Disney & Fujikawa

a play in one act

by Lloyd Suh

Beth Blickers
APA
135 West 50th Street, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10020
(212) 621-3098
bblickers@apa-agency.com

copyright lloyd suh 2017

  
 

Disney & Fujikawa

by Lloyd Suh

Characters
Walt Disney, 41, white male.
Gyo Fujikawa, 34, Japanese American female.
   1  

Winter, 1942. Walt Disney at a private office

in New York. It is only a temporary office, so
it is relatively bare, but there is probably
some sort of Mickey Mouse iconography
somewhere.

Gyo Fujikawa is sitting across from him,

holding an enormous artist portfolio.

DISNEY
Although I wouldn’t be born for another few years, I somehow have vivid memories of the 1893
World’s Fair. My father was a contractor who built many of the attractions. It was like a city; a
city of the world and the world in a city, there were pavillions where you could learn about every
part of civilization, a land of Russia, a miniature Holland, next to Japanese, Polynesian, African
exhibitions and cultural displays. There were games, performances, rides, demonstrations of new
technologies and most importantly, the entire city was focused on the future.

FUJIKAWA
Mm.

DISNEY
Perhaps it’s because I was not there that I can recall it so idealistically; it exists only in my
imagination. And imagination, Ms. Fujikawa, is the only perfect place there is, is it not?

FUJIKAWA
Yes sir, well, unless you're someone who imagines terrible things.

DISNEY
I'm so pleased you reached out. A fellow artist from the old days! It's been too many years.
Unkind years in general, but you appear as well as ever.

FUJIKAWA
I appear, ha.

DISNEY
I think I would like to build a city.

FUJIKAWA
Did you say a city?

DISNEY
I think so. A city? Or a world? A world just like the 1893 World’s Fair, but it won't just be a
seasonal event, no; in fact it will never close. It will contain permanent pavilions for every
continent, a laboratory for innovation, a place where world peace is not a goal but a given, where
we only look to the past to ask ourselves how did we get here?, and perhaps more importantly,
what now?
   2  

Silence.

DISNEY
I take it from your silence that you think this is ridiculous.

FUJIKAWA
I don’t think it’s ridiculous, Mr. Disney, I mean, it’s a beautiful image, I just don’t… I don’t
have anything to add, so I don’t know how to respond.

DISNEY
I hope you will respond honestly. I mean, it’s not like this is a a a job interview or something.

FUJIKAWA
Oh! Well, I mean, it’s not – it’s not not a… Is it? Isn’t it?

DISNEY
Wait.

FUJIKAWA
I mean it’s a meeting, right, it’s…

DISNEY
Oh. Perhaps I misunderstood why you’re… I thought that – ha. Let’s start over?

FUJIKAWA
Let’s.

DISNEY
Ms. Fujikawa, I'm glad to see you again.

FUJIKAWA
I’m grateful for the time. Thank you for agreeing to meet, I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.

DISNEY
Of course I remember, I remember everything. Memory… it helps us move forward.

FUJIKAWA
Yes.

DISNEY
I understand you’re at William Douglas McAdams.

FUJIKAWA
Since June of last year, yes.
   3  

DISNEY
I assume you’re doing well there, as you have in all your endeavors.

FUJIKAWA
The work is interesting, but I am open to considering other opportunities.

DISNEY
And how do you like New York.

FUJIKAWA
I’m adjusting.

DISNEY
Your family is here as well?

FUJIKAWA
My-- Um. No sir, my family… My family is in Rohwer, Arkansas.

DISNEY
What?

FUJIKAWA
Yes.

DISNEY
Rohwer Arkansas what do you -- are you – Wait, you don’t mean the the

FUJIKAWA
The camps, sir?

Silence.

DISNEY
Oh dear. Of course. Pardon me, how terrible, how –

FUJIKAWA
Not at all, sir.

DISNEY
I forget, you see, somehow I forgot, because you’re not… I mean, I think of you as Gyo, I think
of Chouinard and Fantasia. You're not a - I think of you as just a person, not a Japanese.

