The struggle against nostalgia and the decline of animation

Films work best when they derive from the depths of the director's imagination. Films have the unique power of visually transporting audiences to other worlds. I view animation to be film in its purest form. There is no other visual medium that is as limitless as animation. An animator is not bound to the restraints of the real world, and creativity can be set free. 

Animation is true “movie magic,” and no company is more representative of this than the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney famously pioneered the industry by making the first animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. This artistic marvel changed the film industry forever. Disney has since built a brand on selling magical, animated stories with deep, emotional cores. 

Talking lions may entertain you as a child, but the humanity and emotion within these lions keep you coming back. Disney truly did understand the power of animation. 

The key word is “did,” as those days are behind us. 

With the emergence of “live-action remakes,” Disney has begun to sell brands over stories, valuing marketing more than artistic vision and animation.

With the fascination of remakes, we have lost our way artistically and started our descent into the depths of the cultural abyss surrounded by a self-referential generation who lacks their own unique identity.  

I’m sure many of you have seen one of Disney’s remakes—it’s a business of theirs that has grown over the years. This year, we have three new Disney remakes releasing: “Lilo and Stitch,” “Moana,” and “Snow White.” 

I find the “Snow White” release to be the most interesting of the three, especially when juxtaposed with its release in 1937—a film that was considered a gamble by most at the time. Walt Disney originally made the film with the artistic vision that it was revolutionary for animation. It was this idea of innovation that led audiences to adore this film and is a pivotal part of its success. 

The re-release is not revolutionary in the slightest, and it’s quite the contrary. A formulaic copy of the original, selling itself to you based on you adoring the original. The saddest part of this is that it works. It has proven to be a very beneficial business model, and removing the creative process from your production does wonders for your budget. 

To see this decline in creativity has been unfortunate, to say the least. An art form built on imagination and innovation, destroyed in the name of corporate greed. The greatest example of this is Disney’s live-action, “The Lion King.”  

“The Lion King” is one of Disney’s most beloved stories and has remained a cultural phenomenon since its release in 1994. It was only right to release a remake in 2019. Just saying that I find the depiction of this remake as a “live-action” is comical. This entire movie is still animated, only it’s in a less fun and interesting way. This movie makes zero sense to me. Getting rid of the drawn animation for a hyper-realistic style that removes expression and humanity from its animal characters was interesting. 

The sets are less engaging, the musical scenes lack the excitement of the original, and simply put, it is not better than the 1994 version. Disney understands this and has no intent of making it better than the original. They saw the movie as a money-making machine, not needing the artistic vision of the original, and they were correct. 

From a monetary perspective, this was a hit and remains one of Disney’s highest-grossing movies of all time. I remember hearing of this movie's success and feeling just as hopeless as Simba felt leaving Pride Rock. Mufasa was just thrown off the cliff by Scar (spoiler, sorry), but this time, it was Disney throwing its artists to the wildebeests.  

This all falls into a larger relationship between my generation and pop culture: nothing is ours. Most of the art Gen-Z consumes is derived from previous generations. Films, shoes, and even the Grimace craze are all redistributions from previous artistic visions. There is a lack of artistic innovation, and in its place, nostalgia has taken over. Nostalgia is great and all, but we cannot consume it as art. If we are to do this, where will our nostalgia come from? I want to have the same relationship with art that my parents have with the art made in their childhoods in the 1980s. 

At the moment, this seems like a daunting task. I cannot show my kid's remakes and have that positive relationship with art as my parents did before me. For this to be accomplished, we need to have a more mindful consumption of media. This is even more important in the age of AI; art is a humanistic process, and the exploitation of technology is shameful and unethical. We cannot remain complacent during the dilution of the artistic process. An artistic revolution similar to the one started by Disney in 1937 starts with us.  

I understand I have been somewhat negative throughout this piece, and I wanted to end on a positive note. Things are looking down for art, but there is still hope. While corporations remain complacent during the unraveling of creativity, we can be a part of the change in media consumption. 

There is a spark of creativity in all of us, and I encourage all of you to ignite that. While technology has taken a toll on creativity, it can also be helpful in the distribution of your creativity. The only way to inspire future artists is to create engaging art for them. This process is very circular, and it requires our engagement.

I brought up the point earlier that in culture, nothing belongs to my generation. Go out there and change that, use social media as a tool to create what you want. Let your creativity run free on these apps, and who knows, maybe your spark could light the fire for the next artistic revolution.  

Myles Goodreau is a writer for The Setonian’s Opinion section. He can be reached at myles.goodreau@student.shu.edu.