Disney Seven Dwarfs: Creating Personality in Animation

by Cyn Rene' Whitfield

When Walt Disney set out to animate the Brothers Grimm fairy tale in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, published in 1937, Disney decided they needed names.  Until such time the dwarfs were unnamed. Disney realized that strong, individual characters would be needed to advance the story as well as provide humor and appeal so, after much contemplation he chose Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy each with associated personalities.

Personality is the quality or condition of being a person and the traits that are peculiar to a specific person. Their pattern of collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person which are distinctive qualities of a person, especially those distinguishing personal characteristics that make one socially appealing. It is part of what makes each individual distinct. In the case of each dwarf, Disney continued his movie making with characters that represented and illusion of life. He maintained that his stories were geared toward adults and not children which resulted in his desire to give the Dwarfs separate personalities. It would have been much easier for his animators to create seven generic Dwarfs all acting.. Giving them names and personalities required the development and maintenance of consistent attitudes and actions throughout the film and during their interchanges with each other and Snow White. It also meant that when all seven were on screen, which was much of the time, anywhere the viewers looked they would find a particular Dwarf in character reacting on the basis of his own defined personality. This provided the full animation screen with a degree of activity and comic engagement unlike anything moviegoers had seen before.

Disney understood that personality traits influence how people perceive, encode and remember situations.  The extraversion associated with naming the seven dwarfs created positive emotions intended to tone down the violence and aggression that was being seen in the film industry.  A study by Coyne and Whitehead, Indirect Aggression in Animated Disney Films, examined the frequency and portrayal of indirect aggression in children’s animated Disney films. Overall, Disney films portrayed indirect aggression 9.23 times per hour. Compared with the amount of violence in children’s TV programs, the amount of indirect aggression in Disney films was quite low and was usually portrayed in ways that would not facilitate imitation.

The major challenge to animators today is the realism that is associated with their characters.  Technology has become so advanced that many times the audience forgets they are not looking at a human actor. Part of keeping that realism alive is the understanding of the traits associated with personality.  I have found it is easier to create a life like model of a character in 3D than it is to apply the personality traits of behavior. We have to be observers, like Disney constituently taking personality inventory to apply to our characters about how they behave, interact with each other and respond to different situations.  As this must be brought out by the animator through actions, facial expressions and movement once a character is established. Disney knew this in 1937, without the technology that exists today simply by assigning a name to his characters that set the tone for the personality. We are learning a great deal about character creation today that it is more than emphasis on physical characteristics. Personality traits are what brings the character to life.

References:

Kosslyn, S. M., & Rosenberg, R. S. (2007). Fundamentals of Psychology in Context (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Solomon, Charles (1989) Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation, NY Alfred A Knopf
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination". Cineaste. 01 Jul 2007: 90.

Inge, Thomas, Retrospectives “Walt Disney’s Snow White, Art Adaption and Ideology” Journal of Popular Film and Television

Journal of Communication; Jun2008, Vol. 58 Issue 2, p382-395, 14p, 1 chart