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

Disney’s 100th Anniversary has been celebrated with all the fanfare it deserves, including special food and merchandise at its parks as well as a brand new logo on the front of movies. 2023 also marks the 50th anniversary of a specific Disney animated movie that may not get the same level of corporate self-congratulation: 1973’s Robin HoodThe film adapts the English adventure story of all times with an entire cast of animals. The film’s half-century mark is an appropriate moment to consider how it’s one of the earliest examples of a Disney story resonating with a marginalized community. The studio was slow to produce stories featuring non-white characters. Robin HoodIt accidentally produced a furry film.

“Robin Hood was undoubtedly my entry point into the furry community,” says Katav, a Chicago-based Ph.D. candidate studying the Hebrew Bible. Katav, their furry name and preferred method of identification in this work is the way they prefer to be identified. Though not all fans of anthropomorphic animal art associate that fandom with sexuality, or associate Disney’s Robin HoodKatav is a film that deals with sexual awakening. They note how a particular image in the movie seemed to open up a longing within them. “More than anything, I wanted to be [Robin] in the scene in which he’s tied up. So as I was exploring my sexuality, this definitely came to mind.”

Walt Disney Animation Studios

One of the most unique features that makes Robin Hood a furry media mainstay comes 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 inspiring fox was huge. It was easy to see (and you can still do so) his influence on the work. He certainly had a big impact on my own art,” webcomic artist Leaf Dubois says via email. Dubois notes also that one of the reasons for his success was because he had a great deal to learn from him. Robin Hood’s appeal among furry fandom is because of Disney animation’s famous attention to how animals look and move. In the days of one of the studio’s earliest animated features, BambiWalt Disney had his animators observe deer in real life to make their work more realistic. The attention to details gives Robin Hood’s anthropomorphized animals more of a sense of physical reality.

“Disney animators have always studied their subjects well,” Dubois says. “If you look closely, you’ll see animal body language in how the characters behave. A humanoid animal may move its ears, tail, whiskers and claws in an expressive manner. These details are outside of the human experience.”

Experience the thrill of knotting Robin HoodTo develop a unique identity in the furry world, there are many ways to do it. “It was an organic development that occurred over time,” says Christopher Polt, assistant professor of classical studies at Boston College. “Something that was significant to me as a kid was, Robin Hood takes place in a world where it’s You can also read more about the benefits of usingAnthropomorphic animals. It’s not like a lot of other Disney films, [where]There are always people around. There are talking animals, and they’re anthropomorphized to a certain extent, but [in most other films] they are not living in their own universe.”

Katav approached filmmaking in a similar way, based on their shared childhood experiences. “Robin HoodThis was my view into a universe where animals acted and spoke as people. These were characters who could do people things — shoot a bow, dress in drag, play badminton, etc. — but they still could be a beautiful array of species. This was my window to a different world in the conservative environment I grew up. Other than that,, a world like our own but different, where there could be more and freer self-expression.”

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Title character Robin HoodKatav continues to be impacted by Robin’s unique masculinity. “To me as a gay man, Robin represented a more admirable type of masculinity than the excessively hetero masculinities I was raised with,” he says. For him, the quintessential idea of the Robin Hood myth — fighting back against injustice through decency and empathy for those in need — extends beyond the character’s foxy nature. “Even though he’s in love with a woman in the film, he represents a type of man that I could strive to be: fluffy and passionate about justice.”

Dubois concurs. “Robin […] fought to make the world more equitable,” he says. “He’s fiercely loyal to the ones he loves, and he did it all with charm and grace. A kid couldn’t ask for a better or more handsome role model.”

