Now my mother enjoys watching endless Disney cartoons I recall how the political incorrectness, the terribly corny story lines and the inherent racism of so much of what Disney made went completely over my head as a child. I loved the colours, the magical way fantasy was brought to life, talking animals and all the panoply of merriment that can be enjoyed by just watching them as cartoons. The same way we can read fairystories as stories and not worry about the crimes and horrors they gloss over as anyone who reads Grimms fairystories will tell you, there’s enough child abuse hidden in the pages to keep social workers busy for years.
The adult of course sees what the adults who make the cartoons implicitly or explicitly put into them that children have no idea about and in some ways it may be true to say the subliminal messages get into the child’s head and are dangerous. With Disney that is as much a problem with the careless way they messed around with animal behaviour for the sake of a good film.
But cartoons can be exciting expressions of art and colour, dream and simple wonder and it doesn’t surprise me that in pain and sadness an adult returns to them to remember when dogs talked, and songs sang of a hope all too quickly lost as we grow up.