Transcendent Disney

Through Mickey,Walt Disney expresses full awareness of his own
atunement to transcendence. In the article Th e Cartoon’s Contribution
to Children (Overland Monthly vol. 91) he says of Mickey:
“…we see to it that nothing ever happens that will cure his faith in
the transcendent destiny of one Mickey Mouse…”
And further:
“…the Mickey audience is made up of parts of people, of that
deathless, precious, ageless, absolutely primitive remnant of something
in every world wracked human being which makes us play with
children’s toys and laugh without self-consciousness at silly things,
sing in bathtubs and dream and believe that our babies are uniquely
beautiful. You know…the Mickey in us.”

Walt Disney Everlasting Presence

It was on a blessed afternoon I first went to the movies, still a five-
year-old, to watch "Sleeeping Beauty". The reality of the movie was much more pungent than that of the catechism’s hell. As scary as the devil of the catechism,
the dragon was, nevertheless, vulnerable. It was killed by a handsome
prince, who was in love with the most ethereal Disney princess. Evil
was eradicated by courage, romance and beauty, for the sake of love.
Rather than an after life conquest, the happy ending was reached for the
fulfillment of life at its fullest. Life as love.From then on, I was either in
heaven or in hell. Heaven was Disney. Like a preordained coincidence, the combination of fairy fantasy with the Disney language was the awesome turning of the real- from that which merely is- into what must
be. Th e feeling of transcendence it transmitted mixed a sense of relief
and justice. “At last!” is what I told myself, without realizing it. Like charms created by the blessed Disney industry, the stickers of Sleeping Beauty,
launched right after the movie, were swapped between my younger brother and I, passing from one avid set of little fi ngers to the other, as a transcendental mission
behind the torrential, shield-like rain that had my dreaded school
providentially called off on that unforgettable morning.
When I learned more about the man Walt Disney, I realized that to benefit from the message of his integrity was to bridge this world of material existence with that of spirit. Disney traded material security for the abstract value of being in good terms with himself. "I traded security for self-respect", he declared. This declaration is like a written proof of the existence of the soul.

Reawekening Walt Disney's Living Interaction

I am really happy for having discovered that an interactive site where fans can write about Walt Disney have come to fruition on face book. Even though stories from those who met or saw Walt should obviously have priority, this living interaction, in order to be really alive and dynamic,has to go beyond chronological limits. In fact it does! It invites also Disney students and friends to participate. You guys deserve congratulations from the bottom of the heart!
Walt Disney is presented on the face book as one of the most influential people on popular culture and entertainment, to which should be added high culture as well, considering that Disney invented, with the storytelling rides of Disneyland, contemplative interaction, the newest communion of art (high art) and technology.

Walt Disney : King and Little Prince

When Walt was asked why he did not try to get into politics, he answered wisely: Why would he want to be the Governor of California, or even the President of the country, if he was already the king of Disneyland?
Disneyland is much smaller in size than California, let alone than the United States. The Little Prince was king of his planet, so small that he could watch the sunset many times a day by just moving his point of observation. It was great in imagination and in contemplation. It was also great in love: The Little Prince had a rose that he tended too and that captivated him. It was also great in beauty: How can anything be more beautiful than a rose, or a sunset?
Disneyland, specially in what it meant for Walt Disney, was great both in love and in beauty. Small as it is, in comparison to the state of California or to the US as a whole, it is endless in its symbolic value, in its power of materializing fantasy, and in love.
Walt Disney was the king of Disneyland, but, in his purity and single-mindedness, he was also the Little Prince.

Disney Mystical Seed

Contemplative Interaction involves immersion and yet reflection from the audience. One's physical presence affects the setting to reveal more aspects of itself, sometimes of a beauty that arouses contemplation, or of messages that elicit reflection. The mystical dimension of it relates to a synchrony between the subject and his surroundings, as if both are part of one same being. That is exactly what happens in a classical Disney storytelling ride, which is set to motion for and because of one's presence in it, eliciting from one appreciation for its fantasy, which keeps revealing itself as the ride goes along, as well as full immersion in its motion.
Contemplative Interaction is the newest form of the union of art and technology, and its exhibitions in shows and expositions keep developing throughout, generally arousing awe and elevation of one's spirit.

Disney Contemplative Interaction

Calling attention to a mystical dimension on the part of Disney comes relevant to an interpretation of his work within life’s dialectical context: the flight of creativity vs. the enchainment of survival, utility vs. fantasy. Not of just Disney’s work, but of what may revert to a mystical essence behind interactive processes in general. If the man who invented interaction with fantasy had a mystical drive, he was responding to a need that is common to us all, even though not all of us are aware of it. The unwillingness to accept randomness, not just in our particular lives, but in the universe as a whole, or the bitterness that result for those who accept it attest for the common mystical need referred to.

