Disney the Affect of Disney

Disney The Affect of Disney Culture on American Society Disney is more than a name. It is a brand. In fact, Disney dominates the consumer market and has socially, economically, and educationally affected American culture. The way Americans interact, buy, entertain, and teach has become less dignified and more Disney-fied. While some view Disney as the greatest thing since sliced bread, others are of a different opinion: namely that Disney is a greedy, profiteering machine that has corrupted its image, seduced children, and preached false doctrine.

This paper will show how Disney has negatively shaped American culture, despite objections from Disney-devotees that the Mouse is still good. The most recent public criticism of Disney Corps. came just before the 2011 Academy Awards show, when Academy Award-nominated street graffiti artist Banksy climbed a CBS billboard advertisement and painted a drunken, lecherous Mickey Mouse ogling a woman in a sport's bra, while a stoned Minnie looked on coolly (Sperling).

The billboard was quickly removed, but the criticism stayed put; and while Disney Corporations doesn't own CBS, it does own just about everything else, from ABC, the History Channel, and ESPN to resort parks and cruise liners around the world. If Banksy's art makes any point, it is this: gone are the days of innocence, here are the days of corporate rapine. By building his theme park in Anaheim, CA, Walt Disney inadvertently launched one of the most globally recognized entertainment franchises in the world. Dumbo and Pinnochio were over.

This was consumer-based sensationalism: combining a love of nature and the great outdoors with a fixation on garish, sentimental cartoon characters that would have "goth kids" flocking to gawk at it by the end of the twentieth century.

The irony is not hard to see: family of four adoring the cadre of sentimental Disney productions by forking over vast sums of cash and touring a vast, over-blown amusement park (an experience more to be paid for than enjoyed) suddenly comes upon a group of frightening young adults in chokers and black leather. As Chuck Klosterman puts it: If you can't find a reason to hate Disneyland, you're just not trying.

Like the insincere smile of an aging bank teller, Disneyland represents a contradiction with no discernible upside: It's hokey and archaic yet gaudy and corporate. it's all kitsch sunshine and crass consumerism, and any self-respecting cynic would despise its very existence. And so they do. According to Krystle Becknauld, "Disney came up with a wonderful idea, and a bunch of other people came in and perverted it. [Disney's California Adventure] destroyed this area. Now they have Ferris Wheels and cotton candy. Walt Disney never wanted that shit" (Klosterman).

Becknauld, one of the goths come to point, stare, and shake their heads disapprovingly, may be right. As Paul Johnson notes in his book Creators, Disney was a man who loved nature -- and wanted his park to encompass nature -- not destroy it for the sake of hawking merchandise. But that is only one opinion. And there are millions of others that suggest American society is just fine with the kind of conglomerate Disney has become: after all, moms and dads want what Disney has to offer -- pacification.

Parents have been sitting their young in front of the television since the Disney Channel went live in 1983. They take their children to see their movies, buy their toys, wear their clothing, and sleep under their blankets. Mel Brooks satirized the phenomenon of Disney commercialization in his 1987 comedy Space Balls, when characters in the film are dragged to the gift shop to be sold everything from Space Balls lunch boxes to Space Balls flamethrowers.

The point could not be missed, but again, did anyone care? Disney ideology has certainly strayed from what it once was, as Becknauld states. And all kinds of people are up in arms over all kinds of things. Conservatives are irate that Disney promotes homosexuality at its theme park. Liberals are upset that Disney still panders to traditional gender norms, and exhibits racist stereotypes. Disney Corps.

itself is upset that it is not making money like it did in its hey-day, before computer animation competitors started sinking Disney products, like the latest Disney installation, Mars Needs Moms, which bombed at the box office, earning back only $6 million of its $140 million budget. Apparently, Disney has gotten too big for its own good, and no longer has any identity or ideology to espouse -- only products for consumption.

How else could Disney suck the life out of Berkeley Breathed's wonderfully painted, humorously written book before adapting it to the big screen? When Pixar Studios arrived on the scene with Toy Story, Disney was officially left in the dust. Toy Story had everything that Disney had been lacking for years: humor, wit, sophistication, music, color, animation, and a good lesson. Pixar went on to make the kind of entertaining movies people wanted to see -- so, instead of correcting their own home turf, Disney just bought out Pixar.

Did anyone mind? No. In fact, people like Jeff Baham are tired of so-called Disney haters. Disney is for Jeff what religion is for others: Mickey Mouse is more than memorabilia in the form of coffee mugs and mouse ears, Mickey Mouse is meaning. Baham is an adult male who frequently flies to Anaheim to partake in the Disney culture that draws millions each year. Unlike the "goth kids," Baham loves the campy fads, the costumed actors, the rides, the thrills, the memories.

Baham, perhaps, is still a child at heart. But he is also indicative of the kind of people still possessed by Disney-mania. Disney has become their raison d'etre. And that's part of the problem for people like Becknauld. Disney no longer represents anything good. Pinnochio has been replaced by sentimental pap and crass consumerism. There is nothing magical, touching, rewarding, innocent or beautiful about any of it, anymore.

Perhaps that is one reason the "goth kids" dress all in the black, the way clerics used to do to signify their spiritual death to a world of materialistic trappings. Disney rules the world, and "goth kids" don't want any part of it. Even if they do descend on Anaheim on Bats Day (not Disney sanctioned). Theresa Walsh Giarrusso is, however, of a different opinion.

Another one like Baham, though maybe not as zealous, she describes on her Momania blog taking her kids to the park at Anaheim and having a great time there. She loves it, the kids love it. She also tells about the negative reactions of others when she posts pictures of the outing on Facebook, or brings back stuffed Disney puppets for friends. They are the opposite of thrilled. She asks, "So all you Disney haters out there, enlighten me.

Help me understand what your issues are specifically with the theme parks. Why is it a (moral?) struggle to take your children there and indulge in the Disney fantasy for a few days?" Her 2010 post generated over one hundred comments. The most volatile and sensible reader went by the name of Tiger Ochocinco Mellencamp and had this to say: I understand why kids get suckered into it…for the life of me, I can't understand why adults do though.

I went to Disneyland a lot as a kid and loved it. But I also lived in Europe as a kid too…and even at a young age, I recognized that gazing upon the Matterhorn in Anaheim was a very, very cheap substitute for standing at the foothills of the actual Matterhorn in Switzerland.

I'm sure my kid will ask to go back to Disney, but from experience, I know I'm robbing him of really valuable experiences by taking him there when I can use the resources to take him somewhere like Yellowstone. Mellencamp's objection is similar to Becknauld's. Disneyland is divorced from reality. Why waste money on it or shove it down kids' throats when there is so much more they could do? Other readers objected: their kids love it.

Mellencamp objected back: If you want to see Castle Neuschwanstein, go to Bavaria; your kids might love that more. But there are more objections. Perhaps the loudest comes from none other than Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park. Their 2009 episode, "The Ring," not only blasted the Disney sponsored Jonas Brothers band, but also Disney's motives altogether.

According to Stone and Parker, the "purity rings" given out at concerts are nothing more than a marketing ploy by Disney to sell sex to young girls under the guise of "innocence." At.