From the various television and filmic depictions of Hercules to movie adaptations of the Percy Jackson young adult novels, representations of Greek deities and mythology have been an important staple of pop culture. Sometimes this is in the form direct adaptation, other times it is homage or reinterpreting characters or other elements of the lore. Regardless, the inspiration from these myths and deities is ever present and analysis and study of such usage in different media is quite manifest.
There is one line of media though that has not quite had such a reconsideration in regards to its incorporation of Greek mythology, and that is the Silly Symphonies series of cartoons from the early years of Disney. The Silly Symphonies were a line of seventy-five cartoons that were produced from 1929 to 1939 and made outside of Disney’s Mickey Mouse canon. The cartoons provided an avenue for Disney artists and writers to experiment with images and music and to try new animation techniques. Early entries in the Silly Symphonies line were mostly narrative free, with an emphasis on atmosphere and music with singing and dancing animals or anthropomorphic objects. As time went on, the Symphonies got more complex, adding narratives culled from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, story books, and Greek mythology.
There are five entries in the Silly Symphonies run that either retell or incorporate elements of Greek mythological antiquity: “Hells Bells” (1929), “Playful Pan” (1930), “King Neptune” (1932), “The Goddess of Spring” (1934), and “The Golden Touch” (1935). The first, “Hells Bells,” takes place in a Christian-centic version of the Underworld, in which the three-headed dog Cerberus makes an appearance. The villain of this short is a variation of a devil character who revels in feeding his imps to Cerberus. His downfall comes at the short’s end: while in pursuit of one of his imps, he is tricked into falling off a cliff and into a ravine of flames. The second, “Playful Pan,” begins with the nature god Pan manifesting in a forest, playing his pipe to the area’s flora and fauna. Two dancing clouds accidentally discharge a bolt of lightning, which starts a forest fire. Pan uses his pipe playing to coerce the dancing flames into a forest pond, though much of the forest has been destroyed. “King Neptune” centers on pirates who spy mermaids playing on rock outcroppings. In their lust, they kidnap one of the mermaids, which causes retaliation from all sorts of aquatic life. King Neptune, who spends the bulk of the short incapacitated by being tied up by the pirate ship’s anchor and chain, breaks free and commands the sea to batter the ship. He gleefully jumps on the ship, sinking it. The mermaids proceed to adorn themselves with the pirates’ loot. “The Golden Touch” is a retelling of the Greek myth of King Midas, with an altered setting of the Middle Ages, though Midas anachronistically consumes a hamburger at the cartoon’s conclusion. Midas is gifted with the golden touch by a gnome named Goldie, but soon discovers he cannot eat or drink because of this ability. He offers up everything he owns to be rid of the Golden Touch.
In addition, there are also four Silly Symphonies that retell a few of Aesop’s fables: “Grasshopper and the Ants” (1934), “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1934), “Three Little Wolves” (1936), which contains elements of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and “The Country Cousin” (1936) which is adapted from “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.” However, these Silly Symphonies fall outside the scope of this essay.
Of greatest concern, in regard to its depiction of Greek mythology, is the Silly Symphony “The Goddess of Spring.” This short is an extremely condensed version of the myth of Hades (referred to as Pluto in the various paratexts for this cartoon and thus go forward in this essay) and Persephone. It begins with Persephone sitting on her cornucopia throne as various forest creatures, flowers, and elves dance about her. Soon the sky darkens and a small hill erupts into a pillar of fire as Pluto and his entourage of imps burst up through the ground and absconds with Persephone back to Hades. Pluto places Persephone onto a throne and crowns her his Queen as the populace of Hades sing and dance. Above ground, the world of eternal spring has now given way to winter, with the forest animals huddling for warmth and the elves longing for Persephone to return. Back in Hades, Pluto attempts to make the sullen Persephone happy by offering her riches. When this does not work, he asks her what it would take to make her happy. She replies that her desire is to return back to the upper world. He agrees, on the condition that she must spend half of the year in Hades and the remainder of the year in the upper world. Persephone is over joyed at the compromise and returns to the upper world, which blooms back into spring. The outro song elaborates how the nature of spring and winter came to be.
