Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Alice in Wonderland

Welcome back to Deep Dive Disney. We have an exciting outing for you today. It’s a Disney movie that’s actually SUPPOSED to feel like a drug trip. Welcome to one of my personal favorites, Alice in Wonderland. Adapted from the 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, the story is about a young woman named Alice who falls down a Rabbit Hole and ends up in a strange and surreal world of complete and utter nonsense, encountering one strange thing after the other. The book can best be described as a very relaxing read, having an almost hypnotic poetry like quality to the way it’s written. The film adapts the book rather well, despite omitting a few scenes and replacing them with scenes from the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, and over time it has been seemingly accepted by many as the definitive version of the story. The animation is beautiful, the characters are all memorable and the scenes are all bright and colorful. It’s a classic Disney film I’ve found myself revisiting from time to time and enjoying quite a bit. While both enjoyable in their own way, both the film and the book don’t really have a consistent narrative, something that may make analyzing the film a bit of a challenge. Well, here goes nothing.

Main Character:

I found I actually really liked Alice. Like most Disney Princess types, Alice is a kind-hearted and wide eyed innocent, but there’s something about her that’s really enjoyable. Her voice actress, Kathryn Beaumont, does a great job combining Alice’s natural curiosity, her reliance on logic where none exists and her increasing frustration with her situation perfectly. To me, this version of Alice, who I’ve come to realize differs greatly from her book counterpart, perfectly represents what it is to feel like the only sane person in the room, a feeling that anyone who’s spent time on Twitter is intimately familiar with. Alice is at all times adrift in a sea of chaos and madness and it is all she can do to keep from letting it drive her insane herself. At times, she finds the wonders around her fascinating and strangely beautiful. Other times, her mind, used to a world that operates on logic and reason, struggles to comprehend a world where none exists. Other times, the strange creatures she encounters frustrate her to the point of almost losing it, and sometimes, things just seem so overwhelming that she breaks down crying. While I doubt any of us have ever encountered stoner caterpillar or a bunch of elitist flowers, I think a lot of us can relate to that feeling of nothing making sense and being overwhelmed. In that regard, I think many of us can put ourselves in Alice’s place.

Villain:

In the time since we covered Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, I’ve made an interesting discovery. Turns out, much like the Disney Princesses, so to do the Disney villains have their own franchise. Not only that, turns out only a select few Disney baddies are selected to represent the brand in an official capacity. As someone who loves the Disney villains and is excited by any kind of crossover between them, I can’t help but be fascinated by this idea that there’s this hierarchy within Disney rogue’s gallery. As such these “Franchise Villains” will be held to a higher standard than their contemporaries since they were the ones chosen to represent the Disney Villains brand. I bring all this up because after The Evil Queen from Snow White, The Queen of Hearts is our second Franchise Villain. (Technically third, but we didn’t cover Fantasia and Chernabog is kind of a special case anyway.) The Queen of Hearts is indeed a really fun character. Immature, psychotic, self-absorbed, she’s definitely a great antagonist for this environment. Her penchant for decapitation and tendencies towards violent rage are also especially fun. Sometimes when she flies off the handle, she can be downright terrifying. She is a really enjoyable villain. That having been said, knowing some of the Franchise Villains we have coming and the ones who got left out of the club, including Lady Tremaine from our last article, I don’t really see what’s so special about Queenie here. She’s great for this movie, but really, she doesn’t really have much of a presence until the end of the film and frankly, she no more insane than the other inhabitants of Wonderland, just significantly more aggressive about it. While someone like the Evil Queen was a constant threat throughout, The Queen of Hearts is just yet another crazy obstacle hat Alice has to deal with as she tries to make it through Wonderland. Still, I did very much enjoy the character and her overtop reactions to everything.

Side Characters:

There are a lot of them this time around and to discuss all of them in detail would be nearly impossible. Suffice to say, all of them are varying degrees of insane and it’s kind of awesome, but at times also a bit annoying. These characters are so goofy and so odd that you can’t help but feel Alice’s frustration at their antics sometimes. Literally everyone and everything besides Alice is its own special brand of madness. I’ll bring up some of the standouts, but I’m likely to miss a favorite or two. The Dodo is pretty funny and the fact that he’s willing to burn down the White Rabbit’s house is delightfully demented. Bill the Lizard got several laughs out of me in his brief appearance. The Door Mouse, in only a few short lines, restored my tolerance for talking cartoon mice after Cinderella and her torturously irritating plague rat friends utterly destroyed it. Maybe if the Cinderella mice had been shitfaced the entire movie they’d have been more tolerable. Weird character after weird character keep coming and going throughout the whole film. I actually began developing a theory that Wonderland itself was just some magical insane Asylum or something. The Cheshire Cat was one of the real standouts of the bunch. That's Sterling Holloway doing the voice, whom you may recognize as the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Kaa the Snake. Despite having a very distinct voice, the man still managed to excellently portray a surprisingly vast range of different characters. I always got a sense that Cheshire Cat was a just little more nuts than the others and slightly more of a troll. The way he’s always getting Alice in trouble with the Queen of Hearts seems to be evidence of that. The King of Hearts was funny to me. I actually really loved the running gag with the White Rabbit where he’d always tag a frustrated “And the King” to every grandiose announcement he’d make for the Queen of Hearts. However, far and away my favorite was The Mad Hatter. Ed Wynn’s performance as the Mad Hatter has become Iconic in the time since this film and it’s not hard to see why. You have to Wonder what he had to do to earn the title of “Mad” in a world where sanity does not exist to begin with.

