Lucy Knight claims “Walt Disney made Bambi a cutesy schmaltzfest for youths” (Gunned down and burned by the Nazis: the shocking true story of Bambi, 21 March), perpetuating the misunderstanding that early Disney productions had been made for kids. The concept of a separate youngsters’s viewers didn’t exist in 1942, when Disney’s Bambi appeared and – like its predecessors Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Dumbo – terrified many children accompanying their mother and father. Beatrice Ruben and I interviewed a few of these for our BBC radio programme Where Were You When Bambi’s Mother Was Shot? in 2002 (repeated in 2022), confirming that the movie was genuinely traumatic when seen on a cinema display in darkness. Actually Disney modified its supply materials for all of the early options, however the artistry and influence of those shouldn’t be forgotten in an period once they’re not often seen as cinema options, and Disney has certainly turn into a byword for cutesy schmaltz.
Prof Ian Christie
Birkbeck, College of London
