On...Take a Bite, Dearie -- Part I

[ETA: Like most of my thoughts these days, this one seemed to run away a bit...turns out, this is something I'm actually really curious & passionate about, so I'm diving a little deeper than I intended. So this will be Part 1 of...?]

I'll admit it. I'm a fan of KPop Demon Hunters. It's not Disney -- and I almost wrote that Disney hasn't released an animated film this year but I forgot about Elio; oops -- but it's a strong contender for my favorite animated movie of the year. Zootopia 2 has some big shoes to fill.

At this point, my algorithm is basically KPop Demon Hunters and The Roses press junket content. And every once in a while, a post will pop up that I can't stop thinking about.

Case in point:

The post on the right has been living rent-free in my brain since I read it. Every time I watch the movie -- and it's on in my house a lot -- I pay attention to those scenes and the truth of that post rings loud and clear. Especially the part about the girls finding joy in food:

As an Elder Millennial, I do not take this for granted. So much of the media we consumed was about shrinking ourselves -- making ourselves smaller both literally (by eating less) and figuratively (if you're constantly hungry, you're more tired and quiet, because your body just doesn't have the energy) -- to fit an arbitrary standard. Diet culture is nothing new, of course; the pendulum swings every couple of years. But it was exacerbated in the late 90s/early 2000s because it was everywhere: from the magazine covers in the grocery store checkout aisles to the shows we watched as we grew up, from Full House to America's Next Top Model.

I mean, the motto of the 90s was literally "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

Now, we did have a reprieve from this for a while -- we embraced body diversity and called out the toxic standards. But now we've got Ozempic and that 90s motto is starting to come back. Luckily, we have people like Ilona Maher and Kylie Kelce pushing back on that -- revising the narrative to emphasize strength -- which I love.

But the discourse around food -- and specifically girls + food -- is still there, and it starts so. damn. early.

So watching KPop Demon Hunters around the same time I was teaching Disney's Snow White got me thinking...do we ever see Disney Princesses eat? And what is the larger relationship with food we see in these movies?

I started running through a mental checklist in my head -- and let's start with the Golden Age of Disney, which runs from 1937-1942 (right about the time the US formally enters WWII). Disney releases 5 major films during this time: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941) & Bambi (1942). I'm going to focus primarily on the first two, since of the remaining three, Fantasia is a (ground-breaking) anomaly, and the latter focus on animals.

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Takeaway: Snow cooks and bakes -- for the (male) dwarves -- but is never shown eating food. Here, food represents warmth and domesticity, but also temptation, particularly for female characters. Now, some of this may be because of the trickiness of animating humans eating -- animating humans in general was somewhat difficult for Disney and his team (early concept art shows a wide range of sketches for Snow White) and the Prince was allegedly the hardest character to animate. His face, at times, is rather amorphous and blob-like. Regardless, the only time we see Snow approach something like eating is when she tests the soup before ordering the Dwarves to go wash up (see the carousel below). Then, we skip over the dinner scene entirely and go straight to the post-dinner-dancing and merriment. So again, as we don't see anybody eat, this could be just not being able realistically animate the process. This would seem to be supported by the fact that we don't even see Snow White take a bit of the infamous apple: as the scene plays out, the focus is on the Evil Queen in disguise, as she convinces Snow to take a bite and anticipates the her desired effect. The bite happens "off-screen" and we only see Snow's hand as she drops to the ground and the apple rolls across the floor.

   

   

   

   The end result is (1) we don't see Snow White (or, to be fair, any of the characters) eat, but also (2) the one instance of at least implied eating, is directly connected to temptation and negative consequences.
   

2. Pinocchio (1940)

   Takeaway: We have a male protagonist in Disney's 2nd feature film, but food is once again connected to temptation and vice. It's been a minute since I've watched the entire movie -- and I've been meaning to, as well as the live action versions that were released. But in class this week, I was trying to explain the plot of this movie (and realizing, in the process, how batsh*t crazy it is) and finally just decided to show parts of the Pleasure Island scene. Perhaps eating/food is shown in other moments of the film (leaving aside Monstro the whale) but I'd definitely have to go back to the text. For now, we see Pinocchio and Lampy (a.k.a. Lampwick) eating when they first arrive on the Island:

   

   

As the boys stream off the boat and into the amusement park, a voice-over narrates: Right here, boys, right here. Get your cake, pie, dill pickles and ice cream! Eat all you can! Be a glutton! Stuff yourselves! It's all free boys, it's all free!" Moments later, we see Lampy with...an entire roast chicken? And Pinocchio has a whole pie and an ice-cream cone, and he's clearly shown taking a bite out of the pie. (A bite is similarly missing from Lampy's chicken.) While eating is once again shown in connection with vice and temptation, there is a slight difference from Snow White. The idea of gluttony -- of eating more than one can or should consume -- is literally invoked as the boys enter Pleasure Island, and there's also the idea that this food is "bad." After all, Pinocchio isn't gorging himself on fruits and vegetables; he's shown with sugary desserts. (Maybe Lampy's chicken is fried?) If the point is to convey that eating more than one's share is wrong -- a point which probably hit harder during the Great Depression -- it technically shouldn't matter what type of food the boys are eating. But to further underscore the wrongness of it, they're shown eating "bad" foods. Sidebar: food has no morality and unless it's covered in dirt, all food is clean. And does a puppet even have to eat? Where does it go? I have questions. But I digress. The whole Pleasure Island scene is about bad behavior: as Pinocchio says, "Being bad's a lot of fun." After they discard their mostly uneaten food on the ground -- wasteful; another transgression, that would have landed differently with audiences who lived through the Great Depression -- the boys enter the Rough House (purely for fighting), and then are shown destroying property in a 'model home.' Then, as Jiminy Cricket searches for Pinocchio -- in a moment that would NEVER make a kids animated film today -- we see him lounging in a chair by a pool table, an empty beer stein and money on the table next to him, with a lit cigar. Smoking, gambling, drinking -- and (gluttonous) eating. All presented as vices and sins in the context of the film.

Now, if there are other depictions of eating in the film, that may change things. But, as it stands, the only times eating is shown so far, it's in the context of vice and temptation. Preparing food is slightly different: whether it's soup or gooseberry pies -- is seen as a domestic act, to be carried out by women, for the household...which tracks, given that these films were made and released in the 1930s.

This was surprisingly engaging to write about, and I actually have a lot more to say. Next week, I'll look at Cinderella and Aurora in the Silver Age of Disney!