I long ago stopped being surprised by the level of ignorance and misinformation that surrounds the word "union." It's bad enough that most people take what they know about unions from episodes of The Sopranos -- that's simply ignorance at work. More disturbing is the intentional misinformation that's regularly spread from some quarters. As an example, here's a passage from a book published this year, by a serious writer, historian, and journalist, describing the Disney strike of 1941:
"As he employed a good many intellectuals, artists, and writers who at that period leaned overwhelmingly toward the left, this produced tension at the Disney Studios and, in 1940, led to a strike aimed either at forcing Disney to make pro-Communist propaganda cartoons or at shutting the studio down. Disney defeated the strike, with some help from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and pursued his own individual way until his death."
Say what?!? The strikers tried to force Walt to make Commie propaganda? And J. Edgar was there, bra and lacy panties under his G-Man suit, cigar clenched between his teeth, helping crack those pinko's heads? Yeah, right. . .
This crap is by Paul Johnson, in his 2006 book "Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney." Mark Mayerson recently posted about this error-riddled book on his excellent blog, Mayerson on Animation.
Cartoon Brewmaster Amid Amidi also comments about the book, and points out that the author is a far right-wing religious fundamentalist . Not that there's anything wrong with being far right or fundamentalist, but is that an excuse to lie? And what of the editors at HarperCollins? Was it really so hard to do some fact checking?
I've talked to Tom Sito about the incredible rigor with which his editors have vetted the information in his upcoming book, "Drawing The Line." Every last little thing he wrote required multiple sources and verification. We can only hope that, after Tom's book is published, future "historians," despite whatever private agenda they may have, will find it more difficult to publish nonsense.
[The intriguing cartoon illustrating this post is by editorial cartoonist Gavin Coates, from earthycartoons.com.]
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
We Don't Get No Respect, Indeed
I long ago stopped being surprised by the level of ignorance and misinformation that surrounds the word "union." It's bad enough that most people take what they know about unions from episodes of The Sopranos -- that's simply ignorance at work. More disturbing is the intentional misinformation that's regularly spread from some quarters. As an example, here's a passage from a book published this year, by a serious writer, historian, and journalist, describing the Disney strike of 1941:
"As he employed a good many intellectuals, artists, and writers who at that period leaned overwhelmingly toward the left, this produced tension at the Disney Studios and, in 1940, led to a strike aimed either at forcing Disney to make pro-Communist propaganda cartoons or at shutting the studio down. Disney defeated the strike, with some help from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and pursued his own individual way until his death."
Say what?!? The strikers tried to force Walt to make Commie propaganda? And J. Edgar was there, bra and lacy panties under his G-Man suit, cigar clenched between his teeth, helping crack those pinko's heads? Yeah, right. . .
This crap is by Paul Johnson, in his 2006 book "Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney." Mark Mayerson recently posted about this error-riddled book on his excellent blog, Mayerson on Animation.
Cartoon Brewmaster Amid Amidi also comments about the book, and points out that the author is a far right-wing religious fundamentalist . Not that there's anything wrong with being far right or fundamentalist, but is that an excuse to lie? And what of the editors at HarperCollins? Was it really so hard to do some fact checking?
I've talked to Tom Sito about the incredible rigor with which his editors have vetted the information in his upcoming book, "Drawing The Line." Every last little thing he wrote required multiple sources and verification. We can only hope that, after Tom's book is published, future "historians," despite whatever private agenda they may have, will find it more difficult to publish nonsense.
[The intriguing cartoon illustrating this post is by editorial cartoonist Gavin Coates, from earthycartoons.com.]
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8 comments:
i read all this critism of johnsons book, so has anyone in the animation industry actually informed the individual that his information is pure fabrication...
Mark Mayerson indicated on his blog that he emailed HarperCollins, the book's publisher, and that he'd post again if he got any response.
Wow..That such a person can call himself a historian yet be so completely uninformed about the intellectual-political climate of Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s is amazing.
In the 30's, if you were against child labor, if you thought Hitler and Mussolini were bad guys, if you were for civil rights and unemployment insurance, then you could be called a Red. Walt Disney himself was fingered by the FBI for attending a memorial to cartoonist Art Young. Young was a top artist for the New Masses magazine. The same service was attended by Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Ernest Hemingway.
The issue shows how potent such issues still are. It'll be interesting to see when my book comes out how it will jive with Neal Gabler's new bio of Walt Disney, and Mike Barrier is preparing a bio as well.
Whenever I look at a book on Walt Disney, I always turn to the index and look up the 1941 Strike. It's surprising what variations you find on a simple topic. Facts in and of themselves are neutral: the Titanic did sink, the Cartoonists of Disney did go on strike. It's how those facts are presented and interpreted that the personal spin comes in. Orwell was right, to effect the present you have to control the past.
I have a great mini-paperback children's book on "The Life of Walt Disney" I found in a 2nd hand store (Done up in cheezy "Classic Comics" style), where the 1941 strike is described as: "One day, some people decided to strike against Walt Disney. This made him very sad."
Hilariously bad, and just as accurate as Johnson's version of events.
Joe Grant once growled to me in a Disney hallway: "There were a lot of commies in the '41 strike..."
Then he stared off into space and shrugged. "But Walt hired them, didn't he?"
I knew a lot of the strikers when they were old and gray and I was young, back in the 1970s. None of them were wearing red arm bands.
Isn't HarperCollins owned by Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, but even with that, I don't think they've lowered their standards to the point of publishing nonsense that is so easily refuted. The book's editors blew it big time.
The worst, most effective lies always have a bit of the truth in them--that's why misinformation is so insidious and damaging.
I believe that a couple of Disney strikers in fact were communist party members(Dave Hilberman, I think, comes to mind)--but really, that's a big "so what?"--since many, many folks in 1941 identified as "socialist", communist Russia was our friend and ally, and this was long before the so-called Red Menance or Blacklist. The important thing is that anyone's political affiliation had zero to do with the strike; as I understand it, it had to do with a company union vs. the majority of employees voting to join the new Guild that represented the other studios. Of course, Tom knows all this. : )
"pro-Communist propaganda" anywhere near any of Walt's films? That part is hilarious!
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