I’m participating in the A-Z Blog Challenge. You can find the big list of participants by Googling. Each blog has a different theme. I’m doing a favorite movie of mine that starts with the days letter each day, but taking off on Sundays with a regular Kerry nonsense post.
Dumbo, 1941
This film is a product of its era. I enjoyed it as a child and introduced it to my children and still love it despite the racist crows scene. Let’s get that out of the way. In 1942, Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men (THE animators of the studio) included black jive-talking crows what is the turning point of the film. They give Dumbo a “magic feather” to make Dumbo believe he could fly. Yes, it’s completely a stereotype of a way black people can talk and of the magical negro. It’s racist. This is not cool. It has to be called out for what it is and we have to acknowledge it was created by a bunch of white men who should have known better, but did not. In the end, Dumbo loses the feather and believes in himself, buy he wouldn’t have gotten there without the crows. It was a great plot device that 100% could have been done in a thousand different ways.
Moving on. I have to believe the for is based on Barnum and Bailey’s Circus for two reasons: Dumbo opens with the circus leaving “Winter Grounds” in Florida; Ringling Brothers and Bailey’s Circus spent their winters in “Winter Quarters” in Sarasota, Fl. The other reason is that P.T. Barnum owned Jumbo the Elephant. In the beginning, Dumbo is delivered via stork to Mrs. Jumbo. She tells the other elephants she’s naming the baby Jumbo Junior. His ears unfurl and the mean bitchy elephants call him Dumbo. They continue to tease him throughout the movie.
Mrs. Jumbo is separated from Dumbo after she tramples the enclosure because of how Dumbo is treated. Mrs. Jumbo is implied to sing (we don’t see her face) “Baby Mine” and everyone with a heart or any other cries. This song was Oscar-nominated and has been covered several times by wonderful artists such as Alison Krauss, Bonnie Raitt, and Bette Midler. It’s wonderful. I bought the 45” when I was six. “Pink Elephants on Parade” was on the B side and it’s from the kind of scary pink elephants sequence in the film that is straight out of a drug-filled dream. Good song though.
And that is Dumbo.
kerryfaler.blog 
Pink Elephants on parade always freaked me out as a kid. Still trippy as f*ck. I should probably watch in on acid some day. 🙂 🙂
E is for Edge Highlighting
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I chalk that scene up to animators on LSD!
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I’m not sure if I’ve seen this one since childhood, but I was definitely fond of the little flying elephant.
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It’s a sweet movie and clocks in at barely over an hour if you want to give it a watch — it’s on Disney+.
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We re-watched this one fairly recently. It started with watching Dick (1999) which we hadn’t seen. That made us want to re-watch All the President’s Men to remind ourselves of the story. Then, we watched The Martha Mitchell Effect (2022) and, now, we’re watching Gaslit (2022). Quite a little journey we’ve been going on to use film to get a deeper understanding of this bit of American history that I never learned because it happened during my childhood.
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The Martha Mitchell Effect was so good! I’m a little obsessed with her story. I was born during Watergate and we studied it a ton in Journalism. It’s what made me want to become a writer.
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