Dumbo (1941)

Dumbo has a real name, it's Jumbo, Jr. That's the name Mrs. Jumbo (she doesn't have her own name) gives him, but it's only used once in the movie. Thereon out, he's Dumbo.

We only see moms, no dads. When the storks come to deliver babies -- and all are delivered at the same exact time (weird) -- they drop off the bundles to the moms, and the moms are alone. Where are all the dads? It made me wonder if Circuses only wanted female animals, and if so, what do they do with all the male offspring when they start to get a little too old and a little too male?

Dumbo's "villains" in this movie are funny, because they aren't the other animals who make fun of him. They are the older female elephants -- the sewing circle. They are the ones that cannot stand Dumbo's ears, as if his ears are somehow a slight on all elephants. What happens to this group of elephants? At the end of the movie, they are totally gone, as if the circus has discarded them.

The DVD comes with two Disney shorts -- "Elmer Elephant" and "The Flying Mouse." In the first, Elmer gets made fun of, but just for having a trunk like any normal elephant would. He's made fun of by the other animals, not the elephants. In the end, he uses his trunk for a firehose, the same term that the other animals had used to make fun of him. And it's his nose that puts out a fire.

In the second, a mouse receives a special wish. He wants to have wings so he can fly like the birds. He gets the wings, but then he learns he's more like a bat than himself, and he quickly "learns his lesson" and asks for the wings to be removed.

The message in both shorts is the same as the message in Dumbo -- although maybe a little more "directly stated": Just be yourself. That's the best way to live life and be happy.

Dumbo's ears made it (somehow) possible for him to fly, and he becomes the leading attraction at the Circus. He has a "gift." He didn't see it that way at first, but when he embraces himself (and falls into a vat of alcohol and gets black-out drunk), he learns that he has great capabilities -- greater than those of a normal elephant.

Last thought: Crows appear in a lot of early Disney movies. Usually, they sit quietly when their evil owner -- Maleficent, the evil Queen, etc. , is cooking up schemes. In Dumbo, the crows are good ole southerners. They're black, and although I didn't find them to be racial caricatures, per se, they sort of were... fortunately not exaggerated to the extent that they would be "objectionable" to a modern sensibility. They, and the circus mouse, are the true friends Dumbo needed. I would also point out that unlike all the circus animals they are all male. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I point it out, nevertheless.

Rating: 4/5 stars