FUJIKAWA
I don’t know how to respond to that.
   4  

DISNEY
And I don’t know how to apologize.

FUJIKAWA
Let's start over again?

DISNEY
Gratefully.

Silence.

FUJIKAWA
Congratulations on Bambi, sir, you must be very proud.

DISNEY
Ah yes Bambi.

FUJIKAWA
The improvements in the renderings of deer and other animals since Snow White are are are,
they’re really inspiring.

DISNEY
Are you able to visit?

FUJIKAWA
I’m sorry sir?

DISNEY
Your family. In Arkansas.

FUJIKAWA
It’s unclear. I haven’t, for now. The rules are evolving, it’s all very… sudden. My parents insist I
stay away, we’re not sure what would happen if… whether the army would consider me--

DISNEY
Of course.

FUJIKAWA
As I sat in the theater watching Bambi, I couldn’t stop thinking about a conversation we had,
after Snow White. About how you were unsatisfied with the animals. Despite all its success, you
could only see the flaws, in particular the imperfections of the deer. When I learned your next
project was Bambi. I thought wow, this is how a great artist works, if he feels he has left
something unaccomplished, even in the midst of a masterpiece, well he tries again, doesn’t he?

DISNEY
Do you have concerns that you might also be… um.
   5  

FUJIKAWA
What?

DISNEY
The camps, is there a concern that you might, yourself, be

FUJIKAWA
Relocated?

DISNEY
Yes.

FUJIKAWA
So far the Order only applies to the West Coast. I’ve been a resident of New York for a year now
– I mean I don’t know what will happen next, who can predict or anticipate anything these days,
but for now -- Mr. Disney I don’t want to talk about this.

DISNEY
And I don’t want to talk about Bambi.

FUJIKAWA
Okay.

DISNEY
So what shall we talk about?

Silence.

FUJIKAWA
The future?

DISNEY
Are you unhappy at William Douglas McAdams?

FUJIKAWA
I am unhappy everywhere I go.

Silence.

Forgive me, I don’t know why I said that.

Silence.
   6  

DISNEY
Ms. Fujikawa, I’ve always made it a habit to keep people at arm’s length, not out of any policy
or personal pretense, mind you, it’s just that between you and me and the Mouse I can be socially
awkward. I know we’ve known one another for the better part of a decade and worked in
collaboration sometimes very closely, and yet I know very little about you; perhaps you know a
few personal things about me but not because I told them to you, not because of any earned or
organic intimacy, but rather because there is a microscope on me at all times analyzing my every
hope and dream as an example of the boundless American imagination. But none of it is real,
and this word means something different now than it used to, doesn’t it? We are cartoonists in a
time of war and so our reality perhaps is not the sort of reality that reflects reality in the way
reality expects. With everything that’s going on in the world, well… I cannot help but question
myself in this. I cannot help but ponder my regrets. Where I may have previously been
preoccupied with the renderings of animated deer and in the case of Bambi some ambivalence
about how best to illustrate fire, I have now turned inward, and wonder how do I fix this other
thing, this hole in myself, this hope for… what is it? To be seen? To be understood? in my life –
and I know perhaps this is the war talking, but I cannot think on cartoons now, Ms. Fujikawa, I
have the urge instead make a city, nay a world, a world that works better than the one we
currently have, and and and and

FUJIKAWA
Please stop.

DISNEY
Dear God thank you yes I would rather like to stop. Thank you.

She hands him her portfolio.

FUJIKAWA
Mr. Disney.

DISNEY
What is this.

FUJIKAWA
Illustrations.

DISNEY
Oh.

FUJIKAWA
No, not illustrations. A vision of the future. In progress, of course.

DISNEY
Ms. Fujikawa.
   7  

FUJIKAWA
Let me explain.

DISNEY
The thing is--

FUJIKAWA
An image can change the world. I know you believe this as much as I do. Well. This is what I
would change.

Silence. Disney opens the portfolio and looks at the images.

She looks at him looking.

FUJIKAWA
I've worked hard to make it subtle, though I know it's inevitably um quite jarring. But I've
worked hard not to comment on...

