Since you're interested, here are some interesting analyses of the Disney Empire
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"We have no obligation to make history.
We have no obligation to make art.
We have no obligation to make a statement.
To make money is our only obligation."
-Michael Eisner, CEO, Disney, 2000
Disney's influence derives from its association with playfulness based on animation, films, parks as
films, and its promise of making childhood dreams come true- for both children and adults.
This playfulness consists of predictable, controlled experiences- the negation of play which is
unpredictable, spontaneous and controlled by the participants. The corporation's misty nostalgia serves
to disguise consumption, obscure the inadequacies of the present and bridge the gap into a higher
future care of technological progress managed by General Electric, General Motors, Coca Cola and
their corporate mates.
The myths of childhood, family and progress are a powerful drug. We need to wake up to the smell ...
and collectively seize and create the present and future.
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Popular audiences tend to reject any link between ideology and the prolific entertainment world of
Disney. And yet Disney's pretense to innocence appears to some critics as little more than a
promotional mask that covers over its aggressive marketing techniques and influence in educating
children to the virtues of becoming active consumers. Eric Smooden, editor of Disney Discourse, a
book critical of Disney's role in American culture argues that "Disney constructs childhood so as to
make it entirely compatible with consumerism." Even more disturbing is the widespread belief that
Disney's trademarked innocence renders it unaccountable for the diverse ways in which it shapes the
sense of reality it provides for children as they take up specific and often sanitized notions of identity,
difference, and history in the seemingly apolitical, cultural universe of "the Magic Kingdom." For
example, Jon Wiener, argues that Disneyland's version of Main Street America harkens back to an
"image of small towns characterized by cheerful commerce, with barbershop quartets and ice cream
sundaes and glorious parades." For Wiener this view not only fictionalizes and trivializes the history or
real Main Streets at the turn of the century, it also represents an appropriation of the past to legitimate a
present that portrays a world "without tenements or poverty or urban class conflict....it's a native white
Protestant dream of a world without blacks or immigrants."
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...[W]hile it is indisputable that Disney provides both children and adults with the pleasure of being
entertained, Disney's public responsibility does not end there. Rather than being viewed as a
commercial public sphere innocently distributing pleasure to young people, the Disney empire must be
seen as an pedagogical and policy making enterprise actively engaged in the cultural landscaping of
national identity and the "schooling" of the minds of young children. This is not to suggest that there is
something sinister behind what Disney does as much as it points to the need to address the role of
fantasy, desire, and innocence in securing particular ideological interests, legitimating specific social
relations, and making a distinct claim on the meaning of public memory. Disney needs to be held
accountable not just at the box office, but also in political and ethical terms. And if such accountability
is to be impressed upon the "magic kingdom" then parents, cultural workers, and others will have to
challenge and disrupt both the institutional power and the images, representations, and values offered
by Disney's teaching machine. The stakes are too high to ignore such a challenge and struggle, even if
it means reading Disney's animated films critically.