There’s also the plain fact that some sequences in Robin HoodThey are focused on the obvious sexual attraction that exists between Robin Hood and Maid Marian. The sequence scored to the song “Love,” as the two characters take a twilight walk in Sherwood Forest alongside fireflies and near waterfalls, emphasizes their romantic connection without dialogue and through effective facial animation.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Disney Animation Studios

“I think what makes the song so beautiful and sexy is eye contact,” Polt says, referring to a moment within the song where Robin Hood and Marian share a glance 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 notes that another Disney animation film with all animals has a similar musical scene: The Lion King and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” in which a grown Simba and Nala frolic in the jungle before exchanging a very loaded look. “Both of those scenes are sexual awakening kind of moments,” he says.

Robin Hood’s status as a touchstone for the furry community is fairly familiar to those outside it. “I see occasional recognition from non-furries,” Katav says, pointing to Katie Notopoulos’ 2015 Buzzfeed article “18 Times the Fox in ‘Robin Hood’ Was Weirdly Hot” as one example of how “crushing on Robin is not purely a furry phenomenon.”

Polt, despite some well-intentioned comments from the public, has also experienced a lot of prejudice and bigotry. This spring, an article appeared in the New York Times that criticized furry communities. tweet of hisAfter he asked his students to create a personalized fursona to present to the class, Fox News took notice. He maintains his calm attitude despite the positive and negative responses he has seen to furry communities and their members. Robin Hood’s place within it. “You can talk with people and… agree that Robin is gorgeous and has a wonderful personality,” he says. “Or you get people who [say], ‘Ew, gross.’”

The potential antipathy toward furries from wider audiences has eased off somewhat as genre-based geek culture has become more mainstream, but it hasn’t entirely gone away. Aside from Polt’s recent experience with conservative commenters, there have been recent instances where conservatives try to weaponize furries into anti-trans talking points, leading to nonsensical stories that end up being debunked by Snopes and the like.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

DreamWorks characters like the ones in “Snoopy” and “Aladdin”, for example, have made it easy to relate with the audience. Kung Fu PThe following are some examples of how to get started:a and Puss in BootsA culinary legend of Ratatouille. And considering their shared affinity for foxes, it’s no surprise that both Polt and Dubois cite another recent Disney film starring a raffish fox.

“There’s little doubt that one of the most furry-friendly animated Disney films, ZootopiaTaken directly from Robin Hood,” Dubois says. The first is Zootopia’s directors, Byron Howard, has openly acknowledged the debt his 2016 film owed to Disney’s classic.

“When you have a fictional world like the world of Zootopia, where everybody is an anthropomorphic animal, it’s much easier to transport yourself into that setting,” Polt says. Disney’s films often ask audiences to enter the worlds of nonhumans and identify with them. Furry fans can feel a more personal connection with films that ask them to identify and enter the world of nonhuman characters. ZootopiaThe following are some examples of how to get started: Robin Hood, even as those films’ creative aims are otherwise different.

It is now the anniversary of its actual release. Robin Hood isn’t until Nov. 8, which leaves Disney with plenty of time to prep some kind of celebration, though based on the company’s past track record with anniversary dates, any official acknowledgement of the 1973 film will likely amount to a remark or two from its various social media accounts. Although a few decades ago, The Hollywood ReporterDisney’s interest in a hybrid of live action/CG was reported by the media. Robin Hood with director Carlos Lopez Estrada, in the vein of remakes like 2019’s The Lion KingThe following are some examples of how to get started: Beauty and the Beast, there hasn’t been any further movement on that front. Some may disagree, but the charm of Disney’s hand-drawn animated films is that they aren’t photorealistic, so any remake of Robin HoodThis style is a bit misleading.

That said, a live-action remake wouldn’t diminish the impact that the 1973 Robin Hood The furries have been impacted by this. The film appears to be a relaxed adventure, but its impact on a subset of fans is profound. For those of us who aren’t part of the furry community, it may be surprising to realize just how much of an impact Robin HoodHas had. Katav states it best: “I don’t know what would have become of me had I not found furry [fandom]. I’m only partly exaggerating when I say that Robin HoodMy life was saved. Love for this movie showed me a community of people like me.”