Disney Reality

Disney animation prophetically inaugurated the relativity of the real in everyday life, that is, in immediate, sensory perception. Until then, the reaching of fantasy was mediated. Reading demanded a withdrawal in to thought, and watching a play or a live action movie required an understanding of the story. The fantasy of their fictitious reality was all in the plot. It was intimated, not really seen. What was directly visible was either reality or a reproduction of it, like the shape and the movement of flesh and blood actors. With Disney animation, fantasy became immediate. It was in the very shape of characters, in their being drawn, colored and created from scratch, rather than just photographed on film. The way they moved was fantasy, their multicolored environment was fantasy, the way their story flowed was fantasy. It was all fantasy and alive, more colored and second nature feeling than reality. In the directness of its convincing power, Disney animation became even more immediate than reality: body and soul inspiring.

Existentialist Walt Disney

My philosophy thesis is about Disney as the concrete example of existentialist freedom. For those who don't know, JP Sartre defined man as the constant power to reinvent himself. That means exactly that you are not determined by the circumstances of your life, they did not mold you: you are not a mere result of them. Unfortunately, people tend to see others as such results. That is why Schickel, for one, tries to revert everything in Walt (actions and thoughts) to his background. He says, for instance, that in Disney movies, nature is "sanitized" because that is what the farmer does. He says Disney didn't like bankers because Elias didn't either, and that bankers were those who sentenced the small farmers to constant indebtedness. In such a line of thought, no matter how full of erudition, any person, no matter how virtuous, is only a cog in the machinery of events that constituted his own life. And to think that Shickel often accuses the "Disney" people loved as an image "made" by the machinery he himself made. There is no room for freedom, for self- creativity, for creativity at all in such viewpoint. In fact, Schickel himself is the one obsessed with machinery as way of explanation. But here go a few characteristics of Walt that show he was constant self-creation, the beauty of pure freedom: He was unpredictable; he escaped all molds and expectations; he was an artist and innovator and he had the most amazing courage. Courage only exists in the face of freedom. If you are a result of your background, you are only responding, not being brave and, for sure, not creating. As for Disney's dislike of money men it is more than better explained by Disney himself: in their greed for immediate profits they stunted creativity. Last but not least, is Walt's integrity as a characteristic of existential freedom. Integrity is not given, or caused, otherwise it would not have the merit attributed to it. Integrity is one aspect of one's own self-creation.

Disneyssence Introduction

With Disneyland's storytelling rides , Walt Disney not only invented interaction with fantasy, but with contemplation and, in an indirect way, with the exact processes of technology.
A traditional Disney storytelling ride is stage to be watched, to be part of and to be awed by all at the same time. Stage becomes life in its most pungent and healthiest characteristic: the reconciliation of extremes, of reality with fantasy, contemplation with action, awe with fun. With this , Disney was also, even if indirectly so, not only playing with the relativity of the real but with that of time and space: the ground to step on is also the ground to act on ; the moments to just have fun are also those to be carried away.
There are direct descendants of this breakthrough in life and in art. In life, it concerns the thematic experience in trivial, everyday contexts, like decorations, parties and celebrations in accordance with a theme, that which, supposedly, immerses one in something like a story line. In art it has been developed in contemporary shows like Fuerza Bruta, which, immersing the audience in its heavenly images, play with the relativity of gravity itself, making stage horizontal as well as vertical or diagonal, close to the ground as well as above spectators heads. The audience, in constant movement so as to be able to see where the action will occur, has also its share of aesthetic interaction and of touch. Another artistic contemporary show that requires the presence of the spectator to reveal effects of beauty and awe, is Olafur Eliasson's display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Like in a Disney ride, you interact with the setting without having to do anything other than bring your presence to it. You can appreciate its beauty, be engaged in the fantasy that is revealed by your simply being there .
Disney, in a few words, planted the seed of "contemplative interaction", that which joins real physical presence with fantasy, aesthetic appreciation with movement, the artificial with the visceral.
Contemplative interaction is the result of a freedom the immensity of which knows no limits of categories, concepts or utility. Textures and colors escape their once fixed type of materiality, objects become other objects, action merges with performance, surfaces loose density and fantasy acquires body.
The time we live in is one that sky and ground can become one and the same. It took roots from the Disney essence.
A little of this freedom will be expressed in what follows. A contrast, rather than a mutual representation, between the evocative nature of the images with the abstract content of the words.

Disneyssence Dedication

Throughout the years, I've become aware that there exists several classifications for people that are immersed in the world of Disney:

Disney Historians
Disney Aficionados
Disney Geeks
Disney Neurotics
Disney Scholars
I will coin the following:
Disneystatics (those who knew happiness through Disney and were forever estatic with it)
Disneyans (those who find in Disney their real roots)
Disneykharmics (those who have a compulsion to go to the parks, as if having known it from other lives)
Waltists (Those who live in the autistic bubble of thinking that they are the only ones to really figure out Walt Disney).


I dedicate this book to all of them.