The Secret of NIMH (1982) and Animal Rights

Disney films from the 1940s and 1950s that grapple with animal treatment may range from those advocating animal rights, sometimes at the expense of other species, to those that rest on a biosocial moral paradigm that provides a space for interdependence in service to the community. But they all demonstrate that the animal rights/animal welfare debate was well under way before Peter Singer’s animal liberation movement gained force. These films also served as grounding for films with more explicit animal rights messages. 

These Disney films lay the groundwork for a later film with a more explicitly forceful animal-rights message like that found in The Secret of NIMH (1982). The film is the first feature from Don Bluth after he left Disney Studios to join an independent animation team, a connection that aligns the film further with the earlier Disney animated features. According to Aljean Harmetz of the New York Times, The Secret of NIMH  "is an attempt to return to the rich, fully detailed animation that is known as ‘classic’ Disney animation” (C17), a goal that, according to Roger Ebert, Don Bluth and his team successfully executed. Ebert asserts regarding the film: “they have succeeded in reproducing the marvelous detail and depth of the Disney classics. This is a good-looking, interesting movie that creates a little rodent world right under the noses of the indifferent local humans“ (“The Secret”).

Ebert also likes the film’s premise: In a seemingly direct reaction to both Disney and Singer’s text, the film argues vehemently against animal testing and experimentation and, according to Ebert, asks the question: “What if a group of laboratory animals were injected with an experimental drug that made them as intelligent as humans?” (“The Secret”). As Nicodemus, the rat narrator, reveals, scientists from NIMH, the National Institute of Mental Health, captured and performed dangerous experiments on mice and rats that ultimately increased their intelligence. Nicodemus explains the plight of the rat community to Mrs. Brisby, a mouse who comes to the rats for help, telling her that her husband, Jonathan “made possible the rats’ escape from the terrible … NIMH.” 

Jonathan’s matronly wife, Mrs. Brisby, helps them outsmart human farmers and the NIMH Institute, ensuring a move to Thorn Valley away from the bulldozers meant to destroy them. In The Secret of NIMHthe rights of animals overshadow those of humans, not only because human characters serve only minor roles in the film but also because humans mistreat animals both in the laboratories of NIMH and on the farm. The Secret of NIMH, then, explicitly argues against cruel mistreatment of animals both in laboratories and in “the field,” while demonstrating that animals deserve rights because they so resemble us. Together these films also paved the way for environmentally conscious animal welfare films like Bee Movie. For us they also highlight that the roots of both the environmental and animal rights movements were well in place before either Singer’s animal liberation or the contemporary environmental movement.