Letters Between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Reveals They Didn’t Care Much for Walt Disney

They say great minds think alike, and this is certainly true when it comes to J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The two fantasy writers were close friends and often discussed everything from fantasy to faith with one another. However, it seems neither of the two were particularly impressed by another great mind, Walt Disney.

As The Telegraph reports, private letters, first published in 2006’s J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, reveal that the two authors weren’t taken by the early Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was released in 1937. The two question Disney’s creative choices and Lewis calls Disney a “boob”.

Shortly after attending a screening together, Lewis wrote in a letter to Tolkien: “Dwarfs ought to be ugly of course, but not in that way. And the dwarfs’ jazz party was pretty bad. I suppose it never occurred to the poor boob that you could give them any other kind of music.

“But all the terrifying bits were good, and the animals really most moving: and the use of shadows (of dwarfs and vultures) was real genius. What might not have come of it if this man had been educated–or even brought up in a decent society?”

That’s pretty harsh burn there from Lewis. Tolkien recognised Disney’s talent but felt it was corrupted, saying: “I recognise his talent, but it has always seemed to me hopelessly corrupted,” he wrote in a letter to a Stanford University student named Miss J.L. Curry several years later. “Though in most of the ‘pictures’ proceeding from his studios there are admirable or charming passages, the effect of all of them is to me disgusting. Some have given me nausea…”

This is hardly the first time famous people haven’t gotten along, especially in the literary world. Mark Twain famously despised the works of Jane Austen and William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway both had cross words with each other. We’re just glad Twitter wasn’t around when Lewis and Tolkien were firing shots at Disney!