Nathan's Movie Collection: The Jungle Book (1967)
"Man village? They'll ruin him. They'll make a man out of him."
Note: Most of these movies have been around for a considerable amount of time, so assume there will be spoilers all throughout.
We had a rotation of Disney movies growing up, the ones I remember the most being Dumbo, 101 Dalmatians, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book. If any of these movies get brought up, there’s always a story about us growing up connected to each one. For example, if I mention The Jungle Book, someone will mention before I’m even finished saying the title that I used to run around in my underwear pretending to be Mowgli. And before you say anything funny, I stopped doing that before I went to college.
The other thing this movie makes me think of is the first time I got a library card. Every four years or so, we were furloughed back to the States to raise support for our continued missionary work1. One time when we were back (I was maybe 9 or 10), I remember my grandma taking us to the library and getting us library cards to use while we were staying there. The two books I checked out were The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. I was excited that they not only had The Jungle Book but a sequel I didn’t know about until then. I know for a fact all of it went over my head, but what was even more insulting was that the animals weren’t even funny. I was furious at Rudyard Kipling. I mean, what’s the point of putting talking animals into your story if they’re just gonna talk like boring adults? Oh yeah, it’s “allegorical”? Well, I’m maybe 9 or 10 years old and I don’t know what that means.
Sorry, I was getting off track. I may go back and read those books one day to form an adult opinion on them. It’s not that I would get more out of this movie by doing so. Taking a quick glance of Wikipedia, like most Disney movies based on classic literature, all the tricky parts have been ripped out. For example, Shere Khan, who is terrified of fire, runs away at the end of the Disney movie. In the book, he’s trampled to death by buffaloes2. There’s no death in this one, just explicit threats of it. There’s the moment with Mowgli and Bagheera thinking Balloo the bear is dead. It gets surprisingly emotional, even when we start seeing Balloo sneaking looks.
The Jungle Book is one of those movies I watched over and over as a kid and then maybe two or three times as an adult. It’s so burned into my brain though that when I turned it on the other night with my daughter, I caught myself mouthing along here and there. It’s also hilarious, maybe the funniest Disney movie to come out of that era and I’m willing to say that with my whole chest3.
This time around, Kaa got the most laughs out of me. Going back to family memories, my brother thought singing “Trusssst in meeee” was so hilarious he would do it to my mom when he was trying to ask her for something he knew she was going to say no to. Can’t say I remember it ever working.
Watching Kaa made me think of Wiley E. Coyote, who gets so obsessed with catching his target he ends up hoisted by his own petard. I really like that phrase and I’m gonna work it into everything I write4. It's what I like about the Coen Brothers' movies, greedy characters getting done in in the dumbest ways. I was literally laughing out loud anytime Kaa falls out of a tree.
Kaa is voiced by Sterling Holloway, the voice of Winnie the Pooh. This is not a dig at Winnie the Pooh, but if you give your villain that voice, it’s assumed they’re part of the comedic relief. If you give your villain the voice of George Sanders, it’s because you want some children to have nightmares.
We watched this on Disney+ where it had a cultural sensitivity warning before the movie started. My daughter saw it and asked me what all that was supposed to mean. I told her it was Disney going woke and ruining this country. I’m kidding, she was playing on her tablet for most of the movie. The reason there’s a warning before The Jungle Book is because of King Louie being seen as a racist stereotype of Black people. According to the filmmakers, this was not their intention. Apparently, Louis Prima, who ended up voicing King Louie, was the inspiration for the character. There’s a whole other conversation to be had about Prima’s musical influences and how it reflects in his performance, but I am not that kind of writer and this is not that kind of post.
If there is something blatantly offensive in a movie, even if it is the product of a much earlier time, it would help to have a warning so you could put it in a proper context instead of writing it off altogether. There’s also a warning before Dumbo and of all the classic Disney films, that one really earns it. Dumbo should actually have the cultural sensitivity warning scrolling by on a chyron at the bottom of the screen for the whole movie.
I didn’t plan on going long on cultural sensitivity, so I’ll end this by saying I think The Jungle Book is one of the Disney classics that holds up the best. There’s several more I could probably say the same for, but this is the one I feel compelled to rewatch this most. It used to be Dumbo. There’s a number of reasons why it’s no longer Dumbo.
Whenever we were furloughed, we were sent to visit several churches across the country to talk about doing missionary work in Mexico. It was called “deputation” and it was about as fun as it sounds. We would set up a display table in the church foyer, show a special video presentation during the service, and my dad would usually preach after that. Basically, we were going town to town begging for money. We did get to see a lot of cool places and every now and then my parents would drop us off with our family in St. Louis where we did things like get a library card. Putting this here because it has nothing to do with The Jungle Book.
In the 2016 live-action movie, Shere Khan falls off a tree branch into a forest fire. As far as traumatic Disney deaths go, it was right up there with Bambi’s mom and the villain in Tarzan being hung to death by tree vines.
This is a joke. I’m not getting beat up over a Disney movie.
Okay, not everything. But believe you me, this won’t be the last time.