DISNEY
Mm.

FUJIKAWA
You'll see they each--
You see, because that's how children are, before they--
They're not aware of the same -- in the same way, not at that age, they--
Which is not to say there's always harmony, I've tried to include the whole spectrum of emotion,
just as there's the whole spectrum of-- yes. And so, no matter what race the children are, they're
together, they're doing the same... they each

DISNEY
Shhh.

FUJIKAWA
Yes, of course, I'll stop talking, I'll let you-- yes.

Silence.

FUJIKAWA
And yet the activities, you see, I chose activities that are

He closes the portfolio.

Okay. I don't know what I'm looking for. No I take that back of course I do. I can't go to
California, obviously, but I thought if I showed this to you, you might... that there might be a
   8  

DISNEY
Gyo.

FUJIKAWA
Yes?

DISNEY
I understand.
I really do.
In a perfect world, this...
But it's... not the time. It's just.
It's not the time.

He puts the portfolio down on his desk.

FUJIKAWA
Thank you for meeting with me.

She goes to take the portfolio, he puts his hand on top of it, stops her.

DISNEY
That doesn’t mean what you think it means. Please. Stay a moment.

She leaves the portfolio.

Bambi lost an extraordinary amount of money, not quite as much as Fantasia lost, but close, and
yes I have an extraordinary amount of money to lose, but I also have stockholders and this isn’t
1937 anymore. Look at the comic book racks at the drugstore you’ll see even Superman’s
fighting Nazis and promoting personal sacrifice in the name of the flag; our animation unit can’t
sustain any more of my whimsy; the reason I’m in New York right now is for casting on a
Donald Duck propaganda puff piece, and our next feature picture's called Victory Through Air
Power and there’s not a duck or a bunny rabbit in it.

FUJIKAWA
I didn’t have an expectation, I hoped there might be a a a place for me, but

DISNEY
Stop apologizing for yourself. It doesn’t help. I remember this about you; have some confidence
dammit. Because Victory Through Air Power is going to make money. It’s going to cost a nickel
and it’s going to make a dime. And no, I don't want to make these pictures, I want to build cities!
And I will build them, once the war ends (if it ever does) and if we're still alive and still
American when it happens. The past is example, the future is the goal, but the present tense is
undeniable. Our present tense is crisis and emergency. If we lose the war, I won't have a choice
whether to make propaganda touting the heroism of free men, I’ll be forced to make propaganda
of a very different sort.
   9  

FUJIKAWA
Different how?

DISNEY
In salutation of a different flag.

FUJIKAWA
And who do you salute now?

DISNEY
What are you saying to me?

FUJIKAWA
I don’t even know.

DISNEY
Are you in some kind of trouble?

FUJIKAWA
We are all in some kind of trouble.

DISNEY
Do they know you’re Japanese?

FUJIKAWA
Who?

DISNEY
William Douglas McAdams.

FUJIKAWA
Of course.

DISNEY
And do they treat you differently?

FUJIKAWA
Differently, ha well I suppose yes they treat me differently than they used to. Which was already
different than the way they treated others.

DISNEY
People on the street, in your neighborhood, do they--

FUJIKAWA
If they don’t know, they find out.
   10  

DISNEY
Have you been harassed?

FUJIKAWA
I have always been harassed.

DISNEY
But if you’re walking around, in a store, or at a party

FUJIKAWA
I don’t go to parties.

DISNEY
Say someone somewhere asks, are you Japanese?

FUJIKAWA
Typically they ask passively, they say Are you Chinese? but I understand they’re using a process
of elimination

DISNEY
What do you say?

FUJIKAWA
Sometimes I say yes, I am Chinese.

DISNEY
You do.

FUJIKAWA
If I suspect they’ll learn the truth eventually I tell them the truth, if I don’t I’ll say I’m Chinese,
in certain situations I have been known to say I’m in fact Anna May Wong.

DISNEY
No you don’t.

FUJIKAWA
Yes I do.

DISNEY
Anna May Wong the film star.

FUJIKAWA
Yes.

