Fantasia's Dancing Chinese Mushrooms; A Foray into History

Fantasia - 1940

Still keeping with Fantasia I want to move onto the 'Dancing Mushrooms' section.  This portion of film is also part of the Nutcracker suite and is called the 'Chinese Dance'.  It actually takes place right before the 'Russian Dance' segment in the ballet.

Fantasia - 1940 Chinese Dance segment (skip ahead 1 minute)

Before the invention of home video and it's subsequent popularization, the Walt Disney company re-released its films every seven years from the proverbial "Disney Vault" into theatres.  Naturally, one of these releases occurred during the hippie movement of the 1960s.  In Douglas Brode's book From Walt to Woodstock: How Disney Created the Counterculture he tells an interesting anecdote that has been brought up many many times about teens and young adults of the countercultrue getting high and going to the theatre to watch Fantasia.  Brode suggests that this is why Fantasia was so successful in its re-release at this time.  He suggests that the "trippy" and "nonsensical" nature of the film was only enhanced by the incorporation of hallucinogenic drugs, and I imagine that this is true.  While this may seem like an indulgent anecdote, which it is, I promise that is has huge significance later on. 

I don't think that it is unreasonable to say that these mushrooms are meant to be Chinese.  I conclude this based on a few points.  Firstly, this section of the Nutcracker Suite falls in right before the Russian Dance in most presentations of the ballet.

The Nutcracker Ballet - Chinese Dance

Secondly, the dancing of the mushrooms is characteristic of the traditional fan dances preformed Chinese women.  I had always imagined these mushrooms to be male rather than female, contrasting them to the female, dress wearing flowers of the Russian Dance segment.  I suppose that I assumed that if Chinese females were being depicted, they would be more reminiscent of Geishas.  A racial stereotype on my part.  However, if I am not mistaken, lots of the concept art includes long thin pony tails and the "fu manchu" mustache.  A racial stereotype on Disney's part.  Thirdly, and I cringe at the bluntness I am about to express this with, the eyes that the animators have given the mushrooms are characteristically Asian, though not specifically Chinese.  However, it is clear that, for better or worse, the mushrooms are Asian.

 Traditional Chinese Fan Dance, this sort of gives you the idea

Asian mushrooms as a concept might seem innocent enough, there are no humans depicted in this segment of Fantasia so it is not as though it is de-humanizing the Chinese race.  It is merely an aesthetic choice.  Or is it...

Fantasia concept art

You see Chinese immigrants experienced mixed review when immigrating to the United States.  There are three distinct waves of Chinese immigration.  The first wave in the mid 1800s.  This wave were primarily employed in railroad construction.  A job so dangerous and poorly paying that hardly anyone else would do it.  Despite provisions put forth for equal treatment in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty, political and labour organizations rallied against Chinese immigration.  Most Americans, it seems, felt that the Chinese were a degraded race.  They were, it seems, good for just one thing, cheap labour. Because the Chinese were willing to work for less pay they were, in effect, taking jobs away from Americans and this was not good.  This is an argument that is still being used today by anti-immigrationists.

Feelings towards Chinese immigrants were also overtly negative because many immigrants that came early on had no intention of staying in America.  Most were young men who came to America to earn money and then take their wealth back to China where they would start their families.  The thought was that American wealth should be for America, not for China.  Remember that neither China or America were the super powers that they are today at this time.  Anti-Chinese sentiment was so strong that in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibited Chinese immigration to America for the next 10 years. This was extended time and time again, later including virtually all Asian peoples.  It was only during WWII when China and the United States became allies that life for Chinese living in America began to improve.  The first wave of Chinese Immigration lasted until 1949, so with the release of Fantasia in 1940, this is the only significant wave to bring up. 

Vinyl cover art for Fantasia soundtrack

So why is this important?  Well, Chinese were seen as being a danger to the well being of the United States.  It was believed that they had poor morals, and furthermore that they were more different than any of the other European immigrants before.  The Chinese did the work that no one wanted to do, and thus they were successful.  They worked building the railroad, they worked in mines, and they opened laundries.  Americans feared that they would over run the country and send it into moral depravity not unlike, a fungus.  And to really hit the nail on the head here, mushrooms are a fungus.

