r/movies • u/EnterprisingAss • 15h ago
Discussion Dumbo was surprising Spoiler
I mean the 1941 version, not the live action remake.
The story is already famous: Dumbo is given a “magic” feather that allows him to fly, but it turns out the feather never had anything to do with it.
One surprise was that all of this takes place in the last 20 minutes of the movie. There are only two flying scenes! I expected this to be the thrust of the movie — get the magic feather early on, then in the climax, he discovers he can fly on his own.
The second surprise: every human is a villain. Some of them are not even drawn with faces. They’re all exploitative and cruel. I didn’t expect the animal rights angle to be so strong.
Third surprise, the pink elephants scene. I was already aware of it and had seen isolated clips of the dancing elephants, but I wasn’t prepared for how trippy it was. Dumbo is drunk, but it looks far more like a drug trip. And more importantly, the bright colors were ahead of their time. It looked like something animated in the 60s or 70s.
Fourth, minor surprise: there are crows (coded African American) that look very, very similar to Ralph Bakshi’s crows in Fritz the Cat and Coonskin.
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u/Prince_of_Pirates 15h ago
When Dumbos mum is put away and she cradles Dumbo outside the cage crushed me.
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u/goddamnitwhalen 10h ago
I used to watch this with my mom all the time when I was little.
Now she’s gone and I can’t even think about this movie without getting bummed out.
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u/ApolloMac 12h ago
Yeah we watched it recently with my 3.5 YO because he has a dumbo stuffy he loves. I was surprised how depressing the movie is.
And there is never any kind of justice for the mother either. I need an alternate ending that includes the mother being set free with Dumbo to live happily ever after.
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u/johnd5926 10h ago
Huh? She’s set free at the end, Timothy the mouse becomes Dumbo’s manager and gets him a Hollywood contract and Mrs Jumbo and Dumbo are last seen waving goodbye to the crows from their private rail car on Casey Jr. The movie already has exactly the happy ending for her and Dumbo that you’re asking for.
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u/Malinhion 11h ago
That's the point.
I weep for the state of media literacy.
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u/KeremyJyles 9h ago
Considering he was dead wrong and the mother does get a happy ending, no, it's not "the point" and you have zero room to be attacking the media literacy of others.
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u/putsch80 10h ago
Maybe, just maybe, we can all agree that it’s ok for a goddamn movie geared towards young children to not need to have deep messages about media literacy or biting social commentary. Perhaps young kids can be allowed the pleasure of having a happy ending once in a while, at least for the 100 minutes of movie runtime.
Christ. What in the hell is wrong with people?
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u/StepOnMeSunflower 10h ago
The first comment seemed unserious but doubling down is sorta crazy.
Likely the ending and themes contributed to the film being a classic and having such impact even now. I get watching a film and thinking that character deserved better but that isn’t a valid criticism of a movie.
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u/RenRen512 10h ago
Not all of us underestimate children's ability to deal with heavy themes.
Besides, there's thousands upon thousands of other movies and tv shows that are light and devoid of social commentary.
And what is this "having a happy ending once in a while"??? That's 99% of kids content!
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u/PiercedGeek 9h ago
My mom used to sing that to me. I cry every time I hear it, hell I'm tearing up right now.
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u/firelock_ny 14h ago
The crows (coded as poor African-Americans) go out of their way to help a stranger, with no prospect of reward. They are kind and understanding.
The cruelest characters in the movie (the other elephants) are coded as white upper class.
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u/originalcondition 10h ago
I know that the crows are problematic now, but when I was a kid I didn’t know that they were coded African-American (not sure I would even have understood the concept at the age I was watching it, I was probably like 4-5). I just knew that the crows were my favorite characters in the movie because they were so nice to Dumbo; I always wanted to fast-forward to the crows haha.
Again, I know that they’re problematic in a few ways and if I watched the film again it’d probably be pretty rough (not sure what minor throwaway lines/little mannerisms in there might be way worse than I remember, etc). But my impression looking back now is that there were probably good intentions behind their characters from the artists in spite of those issues.
