Walt Disney: The Wizard of Sex Ed
Walt Disney created a 10 minute cartoon about menstruation, and it’s still amazing.
Walt Disney was a man larger than life. His creative genius cannot be disputed, and almost everything he did was a milestone for the world of art and animation.
I was planning on starting this article with high praise for yet another milestone — the creation of a wonderful, 10 minute cartoon about menstruation in 1946. Not only is the presented information accurate and very well structured, it’s also highly progressive for the age that it was made in. I wanted to make this article about how even back then, an intelligent person was aware of how important it is to talk about periods. Disney the genius knew even back then: it was a necessity to introduce menstruation to children as a “normal, natural cycle going on continuously” in a maturing woman’s body.
Unfortunately, while I will still be writing about Disney’s genius, it won’t quite be in the way I first intended. The cartoon called “A Story About Menstruation” was a hidden gem of Disney’s until 2015 when it was “re-discovered” and added to the National Film Registry of the United States. A story started circulating — back in the day, it had been banned. I have to admit I jumped on the dramatic bandwagon myself, showing my friends this brilliant, obscure, banned cartoon that the patriarchy buried. Far less interestingly, it turned out it hadn’t been banned at all — it had served its purpose and quietly faded from people’s minds.
“A Story About Menstruation” is a stroke of Disney’s genius in the marketing and business sector, rather than in artistic expression or any sort of feminist activism. Today, we take Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” for granted, forgetting what a revolutionary piece that actually was. Disney was the first person ever to attempt to create a full length Technicolor animated feature film — something unthinkable at the time. It was a huge feat: one that took three years of meticulous work, brilliant actors and even more brilliant cartoonists, never-before-seen manpower, large investments, and, oh just by the way, the invention of storyboards (yes, Disney invented the storyboard process millennials love to use as part of everything today). Finally, Disney released the film in cinemas in 1937 and made history. The film was an instant success, turning Walt Disney into the legend that we know today. However, Disney wasn’t just an innovator in the field of animation and production — he is often referred to as the father of merchandising as well. Disney learned how to create an empire out of his work. Yes, Snow White became queen of mass production. She was the first ever fictional face to grace massively produced toys, stationary, shirts, bags, cups. Whatever you could think of, it would be made — and is still being made today — with the faces of the cartoon’s main characters plastered all over it.
In 1946, the clever people at the International Cello-Cotton Company (now known as Kimberly-Clark) saw a golden opportunity. They commissioned a cartoon about menstruation to be shown at American high schools. Another milestone for Disney, this was one of the first commercially sponsored films ever, and the company that wanted it made sold cleaning wipes, toilet paper, and, you guessed it — menstrual pads.
Gynecologist Mason Hohn was hired to fact check and give the cartoon credibility. The cartoon came with a booklet distributed to both students and teachers called “Very Personally Yours”, which featured all the important information on the biological processes behind menstruating, sound advice on how to make “those days” easier, and a menstrual calendar whose use was strongly encouraged. What was strongly discouraged was the use of Tampax tampons — their main competitor. Approximately 105 million American students saw the cartoon in health education classes. Then it was shelved for whatever reason. It was never meant for theatrical release. So it’s story ends.
But not for long! Thanks to the Internet and the endless curiosity of humans, we can now watch the cartoon on YouTube. Frankly, I think a lot of people should watch it even today. While it doesn’t go completely into detail of which hormone does what etc, the cartoon tells the story of the menstrual cycle accurately, and with charming visual aids, it makes the content approachable and fun to watch. Intriguingly progressive for that era, the narrator stresses how natural, even beautiful, the menstrual cycle is. Its also surprisingly inclusive of all body types and individual experiences. It gives excellent advice on how to lessen cramps, mentions what a healthy diet is, exercise, and how this helps maintain a healthy cycle. It also calls for menstruation tracking and advises a visit to the doctor’s office if you should “go off schedule”. It acknowledges PMS, which is good, but this is also where it gets a bit bad — it flat out tells young girls to “stop feeling sorry for themselves and keep smiling”. Ouch. It also encourages young ladies having bad days to dress up, because looking good keeps you feeling good. While the narrator tells a wonderful concluding story about the cycle of life, a girl is shown in a wedding dress and then with her own baby, because after all, the whole point is to get there, isn’t it? That’s the Disney Princess’s goal, now you just see the biology of it, too.
The cartoon does feature these moments of promoting rigorous old-fashioned gender roles (a girl’s daily routine consists of cleaning, she should always be pretty and smiling, she should hide her bad mood) and internalizing blame (shaming PMS, and the brilliant comment “try not to get yourself off schedule by getting over-tired, emotionally upset or catching cold”, as if anyone does those things on purpose). While this alone would be enough to crucify the creators today, we mustn’t forget that we’re watching something that was made in the 1940s. The fact that this cartoon even existed and was shown to students back then is quite astounding. Whatever reasons they had to make the film, both Disney and the International Cello-Cotton Company did more good than harm to girls growing up in that highly conservative era of American history.
I think it’s high time the Disney Corporation made another one of these, with up-to-date representations of women, and with an additional part addressing sex and reproductive illness. Wouldn’t that be an amazing thing, especially if it wasn’t a corporate deal, but an honest work of activism this time? HMU Disney people, I’ll do your script for free!
Oh and by the way, I didn’t know where to put this but as far as we know, this cartoon is the first time anyone had said “vagina” on film.