While in most of the country there were not tons of Chinese at the time that Fantasia was being created, there was one exception, California.  Many Chinese had arrived in California for the California Gold Rush and some had stayed.  Thus, there presence was felt more strongly where the film was being created than other places.   Perhaps Disney's decision to depict the Chinese Dance with mushrooms was reflective of this nationwide sentiment of Chinese as a dangerous fungus.  To bring home this point even more so, many mushrooms are poisonous, and I have yet to cross a mushroom with a red top in my time that I would trust to eat.  In this case I think it is fair to conclude that the decision to depict the Chinese dancers as mushrooms is, while historically reflective of the widely held opinion of Chinese in the United States up to the 1940s and the slowly changing opinions after that point, it can be seen by today's standards as racist.

Dancing Mushroom topiaries, in honour of the Flower and Garden Festival

 You thought that I was done? Well, this is not the end.  Here I invite you to enter a less concrete world that may be a farther stretch than anything that I have claimed previously, but bear with me.  I am hoping that it will make sense in the end.  Britain, centuries ago, we are talking like beginning in the 1700s here, began to seriously trade with China.  China was home to silks, tea, and exotic spices.  What did Britain have to offer, opium, lots and lots of opium.  While opium had been known to the Chinese since the 7th century it was only used for medicinal purposes. 

For anyone who does not know, opium is found on the outsides of unwashed poppy seeds.  It has the effect of inducing euphoria and making pain disappear.  While it is illegal today, and opium is no longer a widely used drug, opiates are converted to heroin.  The effects of opium are similar to those of morphine and heroin's effects are about twice as strong as morphine.  

The British brought to China the concept of combining opium with tobacco and smoking it and thus the opium den was born.  The Chinese emperor saw the effect that this was having on the men of China and the importation of opium was banned and so prohibition against opium set in.

The British would later criticize China for their problems with opium use, conveniently forgetting that they had introduced the problem in the first place.

So what does opium have to do with Fantasia?  Here comes the leap.  China has strong historical connections with opium,.  Though opium is seen as a depressant, it also contains hallucinogens.  Likewise, the Psilocybin mushroom, better known as "magic mushrooms" or "shrooms" is also a hallucinogenic drug and the Chinese Dancers in Fantasia's Nutcracker Suite are mushrooms.  A quick google  image search has shown me that the Psilocybin mushroom has a red tops and beige bottom and if the image search is to be believed, bare a striking resemblance to Fantaisa's mushrooms.  While there are hundreds of psychedelic mushrooms, one of the more common is the Fly Agaric and this one, pictured below seems right out of Fantasia.   Is this an illusion to once of the fears associated with Chinese immigration, that they would disrupt the moral foundation of the United States through, among other things, drug use?

Fantasia - 1940

Fly Agaric, a common psychedelic mushroom.  Note how even the shapes of the mushrooms mirror one another.  

Here Douglas Brode's words start to echo.  He talked about the generation of the 1960s, the generation of the Hippie movement, attending a screening of Fantasia.  While perhaps Disney's original audience would not have interpreted this segment of the film the same way that I have here, I can't help but wonder in this audience, the audience that was so keenly aware of drug culture and the effects of various drugs might have picked up on at least some of the connections that  I have made here.  I thank Brode for his reading (though I seriously doubt that he will ever read this) of Fantasia as it is what piqued my interest in this segment of the film and its historic undertones about a year ago. 

While I admit that this may be stretching a bit, take a look at the photos below and consider what I have said and then draw your own conclusions.  As for me, I have convinced myself.  Therefore I conclude that the decision to depict the Chinese as mushrooms was not done in good taste.  However, I also conclude that this was very reflective of the views held in the United States towards Chinese people at this time.  Finally I conclude that this analysis requires a fair amount of knowledge about the history of trade, immigration, and racial relations and thus the average movie goer then and now was probably not aware of all of the history that was brought into this short 1 minute scene.  Perhaps the story developers and animators were not even fully conscious of the connections that they were making in this film either.

If you got to the end of this post, congratulations and also, I am honoured.