Bambi New Translation: Behind the Cute Fairy Tale, Is It a Warning of Anti-Semitism?

According to the British "Guardian", the original novel of the famous Disney animated film "Bambi" is about to be published in a new translation. The new translation attempts to reveal that the novel is far more than a fairy tale about cute animals presented to the audience by Disney, but hides a fable and warning about Nazi anti-Semitism.

Compile the | Liu Yaguang

The animated film Bambi, now known to audiences, was produced by Walt Disney and first released in 1942 as Disney's fifth classic animated feature film. It is adapted from the novel of the same name by Austrian writer Felix Salten in 1923. The film tells the story of Bambi, Bambi, his father, the king of the forest, his mother, his friend Rabbit, and other animals in the forest.

Stills from the animated film Bambi.

However, the original work of this novel is not just a warm story about friendship and love between animals, but has a more "dark" background. The original highlights that Bambi has been shrouded in the shadow of hunter threats since birth, and that some animals are "traitors" who help hunters hunt their own countrymen. The author Shalton's intention was to warn the world in the form of fairy tale fables that Jews would be treated with a similar inhumanity in the coming years. In 1935, the book was banned and burned by the Nazis, who themselves saw it as a political allegory about the treatment of Jews in Europe.

On January 18 this year, a new translation of Bambi's original novel will be released by Princeton Press, and this translation will also remove the filters Disney added to this dark fable. "From the moment of birth, Bambi was constantly attacked indiscriminately by invaders, as if it had become its destiny." The translator of the new translation, Jack Zipes, a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, said, "Unfortunately, Disney's adaptation filtered out these heavy and profound parts and turned the story into a sad and almost stupid film about 'princes and princesses, bourgeois families.'"

The author of the original Bambi, Phyllis Schatten, was an Austrian Jew who worked as a journalist in Vienna at the time. Zipps believes that at the time of writing the book, Shalton keenly observed the political winds of the time, "I think he foresaw the Holocaust." He suffered a lot from anti-Semitism in his youth, and the novel attempts to draw attention to the threat of anti-Semitism." When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Schattton fled to Switzerland and sold the rights to the film adaptation of Bambi to an American director who in turn sold it to Disney. According to The Guardian, the 1928 translation disney saw "changed" the focus of the original to make it look more like a story about animal protection. The Nazis stripped Satton of his Austrian citizenship, spent the rest of his life alone in Zurich, and died in 1945 – bambi's author and Bambi went to a similar end.

Zipps believes that many writers, in oppressive environments, will use fairy tale fables to convey heavy themes. With a story about animals, Shalton was able to overcome the reader's prejudice against the Jews and talk freely about the impending persecution he had predicted, and to "encourage the reader to develop more sympathy for the oppressed group without preaching." In reality, Shadun may not be able to resist, but with Bambi's tone, he can openly question the cruelty of the oppressors. Similar writing strategies are also reflected in famous writers such as Orwell.

Reference Links:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/dec/25/bambi-cute-lovable-vulnerable-or-a-dark-parable-of-antisemitic-terror

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi