Review of “The Thrifty Pig” (1941)
Walt Disney lent his studio’s artistry to the North American war effort against the Axis powers after Pearl Harbor. Some of the resulting non-fiction, including this one, conjures a powerful Orwellian zeitgeist wherein cuteness for kids meets capitalism, furious nationalist browbeating, battlefield horror and racism. Some Disney shorts from this period are not actually related to war but engage in a similarly masturbatory salute to unsustainable agriculture and pest control.