Walter Benjamin and Mickey Mouse

The subject of the article is Walter Benjamin's relation to animated cartoons with Mickey Mouse as the main protagonist. The author presents all the data connected with that problem in context of Benjamin's work. He emphasizes a revolutionary potential of those films and their influence on mass public. Then, he refers to laughter and destroying mechanisms and their liberating character. Benjamin's opinions are the background for author's considerations of the function of cinema, and are compared with the theories created by Fourier, de Sade or Marx. The analysis of Benjamin's opinion on the Mickey Mouse cartoons leads the author to the conclusion that on the one hand these films are kitsch, but, on the other, they are able to overcome it.