I found this touching Pooh illustration on a friend's wall yesterday and I borrowed it to make a point.
It has been 80 years since the first publication of Pooh.
Walt Disney own the copyright. The Milne family have been unable to get control back. Disney have announced that they are killing off Christopher Robin and will replace him with a tomboy girl.
"We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel told USA Today.
Here she is.
This raises two points for me.
I see in this decision the relentless drive to dumb down all experience. The touching beauty and tenderness of the Pooh world and its relationships will soon be lost. As will the tragedy behind the story of a father, Milne, who could not show his real son the love and attention he needed but gave it instead to a son of his mind. Everything becomes crude and one dimensional missing the essence of Pooh. Even the art is now flat and crude.
My second point is about copyright. We see here part of a trend - of large corporate institutions locking in ownership of art and then using their power to both hang on and to corrupt it so that they can find a mass market for it.
In the search of a mass market this kind of ownership has to dumb everything down. Who gains? The masses have no love for Pooh - He is just a label.
In the world at large there is a large market for the real Pooh and for Shepherd's illustrations. As we start to understand the Long Tail - there will be value in value. In the world of 6 billion, how many will be touched by the real Pooh? My guess is a lot of people.
PS Just caught this - Hugh's first picture of 2006 - apt isn't it
