, the whole thing is quickly forgotten. Bereft of memorable characters and containing a familiar, slight storyline that still manages to take longer than it should to play out, A Bug’s Life feels like a placeholder - a scant snack to tide audiences over until they could be given another helping of the gang from Andy's room.

Na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na - Bird Man!

The unfortunate truth is that no matter how well made Pixar’s follow-up to Toy Story turned out, there was no way it was going to have the same meteoric impact as it’s predecessor. At this point, Pixar wasn’t the household name it would become, either: the success of Toy Story was viewed by the general public mostly as a triumph for Disney (a distinction CEO Michael Eisner was in no hurry to dispel, naturally,) and it would take another few hits before people started taking notice of the Emeryville, California-based animation studio that was generating such a run of high-quality entertainment.

I'm like a bird, I wanna fly away...

Dumbo

Well well - long time, no see.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the big top! Step right up, as today we feature a look at a beloved little film focusing on a precocious pachyderm with enormous ears! We direct your attention to the center ring, for a frank (and frankly rambling) discussion of 1941’s Dumbo!


I think that shit just kicked in, Timothy...

In 1939 Kay Kamen, the head of Walt Disney Productions’ merchandise licensing (and the man responsible for bringing the Mickey Mouse watch to the world in 1933,) showed Walt Disney a prototype of a toy called a Roll-A-Book. A simple storytelling device similar to a panorama, the toy contained a little story told in 8 drawings of a big-eared baby circus elephant named Dumbo. Taken more with the story than the Roll-A-Book, Walt purchased the rights to the tale, which was written by Helen Aberson and illustrator Harold Pearl. At the same time, riding high off the success of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the studio had put most of that film’s profits back into the productions of Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi. These films were complex, costly projects that took the artistic lessons learned from their first feature and expanded upon them, creating some of the finest achievements in the art of filmed animation. However, the closure of European box offices following the outbreak of what would become World War II meant that Pinocchio and Fantasia, both released in 1940, would not make back their high production costs. To recoup some of these losses (and help get Bambi finished for it’s 1942 release,) it was decided to upgrade their planned Dumbo short into a full-length, budget-minded feature - and to have it finished and out before the end of 1941.

The only work Hyacinth Hippo could get after Fantasia bombed...

While certainly not poorly made, Dumbo’s hastened production does show in the finished film - especially when compared to its lavishly-assembled siblings. The overall animation has a simplified, almost flat appearance - a more “cartoony” look, if you will. This design choice applies to nearly all elements of the film. The character designs look like they came straight from one of the studio’s Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts, lacking the shaded look of Pinocchio or the drawn-from-life movements of Snow White and her evil Queen. Even the length of the film reflects its hurried nature, as Dumbo clocks in at a tidy 64 minutes - nearly an hour shorter than its immediate predecessor, Fantasia (though it loses the award for Disney’s shortest feature to 1942’s slight Saludos Amigos.)

Change my pitch up - smack my bitch up...

Perhaps to make up for (or distract from) Dumbo’s budgetary restrictions, the filmmakers seemingly doubled-down on high emotion to carry the film. Viewers are instantly sympathetic to the little elephant with the oversized ears (how can we not be!?! Look at those blue eyes! Those giant ears on the cute wittle baby! #Adorbz!), and our blood boils when the haughty elephant matriarchs insult Dumbo and his poor mother, the nearly mute Mrs. Jumbo (cue the lecherous principle from Forrest Gump: “Is there a Mr. Jumbo, Mrs. Jumbo?”) Proceeding scenes of Dumbo getting his bath and playing with his mother overload the film with a severe case of cuteness, striking a particularly poignant chord with those who’ve raised young children. Within minutes of screentime, Mrs. Jumbo is in a red-eyed furor as she spanks the living crap out of a human kid who’s bullied her little calf, causing a riot to break out under the big top. Before you can catch your breath, Dumbo is crying outside his mother’s “Mad Elephant” cage as the sob-inducing “Baby Mine” croons over the soundtrack with gentle assertiveness. Meanwhile, comedy is supplied by a bumbling stork (Disney mainstay Sterling Holloway again,) a pompous ringleader (Herman Bing,) wacky “woikin’-stiff” clowns and Dumbo’s wise-cracking Jiminy Cricket-substitute, Timothy Mouse (Edward Brophy) - who doesn’t show up until nearly halfway through.

I'm not real enough for you, Billy?

That Dumbo makes an unabashed play at emotion isn’t a bad thing in and of itself - the best art is arguably that which appeals to emotion as much as reason, if not more so. But this roller coaster of drama, swinging wildly from histrionic melodrama to wacky comedy, is built upon such a miniscule storyline that it barely holds up. So much intensity is packed into Dumbo’s short running time that there’s little time to breathe and register everything going on. No doubt this came as a result of the story’s limited “eight drawings” origin, and suggests that Disney’s artists weren’t afforded time to fill in the gaps of the story as much as they should have.

