The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 85

w Disney and Warner Bros. Animation
ans During the Great Depression
9
havoc on his livelihood. The short features
scenes of angry mobs fighting in
front of a failed bank, a citizen stashing
cash under a mattress, and Oswald
seeking a remedy from a doctor for
this Depression. The doctor tells him,
“There’s your doctor,” while pointing to
President Roosevelt. The president then
sings about having confidence, smiling,
grinning, and laughing out loud. 15 This
short, written by Walter Lantz, was released
just months after Roosevelt took
office and announced his plans for the
New Deal. 16
Months before Confidence, Disney
released Three Little Pigs, a “Depression-era
fable” 17 that was more of a
metaphorical commentary on the first
years of the Depression. The “big, bad
wolf ” was the Depression itself and
the foolish pigs—Fiddler Pig and Fifer
Pig—who built their houses of straw
and twigs, are the children of the fruitful
Gilded Age. These two pigs represent
the heirs to the bull market and the excesses
of the roaring ’20s. Practical Pig
prepared for the future and spent more
time ensuring the stability of his assets
than being outside playing and having
fun. Practicality, self-reliance, and not
being afraid to get down and dirty to
make ends meet are the central themes
of Three Little Pigs. 18
Three Little Pigs was released in
the middle of Roosevelt’s first hundred
days in office and expresses the “confident,
purposeful spirit of the early New
Deal.” 19 The film honors politically conservative
virtues of hard work, self-reliance,
and self-denial amid the “wolf at
the door” metaphor for the economic