A brief history of

The Jungle Book Holly Main

 Rudyard Kipling’s original serialisation and
book

❖ The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

(1894) is a collection of stories. Most of
the characters are animals, though a
main character is the boy or ‘man-cub’
called Mowgli who is raised in the
jungle by wolves.
❖ The stories are set in a forest in India
which was likely to be inspired by
Kipling’s childhood as he was raised in
Bombay, India.
 Walt Disneys acquisition to the
rights
❖ Walt Disney acquired the rights to the
Jungle Book in 1962.
❖ Bill Pete created a lush and moody visual
style for the classic story firmly based on
Kipling’s book but it seemed like Walt was
more interested the vivid characters and
exotic settings rather than the book itself.
❖ The Jungle Book was the last animated
feature that Walt Disney personally
supervised however he died during its
production.
❖ The Walt Disney team still did an amazing
job on the animation and when it was
released it was an immediate blockbuster
hit.
 20th century adaptations
❖ Robert Heinlein wrote the Hugo-Award winning
science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land
(1961) because his wife suggested a new versions
of the Jungle Book where the child is raised by
Martians instead of wolves.
❖ Percy Grainger and Australian music composer
wrote the Jungle Book cycle (1958). It consists of
quotes from the book, set as choral pieces and
solos for soprano, tenor or baritone.
❖ BBC Radio broadcasted and adaptation on the 14th
of February 1994 and released it as a BBC
audiobook in 2008. It was directed by Chris Wallis
and others and the music was by John Mayer.
❖ The book has also been adapted for younger
readers with comic book adaptations such as DC
Comics Elseworld’s story, Superman: The Feral
Man Of Steel where an infant superman is raised by
wolves while Bagheera, Akela and There Khan
make appearances. This was published in 1994.
 Anthropomorphism and main
characters
❖ Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human
characteristics or behaviour to a God, animal or object.
❖ The main characters in the 1967 version of the Jungle
Book are:
❖ Bagheera - The black panther who serves as a friend,
protector and mentor to ‘man-cub’ Mowgli.
❖ Mowlgi - He is brave, adventurous and observant.
❖ Shere Khan - The tiger who attacks Mowgli, he is
aggressive, arrogant and brave.
❖ Kaa - He is the huge and powerful snake more than 100
years old and still in his prime. He is one of Mowgli’s
trusted mentors and friends.
❖ Baloo - Also one of Mowglis most trusted friends. He is
caring of Mowgli and tries to protect him at all times.
❖ King Louie - He was portrayed as an orangutan who
was the leader of the other jungle primates and who
attempted to gain knowledge of fire from Mowgli in
order to become more human.
❖ Rakesha – She is Mowgli’s mother and shows
undenying love and care for him.
 Social context
❖ Walt Disney misconceived the approach to monkeys in his 1967 animated film. The
monkeys' orangutan leader King Louie was named after the African-American singer
Louis Armstrong (although was voiced by Louis Prima who is an Italian-American).
When Mowgli refuses to help them, Louie and the monkeys become casually violent
before destroying what's left of their home. This argues that the connection to the
1960s Civil Rights Movement which occurred during the production of the Jungle
Book is too obvious to ignore.
 Political context
❖ Disney’s politics were rather conservative and right-wing and this undoubtedly
affected the representations within the film.
Economical context
 Propp's character theory
❖ Vladimir Propp’s Character Theory suggested that every narrative has eight different
types of characters. These character types are:
❖ The hero who seeks something
❖ The villain who opposes the hero mission
❖ The donor who provides an object with special properties
❖ The dispatcher who senses the hero on their mission with a message
❖ The false hero who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims
❖ The helper who aids the hero
 Applying Propp’s character theory to the Jungle Book
characters

❖ The hero - Mowgli

❖ The villain - Shere Khan
❖ The dispatcher - Bagheera because he makes Mowgli aware of the existence of the
red flower (fire)
❖ The helper - Bagheera, Baloo and Grey brother (the wolf cub)
❖ The false hero – Kaa, King Louie
❖ The donor - Not present
 Mowgli’s adventure
❖ 30 minutes into the film, Mowgli encounters a new animal – the first one who cannot speak. This is
usually seen as a danger to humans because it is wild and ferrel however Mowgli isn’t afraid of it
which shows his bravery even more.

❖ Mowgli meets Kaa who says he will keep him safe however he ends up trying to attack/eat him.

❖ Baloo saves Mowgli and asks him to get him some honey high up a cliff because he cant reach it.
Baloo becomes Mowgli’s friend and looks after him.

❖ The monkeys took Mowgli to King Louie where King Louie told Mowgli he could protect him if he
brought him the red flower. Mowgli says no and Bagheera and Baloo come to save him as King Louie
gets very angry. King Louie starts chasing Mowgli around the monkey temple as the monkeys attack
Bagheera and Baloo. Mowgli jumps out the window onto a tree and the monkey temple collapses on
King Louie and Mowgli, Bagheera and Baloo escaped safely.

