The Disney Corporation has in many ways infiltrated American culture. What was once a small business has grown into the world’s largest media and entertainment syndicate in relation to their revenue, which in 2010 was $38,063 million (Disney 2010 fourth quarter). Not only do they produce movies but they also own their own resorts, cruises, theme parks, massive amounts of marketing products, and even their own town. Through careful examination of the semiotic implications in many of Disney’s marketing and product endeavors I hope to pull the curtain back and criticize the truth behind what Disney is selling and what exactly the multi-national corporations’ moral agenda is.
The American dream has always been the driving force behind everything we as a country do from settling the new frontier to industrialization. That is what drove two brothers, Walt and Roy Disney, to start their own production company in 1923. In 1928 Mickey Mouse was created and would become one of the most iconic images not only in America but around the world. These iconic ears aren’t always happy images though as described in Friedman’s essay Revolution is U.S. where he relates Mickey Mouse ears and big Macs with the cons of globalization (Friedman 160). It is true the Disney Corporation, no matter how many borders they cross, will always be a symbol of the American dream and its connotations such as manifest destiny and globalization.
In 1943 during World War ll Disney Studios was handed over the U.S. military to produce propaganda for the war effort. Der Fuehers Face was one of those films, starring the cartoon character Donald Duck as a Nazi soldier working in an assembly line under Hitler’s control, only to find out that he loves America. In t...
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Velazquez concludes that “from clothes to computers… , no American child is immune from the underlying suggestion that owning these things defines success. While the message of excess materialism is toxic for all our children, it is especially cruel for the one out of six American children living in the poverty” (769). The phrase “no American child” indicates that Velazquez is biased when she discusses large corporations’ influences on children. Her tone suggests that she is against material possessions. She finds them toxic and that is how she draws her comparison to the toxicity of the corporations. This use of rhetoric conveys that Velazquez exaggerates the negative effect of large corporations’ products. She ignores the initial purpose, when these large corporations invent technology, is to make people’s lives more convenient and help people to sort their problems, which can only be done with machines. The location of waste seems like a minor issue in comparison to all the great benefits that come with the products of these large
“Despite the undeniable fanciful world of Disney’s shorts, it would be a grave mistake to associate people’s attachment to the Disney brand as nothing more than a desire for escapism.” (Page 113) She indicated that the society needed something that they could not identify with to “escape”. She also claims that Disney changed fairy tales and made it more fit for the American society. Disney portrayed the “American dream” of happily ever after and happy endings. She concluded that Walt Disney changed social myths and dreams in to a transformational literary form, and helped the grey and cloudy America have a little hope.
problems. In a study done on the role of the Walt Disney Company, Vincent Faherty explains
Presently, Disney known for its mass media entertainment and amusement parks technically bring warm feelings to many children and some adults. Personally, Disney elicits magical fantasies that children enjoy and further encourages imagination and creativity. For decades Disney has exist as an unavoidable entity with its famous global sensation and reach. Furthermore, Disney is a multibillion dollar empire with an unlimited grasp on individuals and territories. An empire per se, since they own many media outlets, markets, shops, etc., you name it they got it. However, the film Mickey Mouse Monopoly presents an entirely new perspective on the presumed innocence projected in Disney films. This film exposes certain traits Disney employs and exclusively portrays through its media productions, specifically cartoons for directing and nurturing influence beginning with children. Mickey Mouse Monopoly points out camouflaged messages of class, race, and gender issues in Disney films that occur behind the scenes intended to sway viewers towards adopting Disney values.
...rs were buying the African image. These two authors proved in different ways that there are flaws in consumerism. While Stoller didn’t attack the market as Klein did, he shed light on an underground society that people did not know too much about, even though we see them every day. That idea is eerily similar to multi-national brands that we see every day, doing things that we as consumers unfortunately, do not know too much about. This grand scheme of giving up ethics for an increased profit is not only inconveniencing us consumers on the streets of Manhattan with fake cloth, thanks to Klein, we can see that it is literally destroying the world.
Shopping is not simply a chore; it is also an experience. Shopping for clothing is a particularly personal decision, and various motivating factors can cause one shopper to choose a particular store over another store. Some consumers go to the store to confirm that they belong to a certain social stratum, others because they enjoy the thrill of a bargain. According to Daniel Miller in ‘Making Love in Super Markets’, the behavior of consumers in supermarkets tends to fall into two categories: ‘treat’ shoppers and ‘thrift’ shoppers.
The debate over the good and bad aspects of Disney movies has been going on for years. It has become a part of pop culture in a way never expected through things such as YouTube videos and meme’s. While looking at multiple Disney movies may give a wider range of example of both the good and the bad in Disney movies, to help depict the effects the movies actually have on kids it is most beneficial to study just one movie. Zia’s essay argues that Disney movies have a good influence on children by teaching them good life morals. However, one of her examples, Mulan, is not an example of achievement through hard work like Zia explains, but rather a change made through magic, and example of the horrible historical inaccuracies made in Disney movies and the lack of parental respect that they teach children.
The Disney corporation is easily the greatest empire of entertainment in the world thanks to the creator Walt Disney and his brother. Disney’s influence has been great within culture and society and I learned how much of an influence Disney has had through our course this semester. This influence is reflected and broadcasted through the many works and readings that we examined in class. The articles gave me new knowledge about Disney that I was previously unaware of.
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Smith, Caroline. “The Not So Wonderful Word of Disney.” University of Alabama Arts & Sciences Department. Retrieved 13 Dec. 2013 from < http://www.english.uga.ed u/fyc/barnett/smith2006-07.pdf>.
In reviewing the vast corporation of the Walt Disney Company and all that it has to offer, one profound statement made by Walt Disney himself comes to the forefront, “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse” (Walt, n.d.). This statement suggests that the company has a strong focus to continually guide them in the way of the original idea of the company. Even as it watches the changes taking place in society and adapts to the new technologies and innovations, the Walt Disney Company has been able to implement diverse strategies for its growth and prosperity.
Pahl, Jon. (2003). The Mall as Sacred Space. In Behrens Laurence & Rosen Leonard (Eds.),
Zipes, along with other scholars such as Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan, authors of the book Deconstructing Disney, explore and catalogue the various ways in which Walt Disney-the man-and Disney-the corporation that is his legacy-perpetuate social figurations of race, gender and ethnocentrism through they films they produce. They furthermore critique Disney for reducing fairy tales to over-simplified, over-sanitized and over-sentimentalized banalities designed solely as a profit-generating products. Such analyses prove to be truly important work, as the socio-cultural ideas propagated by Disney, as well as the means by it executed such propagation prove key in unlocking the messages that are sent through seemingly harmless "entertainment". As Zipes keenly point out,
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