Peter Pan is the Disney animated adaptation of the classic childrens' story. Released in 1953, in the golden age of Disney animated classics, it's a gorgeously drawn tale of adventure that's sure to captivate children, while keeping adults interested. (Though more on a meta-level of analysis than with the simplistic, rather trite story and characters.)
Scores, then some comments.
Peter Pan, 1953
Script/Story: 5
Characters/Performances: 6
Action: 6
Eye Candy: 8
Fun Factor: 7
Replayability: 5
Overall: 6.5
The film is fairly light on story, and comes packed with numerous weird inconsistencies in tone and age appropriateness. Most of it is very childish, and I was yawning through a lot of the stupid and wildly-violent pirate antics, the squabbling between the Lost Boys, the incredibly racist Indian singing and dancing (the single most racial/stereotypical scene I've yet noticed in any of these Disney classics), and most of the Darling (that's their surname) family stuff in London. Mixed in with that are some quite interesting and adult meditations on maturity and adult behavior/responsibilities, and the ways adolescents can interact on a semi-peer basis with younger children. None of which I grasped when I first (and last) saw this at about age 9, but all of which interested me watching it again as an adult.
A few of the scenes of violence/adventure are actually pretty shocking, in these days of desanguinated cartoons. Not that there's any blood or damaging violence in the film, at least not onscreen, but that's certainly not for lack of effort. The casually murderous nature of the pirates is amazing. They make constant threats of murder, put nooses around necks and swords to throats (at the same time), threaten to lash and whip and keelhaul each other, hurl dozens of knives with lethal intent at Captain Hook's ass-kissing first mate Mr. Smee, and that's without even mentioning the brutality they inflict upon Peter Pan's merry band of eight year old children. They're
far more dangerous and mutinous and violent than any of the crews in the
Pirates of the Caribbean films.
The scenes with Peter Pan and Captain Hook are tonally weird also. Peter plays them in a playful, jovial way, taking nothing serious and not trying to injure his opponent. At the same time, Hook is out of his mind. He's murderous, clearly wanting cut the little green boy in half, and he tries to do so at every opportunity, with swords, cannonballs, his hook, drowning, and even a bomb. The good Captain is not without justification in his actions, since it's mentioned early in the film that Peter cut off his hand and threw it to the crocodile. That's fairly dark, eh? Better yet, the hand was such a succulent morsel that the Crocodile, which possesses a semi-human intellect sufficient for determined stalking of its prey, has been following Hook ever since, salivating at the prospect of eating the rest of him. The hunting crocodile is played for laughs in the film, but Hook's horror at the prospect, which nearly occurs multiple times, is very real. And quite understandable.
There's a scene midway through the film when Hook and Peter fight near Skull Rock. At the end of the fight the crocodile appears and starts trying to eat Hook, and it's played for laughs, but it's fucking scary. This massive, 5 or 6 meter crocodile with a malevolent intellect is launching itself entirely out of the water and nearly biting Hook in half. It rips off his pants, it bites off his boot, and he keeps winding up standing in its mouth, his legs in a split as he fights against the animal's crushing jaws. He gets completely swallowed a number of times, yet keeps bursting back out, all the while screaming in terror and dodging the next bite by the narrowest of margins.
I think it's supposed to be funny, Peter Pan is laughing hysterically the entire time, but it's quite unsettling, with the mixture of animal ferocity and violence. Clearly Hook was killed about 5x during the encounter, and he should have had his arms and legs torn bloodily from his torso. He didn't actually suffer any damage other than ripped clothing, but that felt like a cheat to me, and the whole scene was much more horror than humor. It's actually fairly sadistic, expecting the audience to take pleasure and delight in the torture of the man, but that's just another example of the weird dichotomy between childish humor and adult themes that pervades the picture.
Childishness, Adolescence, and Maturity The level of maturity of various characters is another odd thing. The Darling father is a blustering, cartoonish fool of a man-child. Racing around in a panic, making one foolishly rash outburst after another before lapsing into pseudo-wise melancholy forgiveness; he's something of a prototype for the idiot father figure that modern sitcoms have so thoroughly deconstructed.