❖ Mowgli gets annoyed at Baheera and Baloo because they didn’t tell him that Akela was killed by
Shere Khan so he went to the man village and got the red flower but he accidentally set the jungle on
fire. He took it to the river where all the animals were and used it to scare Shere Khan. Shere Khan
pretended he wasn’t scared and Mowgli ended up throwing the fire in the river. The animals of the
jungle then attacked Shere Khan but they were failing. Mowgli then took it into his own hands to kill
Shere Khan by enticing him up a tree above the fire. The tree sapped and Shere Khan fell into the fire
and died. Mowgli returned to the river with the elephants where they put the huge fire out and all lived
happily ever after without Shere Khan (the villain).
 Intertextual references
❖ Just before Kaa tells Mowgli where he came from, the strings in the background
music are deeper and elongated versions of the notes in ‘Trust in me’ from the
original Jungle Book.

❖ The stories that Shere Khan tells the wolf cubs are some of Rudyard Kipling’s
stories.
 Advertisement
Ways of marketing a film:

❖ Franchise

❖ Brand names

❖ Star names

❖ Word of mouth

❖ Websites

❖ Posters

❖ Trailers

❖ Teaser trailers

❖ Music

❖ Clothing (merchandise)
 Marketing
❖ Above the line advertising is funded as part of the project such as trailers, posters
and billboards which are of mutual benefit to the film and another commercial
agency.

❖ Below the line advertising includes merchandising and publicity that is not paid for
but again generates mutual interest.
 Marketing in the Jungle Book
❖ Disney made several smart marketing choices – they combined typical marketing
approaches, special opportunities available only to Disney and a few unique
techniques and messaging particular to this film.

Disney’s method:

❖ Each layer feeds into the previous layers. They began with the fan base and then
the social media reached out to that fan base consistently later. The theme parks
offered the fan base more footage and merchandising, the stores targeted fans with
merchandise, the trailers hammered home the Disney brand even when altering the
tone and visual imagery for each age or gender demographic. They also shared an
interactive poster on Mashable’s snapchat. The social media app reportedly has 4
billion daily video views, with its core audience made up of mostly young users so it
is a clever way to target this demographic.
 RAIL
❖ R – Representations
❖ A – Audience
❖ I – Industry
❖ L - Language
 Questions
1. What type of film is it and who do you think were the target audience?

The Jungle Book is an animated musical comical adventure film. The movie is filled with fun and upbeat songs
but also contains some dark, sinister scenes. I think the film is aimed at a diverse audience from children to
adults because of the wide range of moods and scenes within the film.

2. What economic and historical contexts meant that the American film industry was struggling in the
late 1960s?

In the late 1960s the American film industry was struggling because TVs were becoming more prominent in
homes which meant that less people were going to the cinema to watch the new movies being released. Walt
Disney’s Jungle Book being released at this time meant that they weren’t expecting a huge appeal like the one
they received.

3. How vertically integrated was Disney in 1967 and why was this important for the film’s economic
success?

Disney was very vertically integrated in 1967 which meant they were more economically successful because
they were in control of all their production, advertisement and publication.
4. The original Jungle Book although successful, was the last commercial success for Disney for
some time. Based upon what you know about the economic and historical context you looked at
for question 2, why might this have been the case?

5. What major projects pre-occupied Disney from the 1950s to his death and how this was a sign
of how the company would grow and change in the years between 1967 and 2016? (think about
horizontal integration)

Disney has become more horizontally integrated because they now own a lot more than just the rights to
the movies. They now own theme parks, merchandising and more.
 Exam Question
Explain how Disney used media language and representation within their
advertising and marketing of the jungle book to reach their target audience.
Discuss how they used social and cultural contexts to do this.

10 marks

INCLUDE:

❖ Notes on the posters and the UK teaser trailer

❖ Analysis of the representation in the posters and trailer considering media language elements such
as camera angles, editing, mise elements (lighting, settings, locations, costumes, props, makeup) and
sound

❖ Links to social and cultural references

 Plan
❖ Introduction (Talk about the fact it isn’t one audience, they targeted a very wide audience of men, children, women
etc.)

As one of the largest film conglomerates, Disney employed many marketing and advertising techniques to draw their target
audience to their film ‘The Jungle Book’ (2016) This included posters and a UK teaser trailer to attract their very wide target
audience of all ages, genders and personalities.

❖ Social and cultural (Talk about representation the most here, what was reflected from society at the time into the
movie)

The Jungle Book was a live action re-make of the original Disney cartoon from 1967. Disney introduced the idea of a live
action re-make to ______ . The re-make includes odes to the original cartoon including ________ and _______. This was
done to ______.

❖ Advertising and marketing

The Jungle Book used a successful advertising and marketing campaign including a number of interactive posters and a
teaser trailer for the UK. In all three posters advertising the from you can see strong representations of __________ and in
the trailer representations are seen of ______. Disney chose to advertise in this way because it allows the audience to
become more involved in the movie before it’s even come out and because they’re seeing snippits of the film which makes
the audience want to watch it to put all the pieces together.

❖ Conclusion