DISNEY
And then what?
   11  

FUJIKAWA
Since the war started I've probably signed a few dozen autographs.

Disney laughs an overcompensatory laugh.

She laughs at his laugh.

DISNEY
You know that’s terrible, right?

FUJIKAWA
I do.

DISNEY
No. I mean it. You’re an American, goddamit. When they ask you should say I’m an American!
Don’t you know that? Good God, woman, you must stand up for yourself! Don’t lie about who
you are, you must tell them. Proudly!

FUJIKAWA
Mm.

DISNEY
Don't you know that?

FUJIKAWA
It’s easy for you to say that, isn’t it?

DISNEY
Easy has nothing to do with it, it’s a matter of pride.

FUJIKAWA
Don’t.

DISNEY
What.

FUJIKAWA
Don’t do that, don’t – that’s not fair, sir, it’s not fair and it’s cruel.

DISNEY
I don’t understand

FUJIKAWA
I know. I know you don’t understand, you could never understand, not even after a million
exhibitions and demonstrations on the people of the world, you can’t understa—
   12  

No. It’s not fair for a man like you to talk to me about pride, I have pride but pride is not
external, it’s not a show. What would you have me do, when someone asks with obvious intent
who I am when I know the answer is hateful to them, shall I spend my whole damn life trying to
educate every random ignorant moron who wishes me harm? What cost is a pride like that? This
morning I was out for a walk with my friend’s daughter, she is not even 2 years old and white as
a Disney princess; a man approaches, he spits on the sidewalk and says Die Jap Bitch, I turn
away to shield the baby from his anger and he says he Oughta Take My Baby and Throw it in the
River; and as he walks away self-satisfied I’m startled that my first reaction is to say But we are
not near any river; my second reaction is for the child, even though she's not my child and the
child is not even Japanese, my heart breaks for her before it breaks for me, because my heart is
strong Mr. Disney, I know who I am even if the rest of the world does not. What good will it do
to tell this babboon I am an American? Is that what pride looks like? Is that what strength acts
like? And yes, maybe sometimes I want the world to know that I am strong, know that I am
proud, but why do I want that? Why? What do I want from you, why am I here, what can you
give me, why do I ask you for things I don’t even want? So no, I am not strong, I am not proud,
I'm sitting here begging you for what, to belong to a a a a vision, is it? To have you validate my
vision of the future?, I mean how pathetic, that I would beg to live inside your stupid imagination
that yes contains intoxicating beauty but is always incapable of replicating what is real. What is
real? Do you know?

My sister sent me a letter. It says that even though they’ve lost everything, had to sell their home
and every belonging they couldn’t carry for pennies on the dollar, even though they traveled
from California to Arkanasas on a train with no seats and armed guards in every cabin, even
though they’re surrounded with barbed wire and sentry towers and forced to live ten families to a
bunker, they are trying to build a community. To make it like a city of their own, with what they
have left. Can you imagine? In your vast imagination, Mr. Disney, can you imagine a place like
this? Everything has been taken, not just their possessions but any hope of articulating their
dignity and yes pride, Mr. Disney.

And yes I have seen your propaganda since the war began, I have seen the cartoons and the
renderings of Japanese with their buck teeth and tiny eyes and evil expressions, I understand you
think to build yourself up you have to tear down your enemies first, I understand that’s what
happens in war, but don’t pretend you have pride about it. Don’t tell me you don’t think of me as
Japanese but instead as my own person, because that tells me when you think of Japanese you
think of them as somehow not people.

