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    Disney Culture
    Disney Culture
    Disney Culture
    Ebook141 pages1 hour

    Disney Culture

    By John Wills

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    About this ebook

    Over the past century, Disney has grown from a small American animation studio into a multipronged global media giant. Today, the company’s annual revenue exceeds the GDP of over 100 countries, and its portfolio has grown to include Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, and ESPN. With a company so diversified, is it still possible to identify a coherent Disney vision or message?

    Disney Culture proposes that there is still a unifying Disney ethos, one that can be traced back to the corporate philosophy that Walt Disney himself developed back in the 1920s. Yet, as cultural historian John Wills demonstrates, Disney’s values have also adapted to changing social climates. At the same time, the world of Disney has profoundly shaped how Americans view the world.

    Wills offers a nuanced take on the corporate ideologies running through animated and live-action Disney movies from Frozen to Fantasia, from Mary Poppins to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But Disney Culture encompasses much more than just movies as it explores the intersections between Disney’s business practices and its cultural mythmaking.  Welcome to “the Disney Way.”
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRutgers University Press
    Release dateMar 17, 2017
    ISBN9780813583334
    Disney Culture

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      Book preview

      Disney Culture - John Wills

      DISNEY CULTURE

      QUICK TAKES: MOVIES AND POPULAR CULTURE

      Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture is a series offering succinct overviews and high-quality writing on cutting-edge themes and issues in film studies. Authors offer both fresh perspectives on new areas of inquiry and original takes on established topics.

      SERIES EDITORS:

      Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is Willa Cather Professor of English, and she teaches film studies in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

      Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies and Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

      Ian Olney, Zombie Cinema

      Valérie K. Orlando, New African Cinema

      Steven Shaviro, Digital Music Videos

      John Wills, Disney Culture

      Disney Culture

      JOHN WILLS

      RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

      New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Wills, John, 1971– author.

      Title: Disney culture / John Wills.

      Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2017] | Series: Quick takes: movies and popular culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016032171| ISBN 9780813589138 (hardback) | ISBN 9780813583327 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780813583334 (e-book (epub))

      Subjects: LCSH: Walt Disney Company—Management. | Corporate culture. | BISAC: PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / History & Criticism. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies.

      Classification: LCC PN1999.W27 W55 2017 | DDC 384/.80979494—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032171

      A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Copyright © 2017 by John Wills All rights reserved

      No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

      ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48–1992.

      www.rutgersuniversitypress.org

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      1. Making Disney Magic

      2. The World According to Disney

      3. Disney Dollars

      4. Disney Values

      Acknowledgments

      Further Reading

      Works Cited

      Index

      About the Author

      DISNEY CULTURE

      INTRODUCTION

      On December 21, 1937, Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles, California. Disney’s first feature-length animation had taken over three years to produce and, at $1,400,000, cost more than most movies of the day. Industry critics had nicknamed it Disney’s folly. At the gala event, Hollywood celebrities rubbed shoulders with Disney mascots: Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin, and Cary Grant stood alongside Dopey, Sleepy, and Sneezy. A couple of blocks from the theater, a movie-themed diorama called Dwarfland, complete with diamond mine and working water wheel, entertained crowds. Inside the auditorium, the first showing of Snow White began. Scenes of the evil queen speaking to her magical mirror and lovable dwarfs chanting Heigh-ho enthralled the audience. Walt Disney received a standing ovation. RKO-Pathe News reported on how the whole of filmland thrills to Snow White and declared the Hollywood opening the most spectacular of them all. Attending the Radio City Music Hall premiere in New York City, Frank Nugent for the New York Times enthused over the delightful fantasy, assuring readers that Mr. Disney and his amazing technical crew have outdone themselves (Music Hall). As the movie opened across the country, Snow White fever took hold. By May 1939, Disney’s first feature-length film had amassed $6,740,000 in ticket sales, making it the most successful movie at that time in America. Time magazine deemed Snow White a magical, timeless piece of cinema, as exciting as a Western, as funny as a haywire comedy, . . . to be shown in theaters and beloved by new generations long after the current crop of Hollywood stars, writers and directors are sleeping where no Prince’s kiss can wake them (Mouse and Man).

