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| Bird

The Courthouse at Pooh Corner

The ongoing Schlesinger family lawsuit against Disney continues two decades later

 

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cigs

     

 

By Angela Espinoza

isney has done it again. No, I
D= mean being bailed out by

Pixar—that happened in June. I
mean Disney has once again contributed to
making a bad name for itself. The Disney
Corporation has had a lawsuit filed against
them by the family of Stephen Slesinger,
the man who made Winnie the Pooh a
household name.

Slesinger purchased the American and
Canadian distribution rights from the silly
old bear’s original writer, A.A. Milne, back
in 1931. For 30 years, Stephen Slesinger
Inc. marketed the books to a worldwide
audience, bringing joy in the form of Pooh
Bears and Tiggers to children all over.
Then, in 1961, Slesinger’s family licensed
the rights to Disney, who then took the
books and mass-marketed them as animated
features, television shows, books of
significantly less quality, toys, and so on.

For the last 20 years, Slesinger’s family
has kept the Disney Corporation in court
over just how much they feel Disney owes
them in terms of royalties. Despite having
consistently been told that the family is
receiving their paid due by both Disney
and the courts, they have continued their
lawsuits.

The Slesinger family certainly has
reason to believe they are being ripped
off by Disney, as do many others. Need I
remind you all of the Kimba the White Lion/

16

The Lion King controversy that lingers
even today. In fact, the family can be seen
as role models for those afraid to stand up
to the multi-billion dollar corporation. The
only reason the creators of Kimba the White
Lion never sued was because they feared
that they’d most likely lose and have to owe
some unreasonable amount to the Disney
company for accusing them of the obvious.

Now, we can’t say Disney’s mass-
marketing campaign was necessarily a bad
thing. How many children, even today in
the late ‘00s, have grown up with Winnie
the Pooh in one form or another, teaching
us early in life about proper morals as well
as making us laugh? Even at eighteen, I still
watch the late ‘80s cartoon show through
old VHS tapes or online because, for my
generation, that was the favourite Winnie the
Pooh adaption. In fact, I recommend that
you all take a look at it; the show is actually
much wittier than one might remember, I
can guarantee that.

Why Disney hasn’t just paid the
Schlesingers some private settlement out of
court yet is beyond me, unless the family
refuses to take it in hopes of receiving
a larger settlement. Unless, of course,
we’re speaking morally, and the family
just wishes to have proper recognition for
their contribution to the silly old bear. As
with every story, there are two sides here;
eventually though, in a world based on
competition, one will have to win.

Oh, bother.

 

Indie rock: recycling a disposable genre

What’s the value in such a vague genre of music?

SMe Ces 1

By Jay Schreiber, Arts Editor

Press, have reviewed countless

concerts, albums and pop culture
movements as they’ve happened in our
time. I can now honestly say that the most
dull, bland and boring sub-genre that I’ve
had to cover has been the world of indie
rock.

That’s right, as your eyes read this
page, I confess to you that this genre is
beginning to really piss me off. It’s taken
a lot of time spent as a fan and supporter
of indie music to finally take a second
look and question the entire style. Sure,
the music appeases the ears and the skill
level required isn’t entirely amateur, but
there’s still something about the genre that
lacks justification.

Indie rock never achieved the status
that certain areas of popular music have,
and therefore it is my belief that the
culture isn’t solid. For example, rock and
rollers have bands such as the Rolling
Stones, Aerosmith and AC/DC touring
around as trailblazers for their genre. Who
were the trailblazers for indie?

At first it seemed to me that indie
rockers were whiny babies in tight jeans
who never really got over Nirvana. As I
began to listen more carefully, the lyrics
and melodies were quite catchy and I

L: my time spent writing for The Other

 

stemming from England and then in
North America. Hypocritical British band
Radiohead began making music in the late
“80s that refined their predecessors Pink
Floyd and the always important Velvet
Underground. The sound was great, and
the group’s influence can be seen as a
stepping stone for Brit pop and indie in
the UK.

North American indie came to be
in the 1990s after the west coast scene
exploded with new music. California
produced a handful of punk outfits and
the SoCal metal scene had been going
strong for about a decade when the Seattle
grunge movement began to dominate the
airwaves. Grunge was initially the counter
culture, and the term was eventually
renamed “alternative rock.”

Alt rock and indie have turned into
two very similar ways of classifying
music that sounds just like everything
else. It’s what happens when the counter
culture achieves mainstream success, and
kind of loses the intended integrity and
meaning.

On November 18, Indie band Built
to Spill performed to a somewhat full
house at the Commodore Ballroom, and
upheld the current meaning of indie rock.
To me, music should make you feel the
message it’s trying to convey. Heavy
metal calls for a mosh pit, hip hop should

“Alt rock and indie have turned into two very similar ways of
classifying music that sounds just like everything else. It’s what
happens when the counter culture achieves mainstream success,
and kind of loses the intended integrity and meaning.”

began to fancy the music. As usual, I had
to dig deeper into the genre to discover
more about other bands labelled “indie”
and only now have I made a shocking
discovery.

Bands that are labelled indie come
from such a large spectrum of music that
it’s hard to tag down one specific sound.
For example, indie music stations in
Vancouver were playing everything from
underground indie to the latest Queens of
the Stone Age single; a big leap between
styles if you ask me.

I guess that it wouldn’t be fair to
ignore the creation of indie rock either,

get you pumped and funk makes you want
to shake it. The crowd is usually a good
indicator of the chemistry in the room,
and at the Spill show, they were playing to
a placid audience.

I guess indie is just that then—the
kind of music that doesn’t grab you in
the same way other styles can. Maybe
that’s why I lost respect for indie, but I
still don’t intend on dropping the style
completely. Ignoring music is like setting
up aimless limits, so I’ll tell you what,
how about I just don’t write any more
articles about indie groups that sound like
everyone else? Deal?

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