Breezes from Wonderland

In 1943, Walt Disney Studios released an animated film starring Donald Duck as a worker in a German munitions factory.  The film was part of the American war effort, and it was designed as anti-Nazi propaganda that would parody the regimented routines and obsessive rituals of German fascism.  Donald Duck wakes up to find that his stint at the factory was nothing more than a nightmare, and, grateful for his American citizenship, he embraces a miniature Statue of Liberty.  The cartoon can be seen on Youtube, and you may need the lyrics (see below) for the Spike Jones’ song.

DER FUEHRER’S FACE
Spike Jones & His City Slickers
Note: Each “heil heil” is accompanied by what is variously
called “the bird”, “the raspberry”, or “the Bronx cheer”

CHORUS
When der fuehrer says we is de master race
We heil heil right in der fueher’s face
Not to love der fuehrer is a great disgrace
So we heil heil right in der fuehrer’s face

When Herr Goebbels says we own the world and space
We heil heil right in Herr Goebbels’ face
When Herr Goring says they’ll never bomb dis place
We heil heil right in Herr Goring’s face
Are we not he supermen Aryan pure supermen
Ja we are the supermen (super duper supermen)
Is this Nutsy land so good
Would you leave it if you could
Ja this Nutsy land is good
We would leave it if we could
We bring the world to order
Heil Hitler’s world to order
Everyone of foreign race
Will love der fuehrer’s face
When we bring to the world dis order

CHORUS

INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE

CHORUS (slows down like a dying tape cassette on the last line)

“He’s fearless” – “He’s dangerous”: Disney’s Tangled announces with great fanfare in the opening scenes of its trailer.  We learn a lot about the Prince in just a few moments as he fearlessly takes on the challenges of physical dangers until . . . he chooses the wrong place to hide and meets his match in the long hair of a woman he addresses in the trailer as (I kid you not) Blondie.  The Adrien Brody/ Patrick Dempsey look-alike says a lot  (in the voice of Zachary Levi), but poor Rapunzel manages nothing more than “Best day ever!” and a shrill laugh.

Tangled is inspired by “Rapunzel,” written down by the Brothers Grimm in the early part of the nineteenth century.  Their Rapunzel also doesn’t say much, and Ruth B. Bottigheimer has pointed out that, as in many of the Grimms’ tales, the heroine is silent.  “We learn of her ‘song’ and ‘her sweet voice’ but do not hear her sing.  We are told that ‘at first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her,’ but the prince cries out his surprise and his intention: ‘If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune.’”  The Grimms themselves were inspired by oral storytelling traditions in which Rapunzel, after her daily romps with the prince in the tower, becomes pregnant and asks the sorceress in the tower why her clothes are getting so tight.  The Brothers edited out that question, and Rapunzel’s twins are never directly connected with those visits to the tower.

For The Grimm Reader, just published by W.W. Norton this fall, I put on the cover Arthur Rackham’s stunning illustration for “Rapunzel.”  The image reminds me of how the story turns on the relationship between both banished girl and the enchantress (who becomes a witch when the Grimms edited their tales) as well as Rapunzel and the prince.  Disney is evidently focusing on the prince in an effort to draw boys to theaters (think: lessons learned from “The Princess and the Frog”).  Did they go too far with “Tangled”?  I’m more worried about the creepiness of the long hair and how it is used to practice Hair Kwando.