The first movie I remember seeing in the theater is The Little Mermaid. I remember because I was 5 years old and the final battle with Ursula freaked me out. It surely wasn’t the first animated movie I ever saw, but it’s the first I remember. Throughout my childhood, animation and in particular Disney animation was an inspiration for countless games, drawings and afternoons singing with my little sisters. We adored those films and knew half of them by heart.

The older I got, the more I started appreciating the art of animation and the effort that goes into making it. By now I find that more than 2 thirds of the movies I own are animated and my closet is filled with books about the subject. I always regretted that I don’t have the patience nor talent to become an animator myself.

It’s not easy to be an animation fan. In this part of the world it usually means being a Disney fan and when I was 12, I thought that meant I couldn’t be a fan of anything else. Even though I had enjoyed movies made by others before, it started feeling wrong to compliment the competition. It also meant it was hard to critisize the movies Disney was making, because that felt like betraying them. It’s funny how a kids mind works.

As I got older my loyalty to Disney faltered, especially as the movies they made became less and less magical. I realise that it wasn’t just because the movies became worse, but also because I became older and less easily impressed. But in general I started getting anoyed by the stories, the style and the endless train of bad sequels. It provided a problem: could I defend being a Disney-fan on basis of everything they did before the Terror Of The Sequels even though I totally disagreed with the direction the company was taking? In the end I decided to push the issue to the background and focused myself on Japanese animation. I refound my love for western animation in Pixar Animation Studios which I had avoided a bit, because of their Disney affilitation. They were brought to my attention by Neko and I’ve become a big fan ever since.

When Disney announced they wouldn’t do any 2D animation anymore it felt like my inner conflict had been solved by them. Especially when Pixar said they wouldn’t make more than the promised 5 films for Disney, everything seemed to have worked out.

I will always have a soft spot for Disney though and so I was extremely happy when I heard they aquired Pixar. Especially because John Lasseter would now be in charge of their animation department and I had a feeling he’d share my views (and indeed he started production on 2D animation again).

Since then though I’ve dived deeper into animation and the proceedings at Disney and Pixar over time. Through that I’ve realized that there have always been things at Disney I wouldn’t agree with and likewise at Pixar. I also learned that no situation is ever black and white. The animators I adored for their work on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc, were also the ones who worked on Hercules and Home on the Range. A company is made out of many people and not all of them will always agree with the direction that the company is going, although they might not disagree enough to quit their job.

Similarly someone like Walt Disney, whom I greatly admire for many of the things he did, had many character traits and ideas that make him less likable. That however is part of being human and noone will be able to live up to the image of his admirers. Does that make them any less admirable? No, in the end I realised that you can be a fan of someone or something even though you don’t agree with everything about them. In the end you are almost never really a fan of the entire thing or person, but of some of their qualities, that have touched you in some way.

The inner conflict might never really dissapear. There’s so much to be said for and against liking something. But in the end it goes deeper than objective arguments. Like with my love for Disney which is so subjectively connected to my most treasured childhood memories. The conflict stems mainly from the fear of judgement by others, because it’s so difficult to defend your subjective feelings. But as I learned recently on a delightful evening out with my co-workers, when you surround yourself with the right people, it is never necessary to defend your preferences. Because the right people will accept you and your likings, just as they are.