Oh the Feels!

I will give the filmmakers massive kudos, however, for the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence. Despite the scene being completely inconsequential to the rest of the story (or maybe because of it,) Dumbo’s drunken dream is an explosion of crazed creativity in the middle of an otherwise middling movie. A feverish nightmare of color, shape, and numerous forms of “technicolor pachyderms” floating across the screen (or, in one memorable moment, marching around the film-frame itself,) the whole bizarre bit seems like an outburst of pent-up inventiveness that wouldn’t be seen again until the climax of 1944’s The Three Caballeros (and wouldn’t manifest after that until the appearance of Aladdin’s Genie in 1992.) By far the greatest of Disney’s few truly “WTF” moments, this endlessly re-watchable segment makes even the most bored adult viewer take notice, and has been utilized many times over the years for TV clip-compilations and even theme park extravaganzas.

Nine, ten - never sleep again...

Before I close, I would be remiss if I didn’t attempt to tackle a brief discussion of the elephant in the room (no pun intended … well, maybe a little): the crows. Anthropomorphic animals that play an important part in the film’s resolution (it now strikes one as odd that the film’s main gimmick - an elephant flying - doesn’t occur until 10 minutes before the end,) that the group of blackbirds is portrayed as unambiguously African American has led to some (admittedly minor) controversy in the years following Dumbo’s release. In his famously inflammatory 1968 tome The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney, author and film historian Richard Schickel argued that their portrayal was clearly an example of black stereotyping. For me, watching the film with an eye toward historical context, that conclusion doesn’t seem so clear-cut. Or maybe it does?

You were only waiting for this moment to arrive...

If you’ll permit me a bit of rambling: besides a multitude of personal issues and “life occurrences” since last October, one of the reasons this blog hasn’t had a new entry in over 4 months was due to my inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to grapple with this review. Astoundingly, trying to write about a little cartoon movie about a put-upon pachyderm seems to have opened some door in my mind; a door to a beguiling wrestling match between reason and emotion concerning the portrayal and treatment of race throughout Disney’s body of works. As longtime readers (you poor souls) have likely gleaned, I’m a Caucasian man with a fairly strong liberal inclination (recall the acquisition of my “white card” back in my Tarzan review - oh how clever,) which I point out basically as an excuse for my hesitation to discuss race in art. For some reason I feel that it simply isn’t my place to properly address, and - as the ghosts of many deleted and re-written examples of this very paragraph attest - I seem grossly ill-equipped to do so.

And yet, here I go.

While watching Dumbo for this review, I tried to think how one can frame the whole concept of prejudice in older movies. Personally, I’ve never gotten the impression that Disney (neither the man nor the collective group of artists who worked for him) were racists in the strictest sense. In the film, the group of crows are portrayed as independent, free-thinking characters who are sympathetic to Dumbo when few others are; they are sarcastic, to be sure, but nothing in their dialogue or performance come across as offensive at face-value; they lack, for example, any of the subservient “Stepin Fetchit”-like behavior one associates with stereotypical performances seen in film at the time. While most of the crows were voiced by African American performers (members of the popular Hall Johnson Choir,) the “lead” crow was, unfortunately, voiced by a white actor (Jiminy Cricket voice-actor Cliff Edwards) putting on a “black voice.” Though it was common for white actors to portray other ethnicities at the time, it’s still unfortunate (though at least we don’t have to see any actors “darked up” like we would’ve in a live-action production.) It should also be pointed out that Edwards’ character, while unnamed in the film, was internally referred to as “Jim Crow,” referencing either theater-actor Thomas Rice’s “blackface” character from the late 1800s, or the nickname for a number of southern post-civil war segregation laws that remained in place into the 20th century (or likely both, since one was nicknamed after the other.)

Desegregation at work...

Now, given the time period in which these filmmakers lived and worked, to me the naming of this character (and again, not an official character name outside the studio) comes off as a distasteful joke, rather than an intentional slur. Honestly, I think much of the work from Disney at this time (and lots of “golden age” Hollywood, really) can be labelled racially or culturally insensitive, rather than flat-out racist. But given that all art can be read and judged subjectively (regardless of any credence one puts toward artistic intention,) does this distinction matter? Could one objectively call something “racist” if there’s an honest lack of harmful intention? Should one cast Dumbo (or even, to take a more polarizing example, Song of the South) under the same umbrella as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation - an important piece of cinematic history that is also intentionally and unquestionably racist? Perhaps not, but certainly one shouldn’t exonerate one intolerant work because it’s “less intolerant” than another. Besides, the absence of intent doesn’t negate effect; just because no harm was meant doesn’t mean no harm resulted.

Was I personally offended watching the crows cavort with Dumbo? Not offended, per se, though I admit to feeling a twinge of discomfort. But again, I’m a middle-aged white guy who's had a pretty easy go at life, so what does my opinion matter? Should it?