When it comes to Silly Symphonies, “The Goddess of Spring” is not as regarded, revered or analyzed as other entries in the series, especially when compared to “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), “Three Little Pigs” (1933), and “The Old Mill” (1937). What interest is expressed about “The Goddess of Spring” is usually confined to it being a proving ground to capture realism and to create believable animated characters in anticipation for Disney’s first feature length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, David Hand).1 During this time, in order to improve on their cartoons, artists at Disney had taken to studying models2 along with lessons in anatomy.3 In “The Goddess of Spring,” animator Les Clark’s sister Marceil acted as the model for Persephone.4 The end result of “The Goddess of Spring” was perceived as a failure,5 with Persephone being deemed as “too rubbery to be realistic,”6 but the experience still imparting invaluable knowledge to studio hands in trying create realistic cartoons.
If only taken from a technical standpoint, then “The Goddess of Spring” may be perceived as a failure. However, taken as a faithful and humble adaptation of Greek mythology, then the cartoon surpasses expectations. Of all the Silly Symphonies, and even in regard to other mainstream forays into animating Greek mythology, “The Goddess of Spring” stands out as one of the few instances of such an earnest and sincere adaptation.
Part of this success can be attributed to the Symphony being a condensed version of the Persephone and Pluto myth rather than plucking core elements and characters and placing them within other narratives (as was done with “King Neptune,” “Hells Bells,” and “Playful Pan”) or attempting to instill outside messages or subversion. John Grant decrees that both Persephone and Pluto in the cartoon are rather “cypherish”,7 but the opposite is true. The animated short is overtly attempting to be a retelling of the Greek myth and nothing more. This is in stark contrast to the majority of other Silly Symphonies of the era, which coincided with The Great Depression. The Silly Symphonies were populist fare,8 with Disney and his company’s “social and ideological values” pervading the “structure, characters, and narratives of these films.”9 Nowhere is this more obvious than with “The Golden Touch.” While the gist of the story captures the core elements of the Greek myth, (anything the king touches turns to gold), it is first and foremost “aimed at a Depression audience,”10 given social significance by Walt Disney to show the “evil[s] of mere moneymaking, the danger of an individual’s overreaching his moral grasp, the false happiness accruing to mere wealth.”11 This is not to say that the end product is not without value or without imparting wisdom from the myth, but it does show that the purpose of “The Golden Touch” was primarily to advance Disney’s populist ideas rather than to have the myth stand on its own. On the other hand, “The Goddess of Spring” is pure storytelling, and while there are many variations of the myth documented and recounted, this Silly Symphony definitely captures the real heart of the story and conveys it to an audience in a palpable format of rich Technicolor and RCA sound.
The other reason for this cartoon’s success is due to the depiction of its setting and the characters. The realism that Disney was striving for caused “The Goddess of Spring” to be tempered in regard to how cartoonish or exaggerated it was. Instead of being over the top, this short is greatly subdued, with the characters and environment being depicted in a more serious fashion. Merritt and Kaufman argue that “The Old Mill” was the first Silly Symphony meant to be taken seriously12 but it could be argued that since “The Goddess of Spring” was striving for an earnest retelling of the Greek myth, complete with realistic depictions, that it should be regarded serious as well. Comparing and contrasting “The Goddess of Spring” with its other Greek mythological inspired Silly Symphonies counterparts yields astounding results.
For example, the depiction of Hades between “The Goddess of Spring” to that in “Hells Bells” is staggering. While both are portrayed as cavernous, full of lakes of fire and denizens who sing and dance, the realm in “Hells Bells” is much more malevolent. In “Hells Bells” there’s actual violent activity as spiders are immolated, snakes feast on bats, imps are fed to Cerebus and the devil character perishes into a lake of fire. Conversely, in “The Goddess of Spring,” there is actually no violent activity. The imps keep Persephone’s elves at bay, but do not attack them. In this version of Hades, no one perishes and no one is tortured. What can be surmised from this observation is that the underworld as pictured in “Hells Bells” is purely for punishment, as per a more Christian perspective, (in alignment with the expected audience), while the underworld in “The Goddess of Spring” leans more toward a realm as the place where souls go to die, distancing itself from Christian hegemony. While places like Elysium and the Asphodel Meadows are certainly not depicted, it would not be farfetched to surmise that they could exist in this incarnation of Hades in “The Goddess of Spring.”
