Mary Blair, doyenne of Disneyland

The Walt Disney Company has for years now flailed against the onslaughts of the endless, boring culture wars. It’s responded in a myriad of ways but one of the strangest is by erasing bits and pieces of its own history in a curiously jerky, ad hoc fashion. Although Disney+ hosts the vile Peter Pan, whose racist song “What Made the Red Man Red?” makes Dances with Wolves seem woke, the site refuses to stream the obscure 1946 animated film Make Mine Music. The film includes inappropriate gunfire and Nelson Eddy singing the minstrel song “Shortnin’ Bread,” but it’s far less violent than The Mandalorian and way less racist than Dumbo’s crows. And by deplatforming Make Mine Music, Disney is hiding some of the finest work of one of old Hollywood’s most influential female artists: Mary Blair.

If you don’t know Blair’s name, you know her work. She worked behind the scenes as a conceptual artist at the Disney Studios intermittently from 1940 to Walt’s death in 1966, establishing the color schemes, shapes and style that defined Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and other classic films that inspired everyone from anime legend Hayao Miyazaki to Pixar’s top directors. As Pixar executive Pete Docter told Blair’s niece, Jeanne Chamberlain, “At Pixar, if we’re stumped about something, we say, ‘Well, what would Mary do?’” Don’t believe him? Just look at Sally Carrera from 2006’s Cars, who looks nearly identical to Blair’s design for the living, breathing vehicle in 1952’s Susie the Little Blue Coupe, or the flat, 2-D opening credits for 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which resemble Blair’s concept drawings for both Make Mine Music and the Donald Duck vehicle The Three Caballeros.

[This is a lengthy and fascinating read. At its heart is a lesson about the Bowdlerization of art and literature, and both its intended and unintended consequences. So be sure to read to the end, especially the final paragraph. — Ed]