What a fantastic and delightful read! A must for fans of animation, Disney, and women's history. As a huge fan of all three, I couldn't get enough. I devoured this enchanting treasure trove as much as any good Disney animated film.
'The Queens of Animation' by Nathalia Holt is jam-packed with information about the women who worked at Walt Disney Studios from its inception, and even before that. It is told chronologically and in an addictive, narrative flow. Aside from a few loose ends from jumping from one female animator/inbetweener's life and influence to another in the same chapter, I didn't spot a single grammatical error in the whole book. I was never taken out of this fascinating education.
The majority of it does extensively cover the making of the Disney flicks from Walt's lifetime, though; but the researched facts are still important to know about.
Walt Disney films and shorts, and their legacy, have A LOT to thank women for. It is not just in 'Brave', 'Wreck-It-Ralph', 'Frozen', 'Zootopia', and 'Moana'; practically every Disney film since 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' in 1937 has had a woman artist's and writer's touch - and not only in the Ink and Paint department (which sounds disturbingly like a sweatshop to me). It is their impact, criminally underappreciated and uncredited as it is, that Disney owes much of its success to. Women created beautiful, magical scenes, and gave Disney Princesses strong personalities.
You learn so many things about animation and advanced technology and techniques over the years in 'The Queens of Animation' as well. Grace Huntington was an aviator pilot, too, so there are other fields included to teach readers.
Holt is absolutely not shy about revealing the difficulties these brilliant, ambitious women faced in daring to try to break the glass ceiling and the boys' club mentality. She does not gloss over the childish cruelty that was directed at them, the workplace harassment (in 1937 the men at the Disney story department literally chased a lone female employee, Bianca Majolie, out of a board meeting and meticulously broke down her office door just to yell abuse at her while she hunched over and cried, fearing for her life. Yeah, Walt, this is not that women can't take "a little criticism" - this is a witch hunt), and domestic violence and abuse.
Holt is also critical of any racist depictions in Disney films of the past and the present. She doesn't cover everything, but it's enough for one book.
Despite the tragedy, there is a little magic, a catharsis, in the book; a little faith, trust and pixie dust, and a spoonful of sugar to go a long way. There is hope. Hope that things will be better. Made profoundly possible now that Holt has written 'The Queens of Animation'.
Women have always been around in every field. They have always been passionate, creative and talented. They are not going anywhere.
After reading 'The Queens of Animation', you will remember the names Bianca Majolie, Mary Robinson-Blair, Retta Scott, Grace Huntington, Sylvia Moberly-Holland, Dorothy Anne Blank, Hazel Sewell, Gyo Fujikawa, Thelma Witmer, Mary Goodrich, Ethel Kulsar, Elizabeth Case Zwicker, Barbara Wirth Baldwin, Mary Louise Weiser, Mildred Fulvia di Rossi, Rita Hsiao, Heidi Guedel, Carmen Sanderson, Sammie June Lanham, Evelyn Kennedy, Kazuko Nakamura and Reiko Okuyama (the "mothers of anime"), Ellen Woodbury, Brenda Chapman, Linda Woolverton, Jennifer Lee, and Prasansook "Fawn" Veerasunthorn. As well as Hollywood colour director Natalie Kalmus, and male Asian-American artist-animator Tyrus Wong. The friendships the women formed together, both within and outside the hostile male work environment, are also a satisfying joy to read about (Walt, although he became much more progressive overtime, probably didn't know the irony of naming his top animation team "the Nine Old Men").
These women made your childhood great, and will keep doing it, now that there are more women working in animation than ever before, and are receiving the deserved credit and recognition for it. It still isn't enough, but we are getting there.
Thanks again, Nathalia Holt!
Final Score: 4.5/5
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