The devil in “Hells Bells” and Pluto in “The Goddess of Spring” are also quite different. In “Hells Bells,” the devil is rendered entirely in black and nearly featureless save for a menacing, drooling maw eager to drink molten milk. He delights in feeding his imps to Cerebus and gives chase to one that wants to avoid this fate. On the other hand, Pluto in “The Goddess of Spring” shows elements of being a sympathetic character. While his actions of kidnapping Persephone can be analyzed in a myriad of lenses and thus falls outside the scope of this essay, he is none-the-less being shown at the cartoon’s conclusion of having traits of empathy and caring. He genuinely wants Persephone to be happy, and his actions are far more multifaceted, more “real” than his one-dimensional counterpart in “Hells Bells.”
In regard to Persephone, comparing her depiction to the mermaids of “King Neptune” also illustrate a major difference. The mermaids are naked without being naked, meaning their upper torsos are sometimes rendered with breasts and sometimes without. Their faces are blank slates and they look almost indistinguishable from each other. Persephone, on the other hand, is meticulously detailed, from her hair to her eyes. Never before has a mythological figure been represented in such a detailed fashion, which is especially impressive due to the technological limitations of animation during the era. Outside of paintings and other representations that have survived antiquity, here is an image of a bonafide goddess, being shown to an audience in a vernacular they can understand and appreciate. Comparing both Pluto and Persephone to other Silly Symphony characters of antiquity, such as King Midas and King Neptune, with their outlandishly large potbellies and exaggerated cheekbones, only fortifies the notion that Persephone in “The Goddess of Spring” is as real as it gets.
For the industrial minds at Disney, “The Goddess of Spring” was perceived as a failure and the cartoon is typically relegated to a footnote in the journey to realize Snow White. However, as illustrated above, when altering the criteria of success from a technical standpoint to a storytelling and adaptation standpoint, “The Goddess of Spring” is quite successful, especially in regards to its depiction of mythological characters and its ability to convey stories of antiquity in an earnest and realist fashion. Eschewing the aesthetics of typical cartoon escapism, “The Goddess of Spring” was the first retelling of Persephone and Pluto’s story in a filmic format. In subsequent years, Persephone would be appropriated to sci-fi fare, such as being used in The Matrix films, Firefly and the Percy Jackson films and books. While it is amazing to see homage to the myth still circulating and inspiring folks, it is comforting to know that her and Pluto’s representation and myth remains preserved in “The Goddess of Spring.”
End Notes
1. Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2016), 153.
2. Ibid., 40.
3. “The Goddess of Spring,” Filmic Light: Snow White Archive, last modified March 20, 2010, http://filmic-light.blogspot.com/2010/03/goddess-of-spring.html.
4. Merritt and Kaufman, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies, 153.
5. Ibid., 44.
6. Alyssa Carnahan, “Artifactual: The Goddess of Spring Character Model Sheet,” The Walt Disney Family Museum, last modified May 29, 2013, http://www.waltdisney.com/blog/artifactual-goddess-spring-character-model-sheet.
7. John Grant, Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters (New York, NY: Hyperion, 1998), 73.
8. Steven Watts, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 77.
9. Ibid., 91.
10. Ibid., 76.
11. Ibid.
12. Merritt and Kaufman, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies, 28.
Bibliography
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Grant, John. Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters. New York, NY: Hyperion, 1998.
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“Hell’s Bells.” YouTube video, 5:49. Posted by “Pat Hawkins,” October 26, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow-qilruZCE.
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Merritt, Russell, and J.B. Kaufman. Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series. Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2016.
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“The Goddess of Spring.” Directed by Wilfred Jackson. 1934. On Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Burbank, CA: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, DVD. 2001.
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