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teddogI managed to track down some of the original Rescuers novels from the Hamilton library.
You know, cute little 1977 Disney film about the mice that save people?
Well, the movie is based on an out-of-print series of books that started in 1959. I recalled reading a book on animation history that discussed that the original content of the Rescuers novel had to be changed to appeal to a wider audience. Thus, my curiosity in finding the novels.
I mean, it's a KIDS book. It can't be that bad, can it?
The Rescuers (the first one, at least) is, in fact, a very Cold War book. The main plot deals with the rescue of poet from what may be in the Eastern Bloc. His crime? "Free verse", apparently. The Rescue Aid Society, the name of the mouse-run organization in the movies, was the Prisoners' Aid Society in the books, a group founded because mice are the only friends that prisoners have. While the subject matter is handled gently in the book, it's not hard to imagine that it could get heavy very quickly.
Another odd point of note is the way females are portrayed in the story. The books are written by a woman, Margery Sharp. Yet, you get these odd references to the female gender throughout the first novel. One of the leaders of the Prisoners Aid Society is female and supports other females because "has great faith in her own sex". Not too odd, but it's kinda strange that the book makes a big deal of it. Miss Bianca, the female protagonist, is able to find a pantry early in the novel because "However sheltered, all women have certain domestic instincts", meaning that women have built-in kitchen radars, I guess. I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not.
Poor Bianca has the short end of the stick in the books. I remember her in the movies being a smart and brave, if sometimes culturally confused, female character. She's noted as being one of the first true Disney heroines. In the book, at least the point I'm at, Miss Bianca is this stuffy upper class mouse who doesn't want to leave her current lifestyle to help someone. Yes, it's 1959, buuuuut this isn't the Bianca I remember. D:
Hopefully, she's going to have more character development as the books go on. The world of the 1950s is a strange one.
You know, cute little 1977 Disney film about the mice that save people?
Well, the movie is based on an out-of-print series of books that started in 1959. I recalled reading a book on animation history that discussed that the original content of the Rescuers novel had to be changed to appeal to a wider audience. Thus, my curiosity in finding the novels.
I mean, it's a KIDS book. It can't be that bad, can it?
The Rescuers (the first one, at least) is, in fact, a very Cold War book. The main plot deals with the rescue of poet from what may be in the Eastern Bloc. His crime? "Free verse", apparently. The Rescue Aid Society, the name of the mouse-run organization in the movies, was the Prisoners' Aid Society in the books, a group founded because mice are the only friends that prisoners have. While the subject matter is handled gently in the book, it's not hard to imagine that it could get heavy very quickly.
Another odd point of note is the way females are portrayed in the story. The books are written by a woman, Margery Sharp. Yet, you get these odd references to the female gender throughout the first novel. One of the leaders of the Prisoners Aid Society is female and supports other females because "has great faith in her own sex". Not too odd, but it's kinda strange that the book makes a big deal of it. Miss Bianca, the female protagonist, is able to find a pantry early in the novel because "However sheltered, all women have certain domestic instincts", meaning that women have built-in kitchen radars, I guess. I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not.
Poor Bianca has the short end of the stick in the books. I remember her in the movies being a smart and brave, if sometimes culturally confused, female character. She's noted as being one of the first true Disney heroines. In the book, at least the point I'm at, Miss Bianca is this stuffy upper class mouse who doesn't want to leave her current lifestyle to help someone. Yes, it's 1959, buuuuut this isn't the Bianca I remember. D:
Hopefully, she's going to have more character development as the books go on. The world of the 1950s is a strange one.