Songs:

Not a whole lot of memorable songs in this film, but there are still a fair few worth mentioning. The Unbirthday song is Iconic and I love Alice rolling her eyes when it comes up later in the film. Painting the Roses Red is a catchy little ear worm and the Queen’s angry rendition is a great introduction to the character. However, the song that stood out to me was a number called “Very Good Advice.” It’s the song Alice sings when she’s lost in Tulgey Wood. At this point, Alice has given up on trying to find the White Rabbit and just wants to go home. She’s clearly at the end of her rope and all the insanity she’s experienced has finally taken its toll, so she breaks down. Sometimes, life can feel like it's coming at us from all sides, and that can be overwhelming. So, I kinda found this pretty little number relatable.

Memorable Scenes:

I’d like to discuss the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, as it’s one of the most memorable moments in the entire movie. Have you ever been to a party where you don’t know anybody and everyone else has this long history together and there’s shit going on that you don’t fully understand? I have, plenty of times. It’s awkward, it’s unpleasant and it can be pretty exhausting. Well, amplify that feeling by a thousand, and you have an idea of what the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is like. Everything is happening at once, nothing is making sense and there’s Alice at a Party with two strangers who belong in an insane asylum. It’s like being dragged into a conversation where you have no idea what the other two are talking about and all you can do is just nod your head and hope it’s over soon. Far and away my favorite bit is when The Mad Hatter tries to fix the White Rabbit’s pocket watch by adding butter, jam, sugar and all manner of random food stuffs to it. Easily the biggest laugh I got out of the entire film was when The Mad Hatter finally drew the line at adding mustard, something he, a man who just put butter into a pocket watch, finds utterly ridiculous.

Story:

So, here’s the thing. Alice in Wonderland doesn’t really have a story. At least not in the traditional sense. It’s actually similar to Pinocchio where it sort of jumps around from one crazy scene to the next with little rhyme or reason. The only real plot is that Alice is curious about where The White Rabbit is going and what he's so late for, and that's kind of it. However, unlike Pinocchio, the constant jumping from scene to scene as if the filmmakers have severe ADD actually makes sense here… relatively speaking. The film, much like the book it’s based on, are meant to feel like more of an experience than an actual narrative. This makes sense since the whole thing is meant to be a dream, and to the film’s credit, it certainly captures what a dream feels like. Nothing makes sense, the thing you’re looking for is always out of reach, and as the mind wanders, the landscape of the dream changes. It’s actually rather impressive how Disney was able to replicate this feeling. One especially nice touch that I appreciated was how things mentioned by the Talking Doorknob just seemed to magically appear, almost as if they appeared purely because Alice was thinking of them. Nice touch.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Oh My Goodness. After Cinderella went light on the Dark Disney Factor, it was a breath of fresh air to see that Alice in Wonderland is absolutely brimming in it. Everywhere you turn there’s creepy imagery, life threatening situations, straight up murder and glorious, glorious drug references as far as the eye can see. Alice is nearly burned alive by the Dodo, the adorable little oysters are eaten alive by the Walrus. The Queen decapitates anyone who pisses her off. The list goes on. I honestly couldn’t tell you why, but The Caterpillar in particular always kinda creeped me out. I can’t really tell you why, as he’s not especially scary. He is kind of the poster child for drug references in this story what with his trademark hooka, but more than that there’s just something about the way he talks that just felt off to me. Not to mention all the potions, biscuits and mushrooms that cause strange size alterations (I wonder if this is where Mario got it from), the Cheshire Cat being a creeper every chance he gets. It’s coming at you from all sides and I couldn’t get enough of it. This movie made me feel like I was on drugs and unlike Dumbo, that’s a good thing in this case.

I LOVED this movie from beginning to end. It’s probably my favorite of the films we’ve covered thus far. It’s a trip from start to finish and holds up surprisingly well. The animation is beautiful, all the characters are great and overall, it’s just a really great film. Next time we head for the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning as we tackle another Disney favorite, Peter Pan.