DISNEY
I—

FUJIKAWA
No. Shut up, don’t try to justify or apologize, I don’t want your apology and I especially don’t
want you to explain yourself, because I already know what the explanation is; I’ve seen those
images and still I come to you looking for you to help me somehow, and that shames me, that I
would even want that, that I would think I need you for that, and yes, sometimes I hate the
Japanese too, sometimes I hate the Japanese for bombing Pearl Harbor and from time to time to
   13  

be perfectly honest sometimes I understand where they were coming from, because most of the
time I don’t hate the Japanese though I hate myself for being Japanese, I hate that part of me
that’s Japanese as much as you do and the rest of the world does, other times I hate the part of me
that hates that part of me. Although I am not just partially American, you're right, I am an
American. Except how can I believe that when I know I am not American in the eyes of
America? And so I'm left hating that part of me that's American only sometimes, I can only love
myself if I hate myself, but right now I hate most of all the part of me that wants so much, so so
much for you to understand me, to be seen, why do I want you to understand when I don't care
what the river-throwing-baby-hating guy on the street this morning understands? Do you
understand? I don’t! Because no!, I don’t want anything from you at all, I don’t know why I
came here, I don’t know why I’m even talking to you; except of course I do, I take it back, I have
no pride and yes I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed that my family is behind bars for being Japanese,
and I’m not there with them; I’m here in New York City, drawing corporate advertisements by
day and trying, trying, trying to illustrate a better more beautiful world on my own, I go home to
my empty apartment and my cat who doesn’t even like me and I dream at once about suffering, I
feel like I should suffer more, I don’t deserve my lack of suffering even though I do not lack
suffering, I should suffer like my sister does, like my mother and father, but I also think about
you, about the worlds you build in your imagination and for a moment I believe they are possible
but of course I know they're not, it's a cartoon optimism, a bullshit fantasy. Don’t get defensive
just shut up, okay? I know you're not racist, except of course you are, the whole world is, isn't it,
and so of course you are, but you can't help it, you’re only as racist as the world is, not more but
certainly not less; you’re just a man, and you can’t do anything more than anyone else can, with
all your money and all your power and all your status and reputation, your imagination will
forever be limited by the intractable boundaries in the inherent nature of man.

So. Yes. May I have my portfolio back please? They are originals and I don’t have copies.

Silence.

Disney opens the portfolio again, and flips through the images.

He does this carefully and deliberatly, studying each one intently.

After about five or six pages, he studies one of them even more intensively.

DISNEY
This one looks like me.

FUJIKAWA
I don’t know which one you’re looking at.

DISNEY
Guess.

FUJIKAWA
   14  

A scene by a tree. Seven children. A red-haired girl with a grass stain on her bottom, pulling at
the blanket of an Asian boy who is crying and shirtless. Two boys, one white one black,
splashing in the mud, and a blonde girl, watching and clapping. Another boy, also black,
swinging on a tire swing. The seventh kid is the one you think looks like you.

DISNEY
His back is turned, looking off in the distance. Like he’s unsatisfied with what’s there and wants
to see beyond the hill. Even without seeing his face we can tell from his upturned glance to the
right that he might even be looking off higher and farther than the page itself, to something even
the illustrator herself could not imagine?

FUJIKAWA
Yeah that one.

DISNEY
Nope, different kid.

FUJIKAWA
Liar.

DISNEY
I was looking at the mean red-haired girl. Trying to take the blanket from the Asian boy.

FUJIKAWA
No you weren’t.

DISNEY
I sincerely was.

FUJIKAWA
Nope.

DISNEY
Okay fine, you’re right I wasn’t.

FUJIKAWA
You were looking at the dreamer.

DISNEY
I was looking at the dreamer.

Silence.

DISNEY
I’d like to see what his face looks like.
   15  

Silence.

FUJIKAWA
It looks kind of messed up, honestly. His eyes are kinda bulgy and incongruous. Also he’s very
pasty and he’s got a

DISNEY
Yeah alright.

FUJIKAWA
Like a weird skinny mustache.

DISNEY
Poor kid.

FUJIKAWA
Nah, he’s got it alright. No one’s trying to take his blanket.

DISNEY
He’s very sensitive though.

FUJIKAWA
He should have some pride.

DISNEY
He should pay attention to the other kids maybe too. Although it would help if they were doing
something more interesting.

FUJIKAWA
They’re just kids.

DISNEY
Yeah.

FUJIKAWA
They got time, maybe they’ll figure it out.

DISNEY
Here’s hoping.

Without touching the page, he hovers his hand over the image like a caress.

End of play.