Send in the Mouse: How American Politicians Used Walt Disney Productions to Safeguard the American Home Front in WWII

Despite the success of Disney’s first full length featured film Snow White in 1937[1], the animators’ strike of the late 1930s and the war in Europe cutting of international profits brought the Walt Disney Company was near bankruptcy by 1941. Walt Disney was faced with the possibility of closing down his studio. However, the entrance of the United States into WWII and the rising threat of the spread of Nazism became the saving grace to the Walt Disney Studio. This essay explores the collaborations between Disney, businessman and politician Nelson Rockefeller, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1940s. Through the examination of Disney’s time in South America, and his propaganda campaigns in the United States, correlations can be draw between the work of Disney, and the fulfillment of American political agendas of the Roosevelt administration. This essay will examine how political agendas can be fulfilled through the use of cultural icons rather than holding a military or political presence in both foreign and domestic affairs. [1]Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 295