Books for children: The Bear that Wasn’t

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Frank Tashlin, “The Bear That Wasn’t” (1946, reprinted by New York Review of Books, New York, 2010), hardcov­ er, $15.95.

“The Bear That Wasn’t” is an illustrated children’s book written with a political consciousness rarely found in this genre. What’s more, the melding of a children’s story with a political outlook—elements that would seem an unlikely mix—instead make the book an enter­ taining and enlightening read.

The story begins cleverly: “Once upon a time, in fact it was on a Tuesday …” the Bear realizes that winter is approaching, so it is time for him to hibernate. He finds a suitable cave and lies down to sleep. Meanwhile, un­ known to the Bear, a huge factory is built above the cave where he has been hibernating. Upon waking, the Bear stumbles into the factory, where a Foreman promptly takes him to be a shirking worker and threatens to re­ port the Bear to the bosses.

The hapless Bear’s protestations do nothing but land him into a spiral of ever-increasing conflict and trouble. The Bear is literally dragged up the corporate hierar­ chy through the offices of various vice-presidents and ultimately to the president. (Further up the corporate ladder, the bosses’ desks get bigger; they have more phones, wastebaskets, along with bigger windows and drapes. Management may be confused about the Bear’s identity, but they are certain of their own. They know who they are by what they have.) Before long, the boss­ es’ mockery and derision turns to anger. After all, saying ‘no” to the company president is a challenge to capitalist authority itself.

Since the Bear refuses to be shaken from his convic­ tion, he is then taken to the zoo and the circus, where other bears fail to recognize him. After all, if he were a bear, he would be in confinement along with them. Fi­ nally, the poor Bear is placed on an assembly line and put to work.

Unfortunately for the Bear, he knows who he is. Nature tells him and confirms it. It is Man (and those animals captured by Man) who do not recognize him as a bear. Social exploitation requires that the Bear’s identity con­ form to the need, in the first place, of the machine of which he becomes a part, and of capitalism that swal­ lows them all up—worker, machine, and Bear.

Issues of self-identity and independence form the heart of this children’s story; issues of exploitation give it substance and meaning. Clearly, author Frank Tashlin was drawing upon personal experience.

Tashlin was a cartoonist, a director of animated car­ toons, a film director, and a writer. He was also a po­ litically conscious union activist who found work at the Walt Disney studios to help with union organizing ef­ forts there. As he explained in a 1971 interview: “One of the reasons I wanted to go to Disney’s was to try to help the cause of the union. Ted [Pierce] was the first presi­ dent of the Screen Cartoonists Guild, as it was called then, and I was vice president, and we used to meet in class struggle in the most developed countries, would discount the working class and socialism. We still encounter such views, including in the so-called Zeitgeist movement, which calls for a purely ideological break with religion, cellars—it was like Communist cell meetings…. “The salaries were terrible then. I was making a hundred and fifty at the time, which was what the directors got. … So we started this union, and it was tough going: everyone was afraid to join. … I was able to make some inroads over there, and finally we went on strike, and they [Disney management] had to join [recognize] the union.” For all its weighty issues, this book is not as solemn as it might sound. The black and white drawings, full of quiet humor (at the circus, for instance, a performer takes a high dive into a small pool that is being drained by a thirsty el­ ephant) lend a light touch. Through all his tra­ vails, the Bear is never angry, only confused, be­ wildered at what seems to be an incomprehen­ sible case of mistaken identity.

Neither is the story some heavy-handed para­ ble praising the union movement. The Bear does not join with workers and, in an act of interspe­ cies solidarity, confront the bosses’ oppression. In fact, the Bear is an isolated being, cut off not only from humans but other bears as well. There is more cooperation with more positive results in “Clifford the Big Red Dog” than there is in “The Bear That Wasn’t.”

Yet, standing alone, pitching his will against an array of powerful forces, the Bear is an admirable and inspi­ rational figure. He is told, in so many words, “Your self is your social function. Without that, you are nothing.” Nonetheless, he replies, firmly but without malice, “I am a Bear.” By the end of the story he once again “becomes” what he had been all along.

Of course, “The Bear That Wasn’t” must ultimately suc­ ceed as a children’s book, and it will. Children will surely enjoy the story today as they have enjoyed it in the past. For, of course, children know what it’s like to be misun­ derstood, disbelieved, and to go unheard. Bear’s misfor­ tunes, full of social significance recognizable to adults, also echo the misfortunes of children. They will identify with Bear’s troubles and share in the happy resolution where all the wrongs are made right, and the world once again feels natural, secure, and safe. n fined mostly to students and intellectu­