Disney Masterclass: How AIDS shaped the most iconic movies of our childhood

Alan Menken, the man with more Oscars than anyone else on the planet, talks about the death of one of Disney’s musical masterminds.

You’re at the Oscars after party.

In your left hand is a glass of champagne, in your right hand is an Oscar.

You’ve just won Best Original Song for The Little Mermaid’s ‘Under the Sea’. You’re feeling on top of the world… like a mermaid who just got her wish to walk, you might say.  

But then your co-lyricist and best friend pulls you aside and whispers in your ear, ‘When we get back to New York, we need to have a serious chat.’ And suddenly the room falls silent, at least it seems that way.

Menken (music) and Ashman (lyrics) accept their Oscars for Best Original Song for "Under the Sea." Credit: Long Photography / A.M.P.A.S. Source: Margaret Herrick Library

That’s how it was for Alan Menken at the 1989 Academy Awards when he found out Howard Ashman had AIDS.

This was a time in history when AIDS was a death sentence – and a deeply stigmatised illness.

“[He] tried to be as casual as possible and certainly didn’t want to project any sense of illness,” says Menken.

“At that point, no one else knew professionally that he was sick.”

Ashman died from AIDS just months before his last and most-celebrated film, Beauty and The Beast, was released.  

Only now, in hindsight, does Menken recognise that a lot of songs written in that period may have had an ulterior meaning.

“There was this song called ‘Humiliate the Boy’ that never made it into Aladdin,” Menken says.

“Jafar is singing ‘I’m taking this away from Aladdin, I’m taking this away from Aladdin’ and then Aladdin is stripped away to nothing, everything is taken away from him.”

“I felt very much like what Howard was going through with all his abilities being taken away.”

 

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