Many opinion-makers insist that Snow White, the one that started it all, is Disney’s best animated film. I say this was only true until Pinocchio came out three years later. But the one movie that was the apex of Disney’s early animated years is, to my mind, Dumbo, which combines the bizarre experimentalism best demonstrated by the “Pink Elephants on Parade” sequence with the beautiful and devastating “Baby Mine” montage, featuring Mrs. Jumbo rocking Dumbo with her trunk through the metal bars behind which she has been caged. Heartbreaking stuff.
It would be a nearly perfect movie if not for the awkward racial components, including the fact that all the circushands are black guys who don’t have faces for some odd reason, but more famously, the Jim Crow scene. Yes, it’s important to the movie that birds talk about Dumbo the elephant learning to fly. I’m not entirely sure what statement they’re trying to make by depicting these birds as crows, with their leader going by the name of Jim, and having them speak in jive and act as classic black stereotypes. Most commentators seem to find this racist, and I’m in no position to offer a strong counterargument. It seems more odd than anything to me, as if the filmmakers were trying for something and it just fell flat and ended up like a failed Michael Richards routine. I find it less nefarious than the awful racism of later movies Peter Pan and The Jungle Book, but still kind of puts a damper on how sweet the rest of the movie is.
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