Why J.R.R. Tolkien Really Hated Disney

It has long been known the J.R.R. Tolkien did not like Disney, since the day he saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with his close friend C.S. Lewis in 1938. But let's set the record straight. First, he didn't hate Walt Disney, the man. Tolkien wasn't that kind of person. But he hated the way The Walt Disney Company changed traditional folklore to appeal to the maximum possible numbers of American children, dumbing them down, so to speak. Second, he felt this way long before he saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Tolkien was an old-fashioned writer even for his time, and he had massive respect for classic fairy tales that went back hundreds of years, if not more. He also had his own particular vision of storytelling as a whole. You know that, but when you contrast it with the way Disney, as a company, works, you can see that the twain would never meet.