Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince by Marc Eliot Book Review

I’m disgusted by Disney. I love Disney.

Disney represents all that is wrong with America. Disney is why I love America.

It’s a confusing set of emotions and ideas.

On one hand, I love the feeling of Disneyland, the Utopian park of never-ending Peter Pan dreams, prepubescent panic of true love, the smell of churros and hot asphalt. The roaring tumult of the crowd, dixieland music, space mountain, the people mover, the mystery of the pneumatic forces behind the rides, the Matterhorn towering over all the land.

On the other hand, it’s the corporate takeover of all that is holy. The forced imagination of sold out American ideals and dreams. The lost innocence of puberty. The disgusting reality of adult debauchery.

My first date as a lanky teen was to see a Disney movie, Beauty and the Beast. I loved it.

(Full disclosure. It could have been The Little Mermaid or maybe Aladdin? I don’t remember. All I remember is Disney and my beautiful high school sweetheart😊)

Was it a simpler time. Or has time made us all simple slaves?

Walt couldn’t draw a straight line. Yet, he manages to become the top animation studio in Hollywood.

Walt attempts to join the war effort when he’s a young man. Only to find his birth certificate missing. There’s no record of Walt Disney’s heritage. This sets off a lifetime of doubt about his true parents. His father, Elias, beat the hell out of him so much, that he doubted the man could be his real father.

There’s an interesting thread about a beautiful Spanish woman from Mojacar Spain. Curves the color of golden honey. Dark hair, beautiful eyes. She makes her way to America. She could be Walt’s real mum.

Walt was an FBI informant. Special agent in charge. He was largely responsible for the Red Scare indictments, the Hollywood blacklist, and rooting the goddamn commies out of Hollywood. Which was a miserable failure.

Walt had an amiable relationship with Hoover. Until there was a bureaucratic fumble by the department, and Walt realized what a bumbling mess of idiots the FBI really are.

Walt attended an event in New York that celebrated a known commie sympathizer. He dutifully sent off a full report to his FBI counterpart containing a list of attendees and their general sympathizing nature.

A year goes by, and some genius FBI agent finds a flyer from the very same event, with Walt’s name as a guest speaker. Even though Walt had been there as a spy, the faggoty FBI agent turns Walt’s name in as a commie sympathizer.

Walt never submits another report to the FBI after this mishap.

There is a grand effort to smear Disney as a Nazi. That Walt hated the Jews. That Walt was at war with the Hollywood Jews. But that can’t be true. Because his main financiers were all Jews, including his number one bank exec, Joseph Rosenberg at Bank of America.

If anything, Walt played the part of the antisemitic in concert with the Jews to forward their Hegelian dialectic plan of world domination. See cover image of book.. See the shadow. See the light.

The labor relation issues are tiresome to read. Did the Jews stir up the commies? Did the commies infiltrate Hollywood? Did the Jews pay the mob to stir up the commies? Are the commies really just a bunch of mob infiltrated labor unions?

One of the more endearing stories about Walt, one that exemplifies his genius, was his uncanny ability to act out his scripts with great flourish and emotion. Before beginning production, he would call his animators around in a circle. He performed every part, the witches, the princes, and the dwarfs. At the end, the room would be hushed in quiet contemplation, the animators absorbing Walt’s vision, then a thunderous applause would erupt, and everyone knew they had just witnessed the undeniable energy of a great genius.

Walt smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and drank cutty sark for breakfast.

Walt installed a train on his estate. He wore pinstripe overalls, got high on alcohol and pain killers, and would zoom around his property like a boss. God bless you, sir.

The book climaxes and ends with the building of Disneyland.

Walt had an apartment built above the fire station on Main Street Disneyland. He would live there for weeks at a time. Peering out the window, admiring his enchanted visitors, crying tears of joy and sorrow.

Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince by Marc Eliot Book Review