Fred Patten Reviews Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
Author: Neal Gabler
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN; 10: 0-679-43822-X
ISBN; 13: 978-0-679-43822-9

This massive biography – over 600 pages, plus over 200 more of notes, appendices, bibliographies, and index – is advertised as “the definitive portrait of one of the most important in twentieth-century American entertainment and cultural history. […] meticulously researched – Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives […]”

It probably is definitive. It is notable that where virtually every other Disney biography since his death in 1966 has been heavily criticized by animation experts for gross factual errors and deliberate misrepresentation of his attitudes or motives (such as claiming that Disney was a spy for the FBI, encouraged anti-Semitism, or was really an illegitimate son of a Spanish dancer), the worst that Gabler’s critics have been able to accuse him of are minor errors on the level of whether serious production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs began in September 1936 or several months earlier. These errors may be significant to cinematic historians, but the average reader will find them trivial.

Gabler’s book, with more than 65 photographs from throughout Disney’s life plus other graphics such as a teenage life sketch and his first business card, ought to replace every popularized Disney biography previously written.

There are no big surprises here, and there is much detailed information about events glossed over in previous biographies. For example, every book has told how Disney created Mickey Mouse to replace his earlier cartoon star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit when the latter was stolen from him, but few have told exactly how this happened. Gabler devotes five pages to the event, giving names and dates. Want to know about the notorious but previously vaguely-described Disney studio strike of 1941? Gabler gives it pages 356 to 371, again going into detail. Any questions that a reader may have about Disney’s personal life or his career should be answered in this book.

To a large extent, Disney’s story is the story of the whole American animation industry. Many of the men who became famous at other studios in later years, such as Warner Bros.’ animation director Friz Freleng and music arranger Carl Stalling, got their start among Disney’s first employees.

Gabler notes how many other studios hired away some of Disney’s best men to create cartoons for them during the 1930s, or during the ‘40s made parodies of Disney’s features such as WB’s Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and A Corny Concerto. It would be an exaggeration to say that Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination can serve as a one-volume history of the animation industry, but it is without doubt an essential read for every animation fan and an essential purchase for every public and academic library.

'68 by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

In the fall of 1968, 325 students were massacred by the Mexican police in the public square of Tlatelolco during a protest. One person I know who was there remembers running, running and slipping on the blood of his fellow students – agruesome memory that will haunt him all his life. In ’68, Paco Ignacio Taibo documents the student movement leading up to the bloody massacre.

In 1968, I was only seven years old and living here in Gringolandia, but I remember Tlatelolco. I remember my grandparents hearing the news from family in Mexico and grabbing me out of the living room to stay quietly with my tia in her room. Such things weren’t meant for little girls to hear. Being an overly curious child, I snuck out and eavesdropped when I could. I heard my grandparents crying over the news that came in slowly. I know now that there was a news blackout for some time. I remember my mother and my uncle whispering about it and of people they knew in Mexico, wondering if those people were some of the dead. I remember bits and pieces but I remember Tlateloco. Reading ’68 brought those bits and pieces to the front of my memories and filled in what I didn’t know.

The student movement was at one time a half million strong and led to a 123-day strike in high schools and colleges throughout Mexico. Mr. Taibo was one of that student movement and writes from his memory of nights spent painting buses, printing flyers, guarding the school. He talks of madness, the quest for freedom, of brutal police beatings, the disappearance of bodies, of his own near arrest, of friends who disappeared into prisons and his own feelings of guilt for not being in Tlatelolco at the time of the massacre. He puts faces onto the students and talks of friends in the Moviemiento.

There are chapters so haunting and atrocious that it becomes hard to read but too important, too absorbing to put down. Each chapter is evocative, telling and passionate. The chapters have titles like “Of Women and Mattresses, The Sound of Marching Feet, Wherein We Learn the Tanks Have Arrive, Throwing Corncobs and Even Liars Know the Truth”.

It is a chilling and enlightening view of the things that went on behind the scenes, from the student’s point of view in the months and years leading up to the Massacre that some of us know so little of. The Mexican government covered up much of what happened and even now all these years later, information is not clear. Paco Ignacio Taibo II does much to uncover what remains hidden.

He asks, “Where did they throw our dead? Where did they toss our dead? Where, for fuck’s sake, did they throw our dead?” We should be asking the same.

Seven Stories Press has this title available in both English and Spanish along with other important books. Please visit and support this publisher.

Mama: Latina Daughters Celebrate Their Mothers

This beautifully illustrated collection of memories, stories and homage to the mothers of some of our most successful Latina women is simply beautiful. It is filled with love and devotion, hope and loyalty, honor and dignity.

There are stories here from the likes of Celia Cruz, Esmeralda Santiago, Lisa Lisa, Maria Hinojosa, Judge Marilyn Milian, Jaci Velasquez, Rosario Dawson, Christina Saralegue, Christina Vidal, Lauren Velez, Denise Quinonez, Jackie Guerra and more. It is a loving tribute by these famous daughters to their mothers. The book is filled with portraits of mothers and daughters all stunningly done in rich black and white.

Maria Perez Brown interviewed Latinas from many different walks of life, some famous, others not so famous. She spoke with Latinas of many different nationalities and in their own words, each woman tells of the bond she has or has had with her mother. In each, the mother was a strong and resounding force, someone to be respected, loved and honored.

