Disney’s Robin Hood is still a life-changing furry phenomenon

The 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company has arrived with much fanfare, from special merchandise And food products in the Disney parks to a new studio logo for his movies. 2023 also marks the 50th anniversary of a specific Disney animated film that may not get the same level of corporate complacency: 1973’s Robin Hood, which adapts one of the most recognizable English adventure stories of all time with a full cast of anthropomorphic animals. The film’s half century is an opportune time to consider how it is one of the earliest examples of a Disney story resonating with a marginalized community. While the studio has been slow to create stories involving non-white characters, with Robin Hoodaccidentally made it a movie that hit hard with furries.

“Robin Hood was undoubtedly my gateway to the furry community,” says Katav, a Chicago-based Ph.D. candidate studying the Hebrew Bible. (Katav is their furry identity and their favorite way to be identified in this piece.) While not all fans of anthropomorphic animal art who associate fandom with sexuality, or Disney’s Robin Hood with sexual awakening, Katav does, and they note that a specific image in the film seemed to unlock a personal desire. “More than anything, I wanted to be [Robin] in the scene where he is tied up. So when I was exploring my sexuality, this definitely came to mind.

Part of the unique qualities that are made Robin Hood a furry media mainstay boils down to the fact that the title character – a dashing, jovial hero who robs from the rich and gives to the poor – is a fox.

“Robin’s role as an inspirational fox was huge. You could (and still can) see his influence in art. He certainly had a big impact on my own art,” web comic artist Leaf Dubois says via email. Dubois also notes a reason for this Robin HoodIts appeal among furry fandom is because of Disney animations famous attention to how animals look and move. In the days of one of the studio’s first animated films, BambiWalter Disney arranged for the animators to observe live deer, hoping to make their animation more realistic. That gives focus on detail Robin Hood‘s anthropomorphic animals more of a sense of physical reality.

“Disney animators have always studied their subjects well,” says Dubois. “If you look closely, you can see animal body language in how the characters behave. An anthro animal may move their ears and tail expressively, twitch their whiskers, or unfurl their claws menacingly. These details are beyond human experience.”

The bonding experience Robin Hood establishing a personal identity within the furry community happens in different ways. “It was an organic development that happened over time,” said Christopher Polt, an assistant professor of classical studies at Boston College. “Something that was important to me as a kid was Robin Hood takes place in a world where it is just now anthropomorphic animals. It’s not like many other Disney movies, [where] you can always see people around. There are talking animals, and they’re humanized to some extent, but [in most other films] they don’t live in their own universe.”

Katav approached the movie the same way through their childhood experience. “Robin Hood was very much my window into a world where animals spoke and acted as humans do. These were characters who could do human things – shoot a bow, drag, play badminton, etc. – but they could still be a wonderful array of species. In my conservative upbringing, this was a window into a world otherwisea world like ours but different, where there could be more and freer self-expression.”

Image: Walt Disney Animation Studios

The title character of Robin Hood continues to resonate specifically for Katav because of the way he represents a unique kind of masculinity. “To me as a gay man, Robin represented a more admirable form of masculinity than the exaggerated straight masculinity I grew up with,” he says. For him, the essential idea of ​​the Robin Hood myth – fighting back against injustice through decency and empathy for those in need – goes beyond the scheming nature of the character. “Even though he has a crush on a woman in the movie, he represents a type of man I could try to be: fluffy and passionate about justice.”

Dubois agrees. “Robin […] fought to make the world a fairer place,” he says. “He is fiercely loyal to those he loves, and he did it all with charm and grace. A child could not ask for a better or more handsome role model.”

There’s also the simple fact that some sequences in Robin Hood are laser-focused on the overtly sexual attraction between Robin Hood and Maid Marian. The sequence of the song “Love”, as the two characters take a twilight walk in Sherwood Forest past fireflies and near waterfalls, emphasizes their romantic bond without dialogue and through effective facial animation.

