Donald Duck turns 90 and doesn’t look it

Mischievous, capricious, perpetually short-tempered: 90 years ago the most famous duck of all time was born, Donald Duckbetter known as Donald Duck. Sailor shirt, bow tie and cap, his fame is second only to the most beloved mouse in the world, his colleague Mickey Mouse.

It was 1934 when Donald Duck made his debut in The wise hencartoon of Silly Symphony Of Walt Disney, which tells of a lazy duck, with no desire to work, who learns at his own expense what hard work is and not to lie to avoid breaking his back. A story at the antipodes ofProtestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism which should have animated Americans, veterans of the Great Depression and one step away from the War.

It was his second appearance, in that same year, in Orphan’s benefit, which crowned him Mickey Mouse’s sidekick: it is in fact the first work in which the characters appear together. Even in this plot, Donald Duck doesn’t make a good impression, much less show off his American virtues: he is capable of starting a fight with the orphans to whom he is dedicating a charity show, until he gets kicked off the stage. The cartoon ended with a mocked and humiliated Donald Duck.

If Mickey Mouse had been the mellifluous hero of good feelings, at times naive, Donald Duck introduced the farce, becoming an allegory of a different trait of America. The cartoon not only better defined his character – including his trademark tantrum of jumping on one foot and holding out his fist – but it took the world of cartoons. The audience didn’t smile with Donald Duck, which he did with Mickey Mouse and the others, but laughed at Donald Duck: of his foibles, of his irascibility, but also of his physical accidents, just as happened with Charlie Chaplin. But what the director and animator Ward Kimball wanted to define perfectly was the neurotic and irritating personality of Donald Duck. In front of the screen, even the audience was divided in front of that allegory which told a bit about that Gascon, arrogant America, always ready to fight, which burned under layers of good feelings and mannered proclamations.

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Yet, this irascible but true character was entrusted with a very important task by the Roosevelt administration. In 1930, the 24 countries of the governing council of the American Union had adopted a resolution to strengthen common ties and mutual goals. A few years later, in his 1933 inaugural address, Roosevelt promoted the importance of good neighbor policy. But who could have ever imagined who Donald Duck would become ambassador at large in the “backyard”?

Disney took advantage of this opportunity to promote its publicity tour. From August to October 1941 – the USA had not yet entered the war – a selected team of professionals carried out a real tour in in Latin America. They returned home with a significant supply of plots, concepts, and new character ideas. It was then that Donald Duck surpassed Mickey Mouse in popularity. Disney developed books, short films, and comics that celebrated (celebrated?) the people and cultures of Central and South America. In total twelve cartoons were produced which were published in 1942 under the title of Greetings friends.

Looking at it today, that operation had a humus of profound cultural colonialism. Donald Duck played a clumsy American tourist traveling around South America with a new friend what, José Carioca, a Brazilian parrot who embodied all the stereotypes about South America. Needless to say, the film was a rousing success across the continent. Almost ten years after his birth, more than someone was beginning to be convinced that Donald Duck was “the dark side of Disney”: so themoral commitment” to fight Nazism. In 1943 Donald Duck won his first Oscar for Der Feuhrer’s Facean anti-Nazi propaganda cartoon.

Despite his commitment during the war, Donald Duck has not stopped being that imperfect and shattered idol, full of a thousand neuroses. Softened perhaps by politically correct which in the United States even sweetens drinking water, has turned into an instrument of political ridicule.

That name, in fact, “Donald”… lent itself perfectly to ridiculing the man who in himself is a comedian and a character at the same time: Donald Trump. It was last September when, in the midst of the campaign for American primaries, the tycoon had decided not to appear at the debates with his party colleagues. And then, impatiently, the former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie – the former president’s main antagonist among the GOP candidates – had seen fit to call him “Donald Duck”. A capricious, childish, terribly irritating duck.