Musing on Mickey Mouse for college credit

"What do you think it is about Mickey?" Professor Kathy Merlock Jackson tossed out to the 12 in her Virginia Wesleyan College class.

The students savored the question as if contemplating the allure of Johnny Depp or the hotness of Megan Fox. But they were talking about the mouse.

"He's quick on his feet," one student said, the Mickey Mouse ears on her head tilting slightly. "He's very resourceful. These are the things that we as a society value."

Another student added: "Do the colors - the reds and the yellows - have anything to do with it?"

Yes, Jackson said. Primary colors. More attractive to babies, she said, and Walt Disney knew that.

It is winter session at Wesleyan, a three-week term in which professors craft creative courses that are as appealing to students as to themselves. People can sign up for racquetball or study the history of piracy, but in Fine Arts Building Room 9, it is "Walt Disney's America," the only class where a naked rodent is the center of attention, because, well, he's the center of our world.

Which is the point of the class, how Disney has permeated American culture through television, movies, merchandise and theme parks.

As the course syllabus states, "The pinnacle of American success lays somewhere in the middle of Florida."

Jackson is a premier scholar of Walt Disney, whom she's studied and written books about for close to 30 years.

Professor Terry Lindvall, her teaching partner, is a film and animation expert and has an appreciation for Disney, even though

Lindvall is more of a wascally wabbit than an iconic hero. He does admit to being a bit Goofy, though.

Disney is more than Tinkerbell T-shirts. For many, family vacations to Disney World or Disneyland are like pilgrimages.

Disney's influence is reflected throughout the culture. Consider Walmart greeters (Disney created the guest-as-customer business model), people movers (Disneyland had the first working monorail system in the country) and even the Air Force (Disney made a 1943 animated film that promoted the idea that America's growing prowess should be in the skies).

Disney mastered the use of color, music and staging to create Edens we know don't exist but hunger for anyway. Lindvall said Disney played on the idea that people "want things like we think they are."

As Jackson said: "It isn't that Disney is cramming things down their throats. Disney is connecting with something that they value."

For the professors, the man and the machine created by Disney made perfect class material - challenging and darned interesting.

Students circulate a book, "The Quotable Walt Disney," from which they take turns selecting a daily Disney devotional to read in class. Students are assigned "Minnie projects." The class will take its serious research to Disney World beginning Thursday, where students will spend five days examining what they've learned.

Last Wednesday, Lindvall held an 8-by-10 photo of the smiling mouse as a model for the class to sketch.

The frame partly covered Lindvall's black tie, which was scattered with images of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Jackson stood by in jeans and a turtleneck, a flowing white scarf featuring the Seven Dwarfs draped across her shoulders. The scarf was held in place by a heart-shaped Mickey Mouse broo ch.

Students' heads bobbed as they looked at the portrait and their papers. Jackson again prodded them about what makes the Mouse special.

Notice that he's a circle, she said. The face, the ears, the buttons - all circles. The mouth, a semi circle. She explained that studies have been done on infants who are shown images of Mickey.

"The babies instinctively laugh," Jackson said.

One student observed, "With the circles, he isn't sharp."

Another pointed to the portrait.

"He's very circular, but many of the villains are sharp and angular."

Jackson pushed more: "What else? What was he a part of?"

"He was part of the first sound film," a student announced.

Jackson nodded: "Whenever you are promoted as a first, you become part of the cultural wallpaper."

Lindvall added: "Louis B. Mayer (chief of MGM studios) first rejected 'Gone with the Wind,' saying no one would want to see a Civil War movie. Then he rejected Disney cartoons. He thought pregnant women would be frightened by a giant mouse on screen."

Students bent back over their papers. A basic drawing of a big circle with two smaller ones on top wasn't as simple as it seemed. Much like Disney.

Jackson continued as they worked.

"The signature that we recognize as Disney isn't his."

Eyes popped up in surprise.

"That's an artist's rendition," Jackson said.

"That's disappointing," one student remarked.

Lindvall smiled. "It's an illusion," he said. "There's a lot of illusion."

Denise Watson Batts,

(757) 446-2504,

denise.batts@pilotonline.com