Image: Walt Disney Animation Studios

Image: Walt Disney Animation Studios

“I think what makes the song so beautiful and sexy is eye contact,” says Polt, referring to a moment in the song where Robin Hood and Marian look at each other in extreme close-up – which also translates to looking directly at the audience, as the camera cuts between the two characters. Polt also notes how another all-animal Disney animated feature has a similarly charged musical sequence: The lionking and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, in which an adult Simba and Nala frolic in the jungle earlier exchange a very charged look. “Both scenes are moments of sexual awakening,” he says.

Robin Hood‘s status as a touchstone for the furry community is fairly well known to those out there. “I see occasional recognition of non-furries,” says Katav, pointing to Katie Notopoulos’ Buzzfeed article from 2015 “18 times the fox in ‘Robin Hood’ was weirdly hot” as an example of how “Robin crushing isn’t purely a furry phenomenon.”

While some of the outside commentary on the furry community is generally well-intentioned, as in that article, Polt has experienced quite a bit of bigotry and judgment. Earlier this spring, a tweet from him went viral enough to attract the scornful attention of Fox news, after instructing his students to choose a fursona (their own personalized anthropomorphic animal identity) to share with the class. Months later, he remains calm, having seen both positive and negative reactions to the furry community Robin Hoodits place in it. “You can talk to people and… agree that Robin is gorgeous and has a great personality,” he says. “Or you get people who [say]’Eh, gross.’”

The wider audience’s potential antipathy to furries has diminished somewhat as genre-based nerd culture has become more mainstream, but it hasn’t completely disappeared. Aside from Polt’s recent experience with conservative commentators, there have been recent instances of conservatives attempting to weaponize furries into anti-trans talk points, leading to nonsensical narratives that were eventually debunked by snoring and such.

Image: Walt Disney Animation Studios

But especially in the last 15 years, more and more animated films have focused on anthropomorphic animals, and audiences have found it easier to interact with them, from the main characters in DreamWorks such as Kung Fu Panda And Cat in Boots to the culinary hero of Ratatouille. And given their shared affinity for foxes, it’s no surprise that both Polt and Dubois cite another recent Disney film starring a riotous fox.

“There is no question that one of Disney’s fluffiest animated films, Zootopiawas directly inspired by Robin Hood‘ says Dubois. One of the Zootopia‘s directors, Byron Howard, has openly admitted guilt his 2016 film is due to Disney’s classic.

“If you have a fictional world like the world of Zootopia, where everyone is an anthropomorphic animal, it’s much easier to put yourself in that environment,” says Polt. Many Disney movies aim to transport and ask the general public to identify with non-human characters and enter their world. For members of the furry community, that request creates a stronger and more specific bond with movies like Zootopia And Robin Hoodeven though the creative goals of those films are different.

The actual release day anniversary of Robin Hood isn’t until Nov. 8, giving Disney plenty of time to prepare some sort of celebration, though based on the company’s past with anniversary dates, any official acknowledgment of the 1973 film will likely amount to a comment or two from his various social media accounts. Although a few years ago The Hollywood Reporter broke the story which Disney was exploring a live-action/CG hybrid remake of Robin Hood with director Carlos Lopez Estrada, along the lines of remakes like 2019’s The lionking And Beauty and the Beast, there has been no further movement on that front. Some may disagree, but the charm of Disney’s hand-drawn animated films is that they aren’t photo-realistic, so any remake of Robin Hood in that style can be a bit out of place.

That said, a live-action remake wouldn’t lessen the impact of the 1973 movie Robin Hood has had on furries. From the outside, the movie is a laid-back adventure that is known for reuse of footage from previous Disney films as for its powerful connection to unlocking personal identities in a subset of fandom. For those of us who aren’t part of the furry community, it can be surprising to realize just how much of an impact this has Robin Hood has had. Katav puts it best: “I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t found furry [fandom]. I’m only partially exaggerating when I say that Robin Hood saved my life. Love for this movie showed me a community of people like me.