After Disney Animation and Pixar’s disgraced chief creative
officer John Lasseter announced his resignation last month, Disney were quick
to confirm his replacements. Pete Docter, the director of Up and Inside Out, is
replacing Lasseter at Pixar, whilst Frozen director Jennifer Lee is taking over
as Chief Creative Officer at Disney Animation. Pete Docter is a safe and
reliable choice, but Jennifer Lee is a much bigger risk, and her appointment is
far more interesting. Coverage of the change in leadership has focused on the
extent of Lasseter’s misconduct and the need to clean up the toxic culture at Disney
and Pixar. In spite to this, Lee's appointment is a real cause for celebration, as it is incredibly significant to see a woman take charge
of one of the oldest and most iconic animation studios in the world.
Although most of us are really pleased to see Lasseter go, (his
behaviour has gone against everything Disney is meant to stand for), there is
no denying that he did an excellent job as Disney Animation’s Chief Creative
Officer. When he arrived in 2006, Disney was trying to recover from the failure
of movies like Home on the Range and Chicken Little, but within a decade, they
were providing megahits like Wreck-It-Ralph, Frozen, Zootropolis and Moana,
reasserting their status as the most successful animation studio in the world. In
many ways, Lee simply has to continue the formula which made Lasseter’s movies
so successful, minus the bullying and sexual harassment which went on behind the
scenes. However, she also has a golden opportunity to create change and make
Disney Animation into a more diverse and innovative studio.
This article is so big that it will be separated into two
parts. The first part will focus on the films themselves, and the approach Jennifer
Lee should take to stories and characterisation as she seeks to maintain the
winning blend of old and new which has defined Disney’s recent revival. The second
part will focus on dealing with fans and critics, encouraging new talent, and most
important of all, ensuring that Disney Animation moves on from the scandals
which have undermined the reputation of the company.
(Note: This post contains spoilers for Frozen and Zootropolis...)
10 Things Jennifer Lee Needs to do as Chief Creative Officer - Part One
1. Focus on the Women
Lasseter’s resignation marks the third time Disney animation
has lost an all-powerful and consistently successful creative head. When Walt
Disney died in 1966 and Jeffrey Katzenberg was fired in 1994, Disney Animation
entered major creative slumps which left the studio under threat of becoming
irrelevant. Without Disney and Katzenberg, the studio lacked direction, and their
attempts to move away from the classic fairy tale formula merely alienated
their traditional audience. That said, Jennifer Lee has one key selling point
which should ensure she does not repeat that same mistake – most of us expect
her to take Disney Animation in a specific direction. It would be unwise (and
possibly sexist) to imply that the first female Chief Creative Officer at
Disney should focus entirely on female-led projects. However, Jennifer Lee is
in a great position to encourage the development of new female characters and
the emergence of new female writers and animators. In addition to Lee, women like
Pamela Ribbon and Lauren MacMullan have played significant roles in Disney
Animation’s recent hits, and it would be great if they were allowed to enjoy their
moment in the spotlight. Emphasising female talent should give Disney Animation
a clear vision and strategy under Lee, and this will make it easier to provide
exciting and appealing movies…
Lee should also build on the iconic status of Disney’s
existing library of female characters. Although adventure films with male leads
(like Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan and Wreck-It Ralph) will always be an integral
part of the Disney Animated canon, Disney’s princesses have usually been the
most important (and profitable) characters provided by the studio. In fact,
advertisements for Ralph Wrecks the Internet (Formerly Wreck It Ralph 2) have
extensively promoted a scene where we get to meet all the Disney Princesses
from Snow White to Moana. In 2012, the year the first Wreck-it Ralph movie was
released, Disney Princess toys had generated $3 billion worldwide. Today, this revenue
is probably far greater, and when you consider the sales for Frozen and Moana merchandise
(Anna, Elsa and Moana are not officially listed as Disney Princesses, but they
are considered part of this line-up by many fans) it becomes clear that Disney’s
female leads are a total merchandising goldmine. For the most part, female
protagonists are still a relative rarity in animated movies, but the Disney Princesses
provide the most notable exception to this, as the most iconic and visible
female leads in the genre. However, Disney Animation do not need to rely
exclusively on one type of film. In addition to directing Frozen, Jennifer Lee
co-wrote the recent Disney smash Zootropolis. This movie traded the historical
fantasy of Disney Princess stories for a gritty modern setting, whilst keeping many
of the tropes which have defined these movies in the past decade (Strong female
lead, buddy adventure dynamic, self-referential humour, surprise villains). The
Revival-era approach of alternating between Princess stories and more modern
adventures has allowed Disney to provide their signature stories on a regular
basis whilst preventing them from getting too tedious. With experience working
on both types of tale, Jennifer Lee is well placed to continue balancing fairy
tale tradition with stories which take Disney Animation in a variety of new
directions, whilst maintaining the emphasis on strong female representation.