This book is truly an amazing collection and would be an amazing gift for any mother. The stories within will touch your heart and make you laugh, smile and cry.

Our Word is Our Weapon

In January of 1994, when the Zapatistas took over six towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the world was shocked. Then the writings from the speaker of these people, a ski-masked mystery man that reminds me of Zorro began to send his writings to La Jornada and the world.

In the eleven years of the Zapatista rebellion, I have spent much of my time searching La Jornada on the internet for the latest Marcos communiqué or news. I remember in the beginning, when I’d print out the pages at work, run to my danza practice and hand over the pages to our history cabeza for copying and disseminating to our group.

We were thrilled when Shadows of Tender Fury was published and urged everyone we knew to buy a copy. I read it to gang members, to danzantes, to my children, to co-workers that I felt needed to know what was going on. Through all my reading both to myself and aloud of Marco’s writings, I became and remain captivated by his prose and poetry, by his simple eloquence.

Our Word is Our Weapon is another book in the vein of Shadows of Tender Fury in that it encapsulates the writings of Marcos. The difference is that it is years later (eight years when the book was published) and still the rebellion continues. There was a Red Alert issued by Marcos as recently as July 1, 2005.

The book begins with a quote of Cervantes in Don Quixote about madness and knight errants and a poem by Pablo Neruda called The Word which is startling not only because it is an amazing poem, but because it seems to fit this book so very well, almost as if it had been written specifically for it. Marcos, I have always thought, loves poetry as much as I do. He writes his own and constantly quotes from poets like Anthony Machado, Miguel Cervantes or Neruda. Many of his communiqués begin or end with a poem. At least I think so, even though they may not be meant as poetry. Take the detailed communiqué from February 20, 2005 that cites both Shakespeare and Machado and ends in what I think is a poem of his own. He ends with, “The Sup, from the top of a hill, seeing to the west how the sun brings down a fading beam…”

The book contains poetry by Marcos and communiqués, including his letter on the 30th anniversary of Tlateloco and the letter to Leonard Peltier. It is another insight into the Zapatista war against oblivion, another great resource to have for anyone trying to learn about or expand their learning about Chiapas, the Zapatistas or Marcos.

In the beautiful and moving Prologue by Jose Saramago, he states, “This was a victory of the spirit” when speaking of the horrible massacre at Acteal.

Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution

Villa and Zapata!

Those two generales so huge a part of our history, so often wondered about, quoted and misquoted, understood and misunderstood are brought to life in this book by Frank McLynn.

I bought the book for research and as part of my quest for a better understanding of the Mexican Revolution and was not disappointed. The book chronicles the Mexican Revolution, the beginnings of these two men who went on to become so much larger than life. McLynn also portrays many of the key players, like Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Madero, Pascual Orozco and others known and less known. There are maps, photos and details from documents.

He manages to give the reader an insight into what it must have been like living in that time, to get to know almost personally these men and what drove them, what motivated them into their roles in this very important part of Mexican history and how they changed not only their world, but the world as a whole, how they are even now influencing us. It reads more like a thrilling novel than a history and I couldn’t put it down.

I learned about Zapata and his sense of style, his brother Eufemio, his uncanny ability with horses, how he studied all the historical documents of Anenecuilco and other fascinating facts such as how an American woman who ran a hotel called him “The Attila of the South”. Each chapter is vividly written, chronicled in such a comprehensive and fascinating way that I couldn’t get enough of it. The book is like water to the thirsty.

I read of the battles, large and small, victories and crushing defeats, of betrayal, of in-fighting, of women and men who had such passion for their convictions, for their land, for the cause they were fighting for. There is no glorification. McLynn ensures that the faults of both men are just as clearly delineated as their greatness.

For lovers of history, for someone with even the slightest interest in either of these men or the time they lived in, this is a treasure of information. I encourage everyone to buy this book, read it and then read it again.

Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexico City Earthquake

To me there is no greater woman journalist than Mexico’s beloved Elena Poniatowska. Every book I read of hers touches me in so many ways. This book in particular haunts my days and nights. Nothing, Nobody is the chronicle of the earthquake in September of 1985 that devastated Mexico City.

It is the story of the search for bodies amongst the rubble and the Mexican government’s failure to respond. There is such poignancy in the writing, the post-earthquake testimonies from survivors, from aid workers and most of all, from the people who never did find their loved ones. It is a story of the heroism that exists in even the most insignificant of us. There is courage in the face of disaster, hope and hopelessness.

As if the testimonies and the stories in this book weren’t enough to touch the heart, to outrage the mind, there are photos of the devastation, of the faces of the people, of the tears.

Ms. Poniatowska weaves together each story with her usual mastery. She is able to put a face on the side of Mexico that gets shoved under the carpet – the poor Mexican. This book was written pre-Zapatista uprising and I feel that by reading Elena Poniatowska’s fascinating chronicles of important events in the years leading up to it, we can all better understand why the Zapatista movement had to happen. There are many books about it and many opinions on why – but I think that all we need to do is read books like this to see the face of the forgotten, to feel their pain and frustration, to know them intimately. Once we do that, there is no need to suppose or wonder about the worthiness of the fight against oblivion – we just know.