Bitter Satire: Alice in Wonderland DVD:
Disney tries to turn a bitter satire into a fantasy escape movie that you could watch on a cold, cold day in winter. But even Disney can’t erase the incidents in the story that were put there by Lewis Carroll. When the Mad hatter wants to have a tea party on the ceiling it shows that he has no respect for Victorian mores. When the Rabbit dashes past Alice saying, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” Disney can’t change the satiric reference to the so-called established order of Victorian society where every respectable person is supposed to be somewhere on time. The Queen of Hearts is perhaps the most satiric figure. Someone who yells, “Off with their heads!” has no place in a Disney film, which at that point turns into a dark nightmare as the cards chase Alice and her friends until Alice finally wakes up and finds herself back home. The nightmare quality of the ending shows what seamy depths lay under the facade of calm and order of mid-nineteenth century society in Great Britain.[[ASIN:0141197307 Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: With Artwork by Yayoi Kusama (Penguin Classics)]]
Disney tries to turn a bitter satire into a fantasy escape movie that you could watch on a cold, cold day in winter. But even Disney can’t erase the incidents in the story that were put there by Lewis Carroll. When the Mad hatter wants to have a tea party on the ceiling it shows that he has no respect for Victorian mores. When the Rabbit dashes past Alice saying, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” Disney can’t change the satiric reference to the so-called established order of Victorian society where every respectable person is supposed to be somewhere on time. The Queen of Hearts is perhaps the most satiric figure. Someone who yells, “Off with their heads!” has no place in a Disney film, which at that point turns into a dark nightmare as the cards chase Alice and her friends until Alice finally wakes up and finds herself back home. The nightmare quality of the ending shows what seamy depths lay under the facade of calm and order of mid-nineteenth century society in Great Britain.[[ASIN:0141197307 Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: With Artwork by Yayoi Kusama (Penguin Classics)]]