The "Pink Elephants" scene is visually stunning and, in the words of Leonard Maltin, "years ahead of its time." Thirty years after Dumbo's release, one of the film's animators, David Swift, was asked what he and his colleagues were on when they devised the scene. Judging from its hallucinogenic nature, the students suspected that more was involved than "a coupla martinis," Swift's answer to their question.
Along with alcohol, sexuality is depicted as still another subversive element in Dumbo. The film subtly mocks the notions of sexuality devised by Freud, whom the conservative Disney held to be a pervert. Dumbo alludes to Freud through its treatment of the magic feather. Plucked from the tail of one of the crows, the feather has distinct Freudian connotations. It gives Dumbo the confidence he needs to achieve potency, straight up in the air. Eventually, of course, the elephant comes to realize that the magic feather was "just a gag." This is the film's way of dismissing the Freudian theory as trival.
A second subversive sexual reference concerns the female elephants in Dumbo. In the absence of males, other than Dumbo himself, the overbearing lady pachyderms, with their hulking frames and mannish voices, come across as lesbian caricatures. Quite possibly, the reference was subconscious on Disney's part. From his own statements, it is clear that he hated and feared homosexuals; hence, his impression of any distasteful female, particularly an elephant, could understandably take this form.
Disney summed up many of his beliefs regarding subversive forces in American society in an off-the-record attack against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Disney denounced Roosevelt for calling the 1900's the "Century of the Common Man."
"Balls!" Disney said. "It's the century of the Jew, the union cutthroat, the fag, and the whore! And FDR and his National Labor Relations Board made it so!"
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