This week I interview Disney Biographer Dr. Steven Watts - one of the historians featured in the recent PBS Documentary Walt Disney: American Experience. I ask him what the documentary got right and wrong, whether he was racist against different groups of people, One thing Walt Disney did that made him so successful.
In this episode, we ask Dr. Watts:
- What did he think of the documentary?
- What was it like to do research in the Disney archives?
- How did Walt see what others could not see?
- What are the human parts of Walt Disney that we often do not see?
- Was Disney racist between certain groups?
- In the documentary Dr. Watts said Disney didn’t think through the problems of the Depression. What did he mean by that?
- Would Walt Disney have been able to be Walt Disney without Roy as his brother?
- What about Elias? How do we wrap around such a controversial figure?
- Walt was very intent on the studio being named after him. Did that cause conflict?
- Do you you believe in the idea of a Disney Renaissance?
- what does it take to make history?
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