Peter is quote intentionally a boy as well. Not a young man, not even a teenager. That's where his magic stems from, his refusal to grow up, and while he never consciously faces any "turn back from impending maturity/mortality" moments, he exists as a bright, impetuous, 12 year old of the pre-Mtv era. He doesn't know what kissing is, he is oblivious to the efforts of the mermaids to flirt with him, and he's not interested in booze or strategy or holding grudges. He doesn't think girls are icky, as a younger boy might, but he's got zero thoughts of a sexual nature. He regards girls as prettier, softer boys who need to be protected, but more as a matter of course than as a way to earn sensual rewards. He just wants to play and have fun with other boys, and while he enjoys besting his enemies, he regards them as objects of play. Which makes for something of a weird juxtaposition, when they're so clearly motivated by hatred and a desire for murder in their interactions with him.
Wendy is about Peter's age; just about to turn 13, but she's years more mature. She realizes that the pirates are mortal enemies and sees the danger Peter is in. She's also conscious of herself as a sexual being, and while she's playful and indulgent with her younger brothers, and motherly to the Lost Boys, she's also got some appreciation of the fact that older men might see her differently than boys do. She's always careful to retain her modest while climbing or flying, holding down her night gown so her shapely legs are not exposed above the knee, and she's starting to see other women, the mermaids, Tiger Lily, as threats, as challenges to her special status in Peter's eyes.
Tinkerbell That stuff was all well and good, and gave me something to think about during the childish, fairly-plotless film. The thing that most surprised me though, was the character of Tinkerbell. I remembered her as a cute little fairy, dripping pixie dust and helping Peter and the Lost Boys. She's become something of a mascot in the years since
Peter Pan, darting around the Disney logo, creating fireworks with her wand, appearing on countless items of merchandise themed for six year old girls, etc.
With those thoughts in my head, I was surprised to see her portral in the film as.... a total sex object! I shit you not. She's got an adult woman's body with an oversized head, huge eyes, and pouty, kissable lips. Very Betty Boop in her styling, though not so exaggerated in the proportions. She wears a ridiculously short skirt over tan panties that are constantly on display, she's got an impossibly narrow waist over hourglass'ing hips, and long, shapely legs with size -2 tiny feet.
More than her body though, it's her posturing and posing, and the positions the animators throw her into, that make her work on an entirely different level for men than for the children this film is allegedly designed for. She doesn't speak, but that just makes her more flirty and pouty. She often ends up sitting flat on her ass with her legs splayed out and a sulky look on her face, doing a very naught schoolgirl thing. When she flies or dings something with her wand, she usually bends at the waist while arching her back while keeping her legs straight, thus poking her butt out in a prominent mating pose.
It's not like her sexiness sneaks up on you either. The collage below is taken from the first couple of minutes of Peter's entrance into the Darling nursery, and I could have put in 15 more shots from other scenes of a similarly revealing nature. She gets stuck in a drawer and does the ass pounding thing against the keyhole, she falls over into the missionary position, she sits on a block and lifts one thigh up high, she falls over and kicks like a Rockette, etc. It's more or less relentless, and it's clearly intentional, by the animators. She could have fallen sideways, or with something blocking the view of her crotch, or they could have kept her skirt obscuring the view, etc.
All through the movie she winds up in the same poses, and they gave her a very feral, willful nature as well. She's always at one emotional extreme or another; jealous, angry, satiated, overjoyed, horrified, etc. Very id, and always throwing herself into the emotions with willful abandon, like a naughty little vixen that needs to be tamed. She gets imprisoned numerous times, has no ability to preserve her personal space, is constantly grabbed and shaken upside down, or spanked, or otherwise manhandled. Literally.
It wasn't exactly sexy to me, but it was clear that it could be taken that way, and that seemed very weird in the middle of a film that was in most other ways written at about a ten year old boy's level. The concept of
sexy fairies has gotten very popular in recent years, with all of those new age and/or
goth style greeting cards and mascots and such. I thought those were sexualized versions of Tinkerbell's legacy; the original innocent and wholesome fairy slutted up. Having seen the original Peter Pan, I now realize that those apples haven't fallen far from the tree. In fact they might still be on the tree; they're just wearing more black and better makeup.
Overall Peter Pan was a much better film than I expected, after not seeing it in 25 years. Great animation, memorable characters, excellent action scenes, and fairly good music, after the awful, overblown orchestral chorus that opens (and closes) all of the Disney movies from this period. The problems that keep it from earning a higher score come from the uneven, fits and starts of the plot, and the schizophrenic tone and mood, with so many discordant elements of comedy, horror, and the adult vs. childish nature of events.
Labels: disney, movie review