      The success of Snow White helped cement the Disney brand in American culture. Disney Studios had released its first sound cartoon film, Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse, in 1928. Within a decade, Walt Disney had gone from a little-known animator to a household name. Thanks to the characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the Silly Symphonies series, Disney emerged as a dominant force in entertainment in the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt watched Mickey Mouse cartoons in the White House, while abroad, Japanese Emperor Hirohito wore a Mickey Mouse watch (and owned a hobby horse named Snow White). The Disney label was synonymous with family fun, childhood, and the American Dream. Indicative of the rise of popular animation, the youth of the 1930s became the Mickey Mouse generation. Disney invaded not just the movie theater but store product lines, the American home, and even national consciousness.

      In 1938, the journalist Douglas Churchill interviewed Walt Disney about his work on Snow White. Churchill was interested in Disney’s philosophy, the unique set of ideas that informed his studio’s approach. Disney replied, All we are trying to do is give the public good entertainment. However, the manufacture, content, and distribution of Snow White clearly said otherwise. The 1930s marked the ascendency not just of Disney animation but of Disney Culture.

      Broadly speaking, culture is the sharing of symbols, beliefs, and ways of thinking. In 1993, the scholar Chris Rojek suggested that we might see Disney as a culture, highlighting how Disney films and parks support a specific moral order which is heavily moralistic and which presents ‘The American Way’ (121). For Rojek, Disney promoted a particular and historical form of white, capitalist society as the essential society of reason and good (122). But how exactly does Disney Culture work? On a basic level, Disney Culture is the culture surrounding the Disney brand. It includes all Disney products, corporate and work practices, education, slogans, media, and advertising. Disney Culture incorporates such popular terms as the Disney way and the Disney smile. It highlights Disney’s vision. It combines artistry, business, and family values. Disney Culture promotes a distinctive way of viewing the world. It provides immersion in childlike fantasy and simulation (Disney magic), facilitated by media, technology, and control (the Disney way) and mass consumption (Disney dollars). Disney Culture rests on the assimilation of other stories and ideas (the world according to Disney) that are reduced to impart a range of traditional and progressive values. It is these Disney values, of a white, capitalist majority view, to which Rojek refers. Put simply, Disney Culture is our culture reshaped by Walt Disney: it is a Mickey Mouse take on the world.

      Practically, we immerse ourselves in Disney Culture every time we engage with Disney media, from watching ABC television or Marvel movies to purchasing a Frozen figurine from the Disney Store or frequenting a Disney theme park. Ideologically, it is how we frame things in a Disney way, dream of living like a Disney princess, or use Disney as our popular referent. Walt Disney first developed his philosophy at his studio on Hyperion Avenue in the late 1920s, where he introduced a distinctive work culture and story technique. Early Mickey Mouse cartoons reveal the evolution of a Disney way: a way of tackling the world based around clever animation, prankishness, and naïve sentimentality. With Snow White in the late 1930s, the Disney message grew significantly in both reach and sophistication. Snow White preached traditional gender roles and old-fashioned morality. Disney Culture has developed over time, sporting new priorities and shifting values. Today, Disney Culture is far more expansive and diffuse than ever. It can be seen in the myriad entertainment entities owned by the Walt Disney Company; by the global network of cruises, theme parks, TV channels, and toy stores; and by the generations of people raised on a diet of Disney. It can also be seen in the replication of the Disney way in corporations, schools, and family life around the world. The Disney Institute sells Disney Culture as a business model for corporations, while many theme parks and shopping malls resemble sanitized Disney realms. For Alan Bryman, this latter process represents the Disneyization of society, whereby Disney both influences and exemplifies new trends in consumer life. As one Disney worker contends, The Sun never sets on Disney (Carr).

      Disney thus represents far more than simply good entertainment. Disney exerts a powerful influence over our education, our values, and our lifestyle choices. As Alexandre Bohas contends, For several generations, Disney has maintained a quasi-monopolistic position over Western youth culture. Disney Culture intrinsically shapes our world. While broadly considered safe for kids, the Disney message is neither apolitical nor ahistorical. Over the years, the Walt Disney Company has been linked with anti-trade-union activity, McCarthyism, wartime propaganda, conservative family values, and suppressing critical filmmaking (for example, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11). It has equally been accused of promoting a liberal media bias and a progay agenda.

      Given the historical influence of Disney Culture, it offers a valuable insight into understanding American culture across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Disney is tied to American iconography, childhood experience, popular cinema, suburban family values, social conservatism, and also change. The rise of Disney reflects the rise of both visual culture and consumer culture in the twentieth century. Disney Culture is tied to popular forms of patriotism and progressiveness. For some people, Disney is the essence of the American way. The Disney critic Stephen Fjellman labels Walt Disney

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