2. Start Trends, Don’t Follow Them
The failures of movies like The Black Cauldron and Treasure Planet illustrates the fact that Disney are usually not very good at following contemporary trends. It takes years to create an animated film, and a style popular and
relevant when production starts can become painfully dated by the time it is
released. The best way of demonstrating this is by examining the films which
Disney Animation were providing at the turn of the millennium. At the time,
animation studios were trying to make their movies more ‘adult’ and appeal to
the stereotypically masculine audience for action blockbusters. Although movies
like Titan AE and The Road to Eldorado underwhelmed at the Box Office, Disney persevered
regardless, and this led to the failures of Atlantis and Treasure Planet. It is
probably not a coincidence that Disney’s most successful movie of the early
2000’s was Lilo and Stitch, which did not adhere to this overly masculine
approach. This movie was boosted by a marketing campaign which inserted the destructive
alien Stitch into several recent Disney hits, paying tribute to the iconic
nature of movies such as Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin at a time when the
studio seemed to be turning its back on these.
Eventually, Disney Animation’s decision to defy conventions and create a new distinctive style would lead to their resurgence. During the
2000’s, the dominance of the Shrek movies led to numerous attempts to copy
their irreverent parodies of classic fairy tales. Initially, Disney wanted to
emulate them with a film called Rapunzel Unbraided, a modern and silly take on
the famous Brothers Grimm story Rapunzel. For this adaptation, a pair of
ordinary Americans would be sucked into the fairy tale after a witch turns
Rapunzel into a squirrel. However, Disney Animation eventually rejected this in
favour of Tangled, a straightforward and reasonably faithful (though still
comedic) adaptation of the well-known fairy tale. The success of Tangled proved
that it was possible to maintain the classic Disney style in the more cynical
modern age, and this inspired Disney Animation to establish the traditional but
also subversive new approach which would define the films of their ‘Revival’
period.
Following Disney’s dominance in the During the 1990s,
animation studios bent over backwards to copy the successful recipe of the
Disney Renaissance films. Films like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, Thumbelina,
Quest for Camelot and Anastasia aimed to emulate the assertive female leads,
colourful sidekicks, intimidating villains and catchy songs to varying degrees
of success. Though they have acquired large fandoms in recent years (Anastasia
has become a popular Broadway Musical, whilst Quest for Camelot gave us the
iconic Classical Crossover song ‘The Prayer’) these films were widely
criticised for their derivative nature. This contributed to fatigue with the
Disney Renaissance formula, which led to their movies falling out of fashion.
The films of Pixar and Dreamworks provided a clear alternative, but they soon
became overwhelmed by imitators as well. However, there is a greater diversity
today, with numerous rival studios having different styles. Some may specialise
in specific genres (comedy for Illumination, adventure for Dreamworks) or
specific forms of animation (the stop-motion of Laika) but they all ensure that
studios have a unique selling point with less need to chase trends. In this environment, it is necessary for
Jennifer Lee to preserve a distinctive approach whilst also updating it enough
to remain fresh and appealing.
3. Preserve Links to the Past
Disney have been most successful when drawing on their
reputation for providing magical and escapist fairy tales. When he took over at
Disney Animation, John Lasseter made no secret of the fact that he wanted to
return the studio to its roots. He greenlit The Princess and the Frog, the
first hand-drawn Disney film in half a decade and brought back several writers and animators who had left the studio or been forced out during the shift to
CGI. In an interview in 2009, he claimed that it was “ridiculous” to dismiss 2D
movies as old-fashioned and attributed their demise to “bad storytelling”, also
promising that Disney would return to releasing traditionally animated films on
a regular basis. Unfortunately, this did not occur and the experiment with
traditional animation formally ended in 2013, when numerous animators were laid off and Disney president Bob Iger announced that the studio were no longer creating any new hand-drawn films. However, many of the Disney veterans who
returned during this period, including Chris Buck, Ron Clements and John Musker,
stayed to work on the CGI films. Collaborating with newer directors and
screenwriters like Jennifer Lee, Don Hall and Chris Williams, they lent their experience
to the creation of megahits like Frozen and Moana. This encouraged the combination
of old storytelling and new ideas which allowed these films to be so popular.
Demands for hand-drawn animation have remained persistent,
but this classic form of filmmaking has failed to make much of an impact in an
era dominated by technological advances. After The Princess and the Frog
struggled in a competitive Winter 2009 season dominated by motion-capture 3D
epic Avatar, Disney Animation dropped the traditional 2D animated style (with
the exception of 2011’s widely overlooked Winnie the Pooh reboot), with the classic
Disney approach being applied to the stories rather than the techniques used to
create them. However, traditional animation has not been discarded entirely, as
the 2012 short Paperman received acclaim for its use of new technology to place
2D faces and items into a 3D environment, whilst Moana used traditional drawing
to depict Maui’s living tattoo Mini Maui. Today, traditional animation is
widely seen as being too old fashioned, with only smaller and more independent
studios such as Cartoon Saloon and GKIDS continuing to use it. However, the acclaim
they have earned has firmly proved that 2D films are now synonymous with high
quality and have entirely lost their reputation for mediocrity. If Jennifer Lee
wants to take a risk and increase Disney’s artistic credibility, then providing
one of two traditional animations to accompany the now-standard CGI movies would
be a good idea.
