3. Dumbo- 1941
Rating: 👌🏼 ok
Mrs. Jumbo, a circus elephant, is delighted when the stork drops her off a new baby elephant. But her son Dumbo isn’t quite like the rest of the elephants. He has giant ears that get in the way and sometimes trip him up. Mrs. Jumbo couldn’t care less that her son isn’t like everyone else, but other animals and patrons of the circus begin teasing Dumbo. Mrs. Jumbo and Dumbo are separated when Mrs. Jumbo is deemed too protective, and Dumbo must learn to navigate circus life on his own.
Dumbo has never been my favorite Disney movie. It belongs to that elite group of Disney movies that are sad and heartbreaking every time I watch them (think Bambi, Dumbo, Fox and the Hound, etc.). I suppose that’s a mark of good filmmaking. The fact that a mute elephant can evoke so much emotion from the audience in an hour and four minutes is a true testament to the team that made this film. However, to a much lesser extent, like Pinocchio I was surprised by the adult themes that appeared in this movie. At one point Dumbo and his sidekick Timothy Q. Mouse accidentally drink alcohol and get so drunk that they hallucinate a bunch of technicolor elephants, and then they black out and end up in a tree. When they wake up there in the morning, they have no recollection of how they got up there, and this is the pivotal seen where they discover that Dumbo can fly. It’s interesting to see how much the times have changed since 1941 that drunken child animals were allowed in a children’s movie. But I suppose that the audience in 1941 was a much different demographic than today’s generation. This was a generation of children who experienced the end of the great depression, the end of prohibition, and World War II. I suppose that it only makes sense that this generation would need a drastically different style of story than today’s kids. Overall, I could never watch Dumbo multiple times because I find myself uncomfortably sad. I just want to make everyone be nice to Dumbo!! But I do think that there is merit to the story, and I support the theme that what makes you different is what makes you wonderful.
