Opinion

Artists Disney and Miyazaki Connect to Other Worlds

Disney’s 2015 version of Cinderella is live action. The Cinderella story spread through nearly all cultures, from China. Artists have told and retold it, in picture books, movies, and ballets.
Artists Disney and Miyazaki Connect to Other Worlds
Scene from Studio Ghibli's anime My Neighbor Totoro. jennifer Broun Conor/Flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Creativity rules society, more than we think it does. Poets are stronger than bankers. Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki are making worlds. Disney started his magical kingdoms generations ago. The great Japanese animator, painter, and filmmaker Miyazaki is building a theme park on Okinawa, due in 2017. I must go. Okinawa 2017!

I am less of a fan of Disney than of Miyazaki, but I was excited to go to Disney World in Florida on Sept. 21, and as it promises, I found magic in the Magic Kingdom. As I left at twilight, I saw clouds that spelled “thank you for coming.” No airplane. No smoke jet cannons. No visible Tinker Bell, but I can only assume she wrote it with her magic wand. I believe, and Tink lives.

Let me tell you an idea about artists. I think they connect us to other worlds. Many scientists have spoken of the idea that there are multiple universes. Now may be a post-Copernican revolution. People in Copernicus’s time had their minds boggled by the idea that our earth is round and circling the sun. Even more boggling is the concept of many interconnected realities.

As a story in Scientific American said, “In this view, not only is our planet one among many, but even our entire universe is insignificant on the cosmic scale of things. It is just one of countless universes.” I think the artists get to communicate with some of the other realities. They bring news of the other times and spaces to us.  

Some time spaces are beautiful and some are more of a netherworld. Banksy’s time space might be a bleak one.

Oscar-winning Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the press in Tokyo on July 13, 2015. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)
Oscar-winning Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the press in Tokyo on July 13, 2015. Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
Mary Silver
Mary Silver
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Mary Silver writes columns, grows herbs, hikes, and admires the sky. She likes critters, and thinks the best part of being a journalist is learning new stuff all the time. She has a Masters from Emory University, serves on the board of the Georgia chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and belongs to the Association of Health Care Journalists.
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