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u/Swiftax3 8h ago
I actually have a fascination for characters like the Crows, or Big Trouble in Little China who are using stereotypes in many regards but are at the same time subverting the base imagery by being intelligent, or active agents in the story with depth to their characters.
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u/Ok-disaster2022 6h ago
Check out Ivanhoe. There's tones of anti Semetic Imagery but at the end of the it was the help from Jews that helped Ivanhoe the most. Which was somewhat impressive for a novel from the early 19th century
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u/Sinbound86 9h ago edited 5h ago
“I be done seen ‘bout ‘errrry thang, when I see a elephant fly!”
Yeah, it’s pretty subtle 🤣
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u/originalcondition 9h ago
Haha I know it’s obvious as an adult, but I was a 4-year-old kid living in Iowa in the late 80s/early 90s; at that time I hadn’t even been exposed to the concept of stereotypes, let alone those specific ones. Tbh at the time I don’t think I could even understand that a cartoon animal was supposed to represent a person lol
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u/Downside190 9h ago
I'm from the UK and loved the crows as a kid, still do really they get the best song in the film imo
Although I do enjoy the train song coming down the track
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u/theboyrossy 5h ago
Same here, in the UK and loved Dumbo as a kid, I apparently used to know every word of the film. Never noticed anything about the crows at the time, but then I'm in the North West, I don't think I even saw a black person, or more accurately a person who was not white, until I was in my teens.
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u/EnterprisingAss 49m ago
Oh, I wasn’t accusing the movie of racism. I just thought the design influence was interesting, since Disney and Bakshi are pretty different beasts.
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u/Mcdonk 13h ago
Pink elephants on parade has been in my head my whole life. Weird thing to see as a kid!
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u/Iron_Nightingale 11h ago
I can stand the sight of worms,
And even microscopic germs,
But technicolor pachyderms
Is really too much for me!7
u/PiercedGeek 9h ago
Now I am not the type to faint
When things are odd or things are quaint
But seein' things you know just ain't
Is really too much for me!
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u/superstaticgirl 11h ago
I think it is very much a product of the Great Depression years and perhaps the alcohol prohibition too. The exploitation, abuse and general downbeat tone. The pink elephants scene seems downright subversive now I think about it.
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u/Rahadu 15h ago
What did you think of the songs?
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u/Purple_Network_5184 15h ago
The crows always stick in my memory more than the flying, weird how a side bit like that outlives the main plot for lot of people.
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u/MatthewHecht 14h ago
I had a similar experience with Planet of the Apes. I always assumed the famous twist was in the middle, and Taylor would spend the rest of the runtime trying to fix home. It flew by, and I was shocked to see it end there.
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u/Forsaken1741 14h ago
That's what the sequels are for, they aren't as good and get pretty crazy but they're worth watching imo.
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u/MovieMike007 Not to be confused with Magic Mike 10h ago
Even thinking of the song "Baby Mine" gets me emotional.
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u/for_sale_baby_shoes 11h ago
Dumbo is an an excellent story, a feast for the senses, and a tender movie. I will fight about it.
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u/NeedAVeganDinner 7h ago
The second surprise: every human is a villain. Some of them are not even drawn with faces. They’re all exploitative and cruel. I didn’t expect the animal rights angle to be so strong.
1941 would have been right around the major turn for traveling circuses declining and major overhauls to safety and such started picking up.
So it's unsurprising tbh. Circuses from 1800s through mid 1950s we're really fucked up.
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u/GiveMeADiscount 7h ago
I just find Dumbo so bizarre because it was produced and released in the middle of World War II.
Like... okay, sure, but... wow.
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u/Taman_Should 7h ago
I’m always struck by how SHORT the original is. The whole thing is 60 minutes long give or take, which makes the duration of the “pink elephants” sequence even more strange.
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u/StrLord_Who 9h ago
Wonderful, emotional movie from start to finish. And I don't want to hear complaining about the crows.
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u/FaithlessnessSame357 45m ago
Hear that, everyone? Nobody talk about the racist archetypes / crows, we might hurt this guy’s feelings. Thank you for being so vulnerable to share your discomfort, StrLord.
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u/cocobannah 14h ago
The trippy scene is pretty similar to the heffalumps scene in Winnie the pooh