Why Tolkien Hated Disney

In this video we explore Tolkien's beliefs on fairy tales, his opinion of Walt Disney and the Walt Disney Company, and how their relationship impacted the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings!

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[bigseven]

Tolkien: "I will never allow Disney to bastardize and insult my work"
Amazon: "Fine. I'll do it myself"

[stephenandersen]

Some modern people use “fairy tale” as a pejorative, Tolkien knew better

[revol]

For professor Tolkien, who loved the origanal european fairy tales, Disney's adaptations of them were what Disney's live-action remakes are for us now

[sibylsaint]

I wonder what he would've thought of Don Bluth. He didn't mess around.

In 2007, Don Bluth spoke at my art school, Ex'pression College for Digital Arts, and I told him I deeply appreciated, as a child, how scary the cats are in American Tail, and the sad reality of parental loss in Land Before Time. He was happy to hear it.

[mitchelltheawesome]

If he hated Disney then, imagine how much he'd hate it now.

[rockmangurlx]

I love how Tolkien gives no shits about expressing what he thinks, but even then he’s respectful about it.

[theincrediblebray]

I find interesting that Tolkien not only didn’t like Dune or the Narnia books but also Disney films. Tolkien is a very opinionated artist that has never said anything negative about the individual artist but only to the art itself. I think we need more artist like Tolkien, ones that don’t disrespect the artist but are still honest about the art and its meaning. It proves that you can still be both critical & respectful

[FriendlyNeighborhoodSnyderMan]

I tend to agree with Tolkein. I have been reading the classics to my daughter since she was a baby. I use the unabridged versions of the tales, and when she doesn't understand something, she asks. She is now 10 years old and is in love with Tolkein's world. We read Harry Potter last year, and she said it felt like it was for littler kids than her....she was 9 at the time, haha.

I got my view on this from my father, who undoubtedly got it from his. We always read a book before we see a movie. And we always say the book was better 😄

[gustyko]

Funny enough, Walt Disney himself also didn't like being labeled as "an entertainer for kids", he always considered his work to be "for everyone to enjoy".
Obviously both men grew up in totally different environments, and also had very different philosophies when it came to storytelling.

[Ggdivhjkjl]

Tolkien was completely right about how most children aren't idiots. It's a pity so many adults are.

[swaghettimemeballs]

He wanted storytelling to remain an artistic property, and not a commercial one.
One with impacting stories that didn't shy away from teaching people about reality, but that also showed them MORE than reality had to offer.
He taught us how to imagine, by using imagination AS a teaching tool. The only limits to a world really is the depth you put into it, after all. And with that, he created eternal art.
I hope he inspires every generation to come by valuing authenticity over digestibility.

[hazardeur]

"hopelessly corrupted" beautifully put. never have i read such a precise yet efficient description of disney and amazon

[auger]

The original fairy tails were dark. The ultimate lesson is: life is freaking tough. Something he carries in all his stories. Good always won, but it was a struggle and required sacrifice and lots of discomfort. Something Disney really tends to brush over.

[wesltall]

The sanitisation of Red Riding Hood goes even further back than the XX Century, I'm afraid. The Brothers Grimm took what was essentially a cautionary tale for young maidens to beware of predatory men (i.e. "wolves") and de-aged Red, turning her into a little girl instead of a young maiden, removing the sexual references of the original tale. Interestingly, a similar thing happened when Schubert set 'The Trout' to music, he removed the final stanza of the poem, thereby turning a cautionary parable for young women against (again) predatory men (with their "rods"!!!) into a story of a poor, sympathetic fish who was outwitted by a cunning angler.

[fredblonder]

I note that Jay Ward — Creator of “Rocky Bullwinkle” peppered his work with digs against Disney. An extreme example is one of the Fractured Fairy Tales, where Prince Charming is drawn to look like Walt, goes into the forest to find Sleeping Beauty asleep in the castle. Instead of waking her, he has the forest torn-down and turned into a parking lot and he charges visitors admission to see the sleeping princess.

[karmiccj]

MAD RESPECT for Tolkien... he wasn't salty. Didn't go to the nearest reporters to get an article in the papers to trash talk on Disney (that time's version of a twitter thread). The man was legitimately offended and decided to leave letters about it.
I'm not the biggest fan of the Hobbit and it's universe, but I can appreciate it more for the author's take on how fiction should be handed. That feeling of holding something as one of your dearest memories, such as a book, and years later discover that it subconsciously influenced your childish past into becoming the man that you are today. Or it comes back years later as a small glimpse of light in a moment of hardship with a new lesson to be learn... This feeling is truly amazing, like meeting with an old friend.

[___David__]

I'm absolutely sure if both Walt and Tolkien were alive today, they would BOTH loathe what Disney has become and the things they produce.

[AtheAetheling]

Its important to remember that we don't need to agree with every opinion of a man we deeply respect. If you love Tolkien and also classic Disney, that's not an issue unless you make it one. He and CS Lewis disagreed on a huge amount of things but were very great friends.

[plzletmebefrank]

Let me dumb this down just a little, Tolkein saw the maturity and wisdom children have inside them, Disney saw the wonder, sillyness, and simple fun inside adults.
One saw the adult inside the child, the other the child inside the adult.

[nascenticity]

i respect tolkien’s perspective on children literature as described here. as a kid i could definitely tell when adults were dumbing things down for me, and i wasn’t a fan. the stories that had the biggest impact and stuck with me the longest were those that didn’t shy away from complex concepts just because the characters or audience was kids. the reality is that kids encounter complex topics in real life too and though i’m no child psychologist i can see how depriving kids of the opportunity to experience complex stories would be detrimental to their ability to handle those situations in real life.