Robin Hood Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: Robin Hood
Year: 1973
Director: Wolfgang Reitherman
Country: US
Language: English

He steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Disney's Robin Hood tells the animated story of the heroic outlaw from English Folklore who, according to legend, was also a highly skilled archer. I saw this film many times as a child, always entertained by the spectacle of a fox taking arms against an evil...Lioness? Prince John and his dastardly snake. The film is very popular with furry fandom, with its characters being design inspiration for the furry community.

Robin Hood is the story of the swashbuckling hero of Sherwood Forest and his valiant Bear sidekick, who plot one daring adventure after another in order to outwit the greedy prince and his partner as they put the tax squeeze on the poor.

Generally considered by film critics to be one of the weakest pictures in the company's history, the film was successful with audiences upon its release. It has a strong storyline with an abundance of humor. Who can forget the bear dressed in drag, filling his/her bra up with gold to reveal enormous boobies which then arouses the rhino guard? The animals each character represents has a strong symbolic significance.  The lion is a symbol of regality, the male fox is cunning, the lady fox is, well, foxy and so on. 

Unfortunately Robin Hood is not perfect; much of the animation is recycled from older Disney pictures. The few dance scenes are taken directly from Jungle Book (1967) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). It is also a feminist/queer theorists' nightmare. The views regarding femininity and masculinity are extremely narrow, though typical for a 70's Disney flick. The male fox is the typical masculine figure; strong, brave, smart and in charge. The women of the film are completely helpless. With the villains, Disney goes out of its way to show that femininity in men is wrong and therefore should be punished. Prince John is not depicted as a male lion like his older brother King Richard, but as a female lion. His actions are what only can be described as "sissy".

In conclusion, I found myself both entertained and disturbed by this movie. It is both mindless entertainment and patriarchal propaganda. It doesn't really fit in today's politically correct era of animation, though it does have a better story than Frozen. When read in a purely Marxian context one could consider this a "great" film, but I'm still not sure I'd show it to future generations. 3/5