Mickey Mouse is the only celebrity in pop culture to have as much emotional power.
Mickey Mouse, as a character, has been a source of laughter and love for millions of people for over 90 years. Mickey Mouse as a corporate symbol has brought out more complex emotions. Both of these emotions are dealt with in “Mickey: The Story of a Mouse,”A new documentary has just been released at the SXSW Film Festival, Austin, Texas. It will soon be heading to Disney+.
Director Jeff Malmberg wrestles with the uber-Mickey – the Mickey that embodies the American ideals of optimism and kindness, and the Mickey that stands for some occasionally iffy practices by a multinational corporation. He also looks at how Mickey has changed over the years. From his wild early years, to being sanded as he became a more iconic character than a cartoonist (Donald got all his messier traits), to his second life today thanks to a series by Paul Rudish.
The doc, surprisingly, also goes into some of the more controversial periods in Mickey Mouse’s history, including his involvement with warmongering in World War II and when it was blackface that he appeared. Yes, it does.
The documentary also features a new Mickey Short, called “Mickey in a Minute,”A type of truncated “Into the Spider-Verse”This short is a style documentary that explores the different Mickey eras. It was animated by Eric Goldberg, Mark Henn, and Eric Goldberg.
Malmberg was contacted about the topic. All of it, in a wide-ranging interview about the world’s most famous mouse.
Before you started this documentary, how much did Mickey Mouse know?
Not as much as I now know. It was something that always intrigued me. I felt like there were two sides to the character. This made it very intriguing to me and something I wanted to explore. And it seemed like he’d been around long enough that there were interesting things inside that very simple image or logo.
Was the documentary the first or the second? Did one inform the others?
I’m not sure their thinking on that short, where that came from … I just was tuned into it when I was working on the documentary. Because so much of Mickey is in the past and it’s all wonderful and interesting. But to sit there and watch Eric draw and trying to figure things out and draw I don’t remember how many he says, original hand drawings in a minute of footage. It was probably closer to a thousand.
Is there any evidence that the film was influenced by the ongoing copyright battle over the character?
When I was in high school, I heard about a school with Mickey on its wall. They had to paint it over. It was amazing. I didn’t get it. Mickey was a strange third rail as I began to be interested in art.
And so, from my perspective, things like Milton Glaser’s short “Mickey Mouse in Vietnam.”In my opinion, there are many examples of off-brand Mickey artwork that help to enhance the character. You see a little bit of off-brand when you see Mickey on-brand. When you see Mickey off-brand, you will see some of the on-brand. That makes Mickey a very interesting character. I was interested in learning more about him. Definitely the copyright thing, to me, was… “I’m going to get them to talk about this.” Now you see how they talk about it, I think it’s an initial kind of, I’m not going to solve the issue, but I can push the ball forward.
What was the most surprising thing about this trip?
Mickey is someone I love. Sincerely, I feel like the world would be a lot happier without Mickey. Anything that’s a universal kind of shortcut to joy and smiles is great by me. However, I wanted the portrait to be honest. Some of his inherited items are quite extraordinary. Like America, the 20th century was filled with many crazy things. This drawing and this logo allow you to see angles of some of these things in an odd, weird way. And that’s very strange.
Because half of the world considers him so important. The other half views him as meaningless. It’s just naturally, there start to be these gray areas that become really interesting. And if they were open to being honest about it, then I was willing to do it. Because I was curious and had some questions.
The movie’s section on World War II was one of the most interesting parts. It was amazing how reticent the company was to engage in this discussion.
I think because we’d set a tone of like, “Hey, don’t get us wrong. We love Mickey, but there’s some interesting things that happened.” I mean, to me, one of the more interesting moments in the film that … and I didn’t know it beforehand, but we found it when we were doing the research, was the Mickey au Camp de Gurs comic book that person made in the camp. You can even see it if you look closely. It says in French. “produced without the authorization of Walt Disney.” Even then, they’re playing with the idea of authorship or who owns what. These moments are a testament to the power and character of the character.
I can’t speak for them, but it’s like in that instance, although it is World War II and I had heard that they were sensitive to that, really what we’re trying to bring up is that this character has tremendous power in a positive way. I didn’t ever get a sense from them that was a problem.
Mickey in blackface is another taboo that you should avoid.
I mean, it was very important to me that we included it … it’s an 89-minute documentary, we’re not going to solve the issue of that. However, we can raise the question. I was glad they let me include the line that Walt did damage to some of his images with Mickey. And I think that’s exactly right. And for a character who’s so supposedly inclusive, it’s just a sad moment. We are very proud of their courage and professionalism in submitting that scene.
I’ve got a seven-year-old. My daughter and I love Disney+ together. It’s so much fun to watch all the old animation. But some of that stuff’s problematic. How do you fix that? What about a paragraph?
Can you solve it through a discussion? I don’t know. We just wanted to create an honest scene. This would hopefully encourage people to talk about it.
Was there anything that’s too taboo? It’s hard not to notice the lack of “Runaway Brain.”
We had a “Runaway Brain” scene, because I’m with you. It ultimately just didn’t make kind of the arc of the film. I’d be curious if I had tried, what would’ve happened. There’s a lot of, as you know, history there. I tried to let go of the notion that this should be a Wikipedia entry, or an encyclopedia. “Runaway Brain” is one of my favorites, it just didn’t quite make the swoop we were going for.
What was your favorite Mickey era from this era?
This is what I believe I fell in love with after this. “Fantasia”-ish, or let’s start with like ‘38 to like ’41, similar “Brave Little Tailor”Through “Fantasia”Through “Little Whirlwind.”It’s wild! “Little Whirlwind”Mickey, I believe, is so dynamic. It would be fascinating to see where it went if this line continued, I wonder where Mickey would have been today.
I found the section about modern Mickey very interesting. I was especially impressed that Warren Spector, who was a victim of this whole affair, was interviewed. However, it was amazing to see him still being a magnanimous about his character.
Yes. I’m glad you say that. I like him. And I think that he was such a vibrant example of, there was a period where Mickey really, frankly, post-Walt’s death, post-1960s, of the image being reinterpreted, we’ll say.
What is Mickey? And it’s people like Warren, it’s people like Eric, it’s people like Paul Rudish, who get to play with him again. It was fascinating to me that people could pick him up and give him life. It’s not so valuable. Because if we don’t do that, he’s a plush toy. And he’s a great plush toy, but like he’s more than that.
It was interesting to see their efforts at this and I believe, frankly, it was early days. He could be a dynamic character we all remember. That’s been a recent phenomenon.
Is the Donald doc on its way?
This would make it a seven-minute clip, I believe.
“Mickey: The Story of a Mouse”Disney+ will be available later in the year.