Then again, would the opinion of an African American viewer hold more water in this case - or to the very presence of truth in claims of prejudice in a work of art? This may seem to be an obvious (if grossly oversimplified) “yes,” but again the specter of subjectivity raises its head: how many African American individuals would it take to declare something “officially” racist? To use a pertinent example, in 2017 recently-appointed “Disney Legend” Whoopi Goldberg proclaimed that the crows from Dumbo were in fact not racist stereotypes; she instead believes Disney should represent the characters more through merchandise, “because those crows sing the song in Dumbo that everybody remembers” (referring to the "When I See an Elephant Fly" number - indeed the most memorable song from the film.) To use Ms. Goldberg’s opinion as the final word, however, would be falling back on the “proof by example” fallacy, wherein one uses one or a few anecdotal examples as proof of a generalized conclusion: "Look! There's a black person who's okay with it, so it must not be racist!"

This whole thing's giving me a headache...

Then there’s the relative question of time. Were the crows considered racist in 1941 - to African Americans, or anyone else? Heck, Schickel (a white male, by the way) was adequately offended enough in 1968 to declare them stereotypes. Does something seen initially as harmless become (or become recognized as) questionable, and finally offensive over time? This is feasibly true, as attitudes and tastes change almost as rapidly as the weather. Even the idea of racism itself can alter over time; hence Schickel found the Dumbo crows offensive in 1968, but it would be years before any popular dialogue opened up about the (arguably far more offensive) portrayal of “Injuns” in 1953’s Peter Pan. Hell, the jury still seems to be out on the Siamese cats in 1955’s Lady and the Tramp.

On a side-note: this seems to point to an interesting line of “stratified racism” (my term, since I can’t seem to find an “official” designation,) wherein prejudice against one ethnic group takes precedence over another, over time. In other words, the phenomenon of the portrayals of some groups being recognized as problematic before others. As an example: in 1989 Spike Lee’s magnificent Do The Right Thing was setting the cinema world afire with heated discussions of ongoing racial tension between whites and blacks in America - while on television, Caucasian actor Hank Azaria was cast to voice the Indian character Apu on The Simpsons. Largely uncommented on for years outside of the Indian-American community, this backward-looking example of “brown face” casting seems to have finally come into the public discourse several years after the fact, thanks to such commentators as comedian Hari Kondabolu in his 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu.

And in this specific case, the whole thing probably wouldn’t even have become a topic of discussion if Fox would've let the damn show die a dignified death 20 years ago … but I digress.

The recent influx of millennials re-evaluating cultural artifacts of the so-called ‘enlightened age’ of my own youth has led to such “revelations” as the character James Bond being sexist (uhm .... this is a surprise?) or TV’s Friends being insensitive to the LGBT community. Hell, when I was young it was seen as “revolutionary” simply to feature gay, bisexual or transgendered characters at all. That doesn’t take away from viewer’s impressions at this moment in time, however. And if we want to stay on the temporal train a bit longer, there are things that I find offensive today that I wouldn’t have when I was younger (and vice-versa.) As I alluded earlier, my most recent viewing of Dumbo left me a bit uneasy when watching the scenes with the crows, but when I was a kid I could honestly care less - even when I actually did recognize that the characters were being presented explicitly as African American.

So does the film’s insensitive handling of race alter my personal opinion of it? Not a whole lot, no. While the presence of prejudice or offensive material in art can sometimes put me off (I’m looking your way again, Parent Trap,) such is not always the case - as long as I recognize the piece as a work of art, and not an obvious piece of advertising or propaganda (though I guess those are more or less the same thing.) If it is in fact a work of art, as far as I’m able define it, I prefer to judge a work on its individual merits. Like anyone, of course, my own opinions sometimes fit hand-in-glove with whatever public kudos a work merits, sometimes not (Kurosawa’s Ran is a film held in high artistic regard, and it’s also one of my favorites – while Hitchcock’s classic Vertigo has always struck me as intensely overrated.) The same applies to art that’s held in high esteem for its importance to race relations - Lee’s previously-mentioned Do The Right Thing has recently become one of my favorite movies, while I struggled through Ellison’s tedious writing style in his seminal Invisible Man.

Regardless of all the disparate issues it brought about in this discussion, for me Dumbo is - as it always has been - a pretty unremarkable entry in Disney’s animated cannon. I know this is not a popular opinion, as the ongoing ubiquity of the character proves (which we’ll hopefully look at in a future “Theme Park Rundown.”) Not one of the movies I owned or watched often growing up, I was more familiar with “the little elephant with the big ears” through merchandising and the live-action Dumbo’s Circus program, which ran on The Disney Channel in the mid-’80s. Not Disney’s best effort at the time (but far from their worst,) Dumbo often feels like the rushed production it was. One can’t help but wonder how great a film could’ve been produced with a little more time and care. 

Enough talk. I need a bath...