4. Take Risks
The movie which allowed Jennifer Lee to take power at Disney
Animation after just seven years with the studio was undoubtedly Frozen, which
is still the most successful Disney Animation film of all time. Frozen became
such a unique hit because it unafraid to take risks and subvert the traditional
template, with the traditional romantic certainties of Disney Princess films
being challenged and defied as Anna and Elsa’s relationship takes centre stage.
Although some Disney films (such as The Little Mermaid and Enchanted) had pointed
out the problems with 'True Loves Kiss' before, Frozen was the first to clearly demonstrate
that the bond between sisters is more powerful and important. One of the most
controversial twists in Frozen – and one of the twists most central to this message
- is the reveal that the seemingly friendly and supportive Prince Hans has
actually been a manipulative scheming villain for the whole movie. Regardless of
your opinions on the character and the way the twist is handled (It is probably
better in concept than in practise), you must admire Jennifer Lee for taking
such a provocative approach. ‘Prince Charming’ turning out to be a horrible
person or outright villain is hardly new in the fairy tale genre (see Into the
Woods and the Shrek sequels), but as those well-known examples are primarily
comedic, it is rare to see this trope played for both drama and shock value. Jennifer
Lee did not just dismantle the image of a nauseatingly perfect Prince Charming
who will solve all your problems, she actively dynamited it, and this is the sort
of bold attitude which should be encouraged from a studio which has become
synonymous with overly safe and sanitised fairy tales. Frozen’s bold and subversive
approach made it an iconic hit, but Jennifer Lee cannot continue recycling its winning
formula indefinitely. This is most apparent when you compare the acclaim the
film received to the considerably cooler reception given to the new Broadway
version, written (but not directed) by Lee. With the exception of some
structural and cosmetic changes, the Broadway adaptation of Frozen stays close to the
template of the film, but a narrative which was so bold and interesting in 2013
lost a lot of its spontaneity after almost half a decade. We have enjoyed Anna
and Elsa’s initial adventures enough times – now Lee needs to venture into
unknown territory, whether by giving Anna and Elsa new stories or creating new
heroes for audiences of all ages.
5. Provide Original Films
With Ralph Wrecks the Internet and Frozen 2, Disney Animation are trying to turn their recent hits into full franchises. However, focusing too much on a handful of iconic brands would be an unwise
approach. Pixar’s decline since 2010 has been heavily tied to their
overreliance on sequels. Most of these movies were very good (with the conspicuous exception of Cars 2), but Pixar were
previously known for their bold and innovative approach, so films set in a
familiar world with familiar characters inevitably seem like a downgrade most
of the time. This has also affected Disney Animation as well. Disney Animation
fans are anxious about sequels, in no small part due to the widely criticised
direct to video sequels to Disney Animation classics created by DisneyToon
studios between the mid 1990s to the mid 2000s (This group of movies ranges
from Bambi 2 to Brother Bear 2). Disney Animation themselves have not done many
sequels, but Ralph Wrecks the Internet and Frozen 2 mark the first time the
studio has done two sequels in consecutive years, and here have also been
rumours of a sequel to Zootropolis. The occasional sequel is not a problem, but
greenlighting several in quick succession whilst delaying and eventually cancelling the original animated project Gigantic has sent the message that
Disney Animation are actively prioritising sequels at the expense of new
projects. This approach is unnecessary, as Disney franchises can continue
outside of film, with Big Hero 6 and Tangled being turned into perfectly serviceable TV series. Therefore, Jennifer Lee should be free to focus on
greenlighting new work. In addition, she should consider resurrecting discarded
projects – After all, the decision to take long-gestating fairy tale films out
of development hell led to Tangled and Frozen…
The pivot towards sequels may have been encouraged by the
sense that Disney has already adapted the majority of children’s stories.
However, there are numerous fairy tales, myths and legends all over the world which
would be ideal for the studio, including several with strong and compelling
female leads. The Norwegian fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon
gender flips the archetypal fairy tale plot by depicting a girl going on an
adventure to rescue a prince from a villainous troll. The Six Swans features a
tenacious heroine who overcomes a variety of obstacles to free her brothers
from a curse. The Icelandic fairy tale The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnfoder subverts one of the most infamous fairy tale tropes by featuring a
loving and heroic stepmother as one of the protagonists. These three stories
alone could provide Disney Animation with at least 5 further years of success
and popularity, and this is before we consider thousands of other fairy tales
which have been told for centuries. There is no shortage of material to turn
into hit films, and Jennifer Lee needs to be open to greenlighting new films
and new ideas to take advantage of this. In the statement she made when her new
role was confirmed, Lee stated that “telling original stories” was one of her primary
aims. Hopefully, these stories will build on Disney Animation’s past hits, allowing
the studio to evolve and provide entertainment which can resonate with today’s
audiences whilst also inspiring and enchanting future generations.
(Part Two of this Article Will Follow Soon...)
