Before this class, I had never read Beatrix Potter. So while reading Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit, I noticed a number of similarities to Disney, which I did grow up reading and watching. It appears Disney took many cues from Potter for the characters that it has created for its various fairytales. Here are a few examples:
Mama Rabbit’s blue dress and white apron looks a lot like like Alice’s from Alice in Wonderland.
Like Mama Rabbit, Snow White cooks on the same kind of apparatus for those who are under her care.
Peter and Snow White both communicate with woodland creatures.
Peter and Cinderella both communicate with mice- well the mouse wasn’t all that communicative with Peter.
Also like Peter, Cinderella left her shoe behind.
Some of these examples may just be coincidences, but it looks like Disney took a lot of inspiration from Potter. To me, it feels like these things are more associated with Disney than they are with Potter. Disney made things like the Alice’s dress and Cinderella leaving her shoe more iconic. This begs the question, did Disney pay homage to Potter with some of these illustrations, or did Disney plagiarize Potter?
Hi Neema,
I really like the side-by-side images you have included in this post. You’ve raised an interesting question too – did Disney plagiarize Potter? From the very little biographical knowledge that I have about Disney, I am going to give m uneducated response of “no, I don’t think so.” Personified animals, domestic life with open big warm fires, and women in aprons are details that show up again and again in fairytales, fables, and tall-tales alike. I would say that both Potter and Disney are pulling inspiration from the stories they read as children, and child psychology. Kids like the familiar so to do that we need to show them their mothers (apron), their homes (kitchens), and their friends (animals).
That’s an interesting point that you bring up about child psychology! I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing.
Neema – I love this post, as Laura did too.
I think I agree with Laura that Disney did not plagiarize from Potter, but rather implemented classic elements of children’s literature. However, I love considering the similarities. It is crazy to take stories that from afar seem so broadly different, and boil them down to roots that interconnect them with zillions of other stories.
Yeah it was a lot of fun looking for the small similarities and comparing them.