I found myself watching Walt Disney’s Fantasia last night. As always, I was struck by the dazzlingly beautiful hand-drawn cartoons and by the Art Deco charm and kitsch, both of which I love. But what struck me this time was how the movie perfectly encapsulates an extremely normal time in America, one friendly to science and faith. It is the antithesis of what the modern Disney company has become.

The genesis for Fantasia was Walt Disney’s idea of building a cartoon around Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, using a Paul Dukas orchestral piece. With enthusiastic support from Leopold Stokowski, the most famous conductor in the 1930s, the Disney studio started work in 1937. Fantasia finally debuted in 1940.

In addition to some interludes with a master of ceremonies (“MC”) and Stokowski and his orchestra, the has eight animated segments:

 Image: Original Fantasia trailer. Public domain.

Johan Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor uses abstract images tied to the sounds and rhythms.

Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite draws on nature, with little fairies bringing autumn and ice, dancing mushrooms and flowers, exotically swimming fish, etc.

Interestingly, the MC notes that Tchaikovsky hated the piece and that it was little known and never performed in America. That changed in 1944, when the San Francisco Ballet debuted the entire ballet, swiftly becoming an annual tradition. Now, for most major ballet companies, The Nutcracker is their primary moneymaker.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the most recognizable segment in the movie, with the image of Mickey in his Sorcerer’s robes still a major part of the Disney franchise.

Stravinsky’s The Rites of Spring moves from the Earth’s creation to evolution out of the ocean to the dinosaurs and, finally, to the dinosaurs’ death. It’s a real tour de force and mostly still aligns with science, even if they didn’t know then about the “giant meteor leads to dinosaur extinction” theory and only nuances.

A little animation showing visual representations of the instruments’ sounds.

Beethoven’s The Pastoral Symphony, which is the most marvelous compilation of beautiful music, Art Deco design, and kitsch ever put on the screen, complete with Pegasi, fauns, centaurs and “centaurettes,” unicorns, and myriad cherubs, along with Bacchus, Zeus, and Vulcan.

Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours is an endearing fantasy with dancing ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators.

Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Schubert’s Ave Maria take us from souls writhing in hell on Walpurgis Night (a sort of Halloween Eve in the spring), only to be saved by Schubert’s Ave Maria.

Aside from the sheer pleasure of the movie, there were four things that struck me as I watched it.

First, the movie wasn’t frantically fast or loud.

Second, the movie was utterly charming. This is especially true for the Dance of the Hours, for the Disney animation team perfectly imagined flirtatious ostriches on toe shoes, a coy, romantic prima hippo-rina, elephants blowing bubbles, and dashing alligators making off with these ballerinas in a joyous burst of cavalier energy.

But even without the Dance of the Hours, the dew-tipped leaves and gracefully drifting seeds and the wriggling mushroom dancers in the Nutcracker Suite, the silly paired off centaurs and “centaurettes,” and Mickey Mouse himself, frantically trying to stem the brooms’ cataracts of water are all whimsical and sweet.

Third, in The Pastoral Symphony, the rainbow was properly put in its context as a gift from the gods following a storm (or, more accurately, from the goddess Iris). It is a thing of beauty for the world. Given my Reclaim The Rainbow campaign, I really appreciated this.

Fourth, the movie was unashamedly religious, not in a preachy way, but by making clear that there is evil out there and that Biblical faith is the antidote to that evil. Or, as the MC said,

Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred. Bald Mountain, according to tradition, is the gathering place of Satan and his followers. Here, on Walpurgnisnacht, which is the equivalent of our own Halloween, the creatures of evil gather to worship their master. Under his spell, they dance furiously until the coming of dawn and the sounds of church bells send the infernal army slinking back into their abodes of darkness. And then we hear the “Ave Maria,” with its message of the triumph of hope and life over the powers of despair and death.

In every respect, Fantasia is different from modern Disney productions.

First, modern Disney movies are exhausting, with characters racing around, screaming, chattering, and generally all acting is if they’re in a Spielberg adventure film. There is no grace.

Second, modern Disney movies may be clever, but they are never charming. Wimsey is dead. Again, there’s simply no room for that in a world inhabited by smart-alec kids, explosions, screams, pop culture edginess, and, of course, wokeness.

Even as I watched The Dance of the Hours, I was pretty sure that, somewhere, some wokester had complained about the “rape culture” of the alligators. After all, we’ve already been told that the Disney princess movies are all about “rape culture.”

Third, it’s impossible to imagine modern Disney ever daring to include a rainbow without making clear that doing so is an homage to the LGBTQ+ cohort. After all, Disney has long made it clear that it is dedicated to advancing the LGBTQ+ agenda, especially the T part.

The fact that so-called transgenderism is as imaginary as centaurs and “centaurettes,” for it is a mental illness, not a reality, hasn’t stopped the Disney activists. They’re pulling back a little now, but as long as the same people remain in charge, do not expect things to change in the long run. Disney has a mission, and Walt Disney is rolling in his grave/

And fourth, the only movies nowadays that promote Judeo-Christian ideas and culture come from defiantly conservative or religious studios. Religion is “verboten” in Hollywood. Or, when it’s used as an inspiration, as with Noah, the story is transformed into a pagan climate worship narrative rather than the story of God’s commitment to monotheistic morality.

The Disney studio once produced truly beautiful, charming, funny, and wholesome movies. Fantasia embodies all those qualities, and it could never be made today.