Cultural Imperialism In Walt Disney

“I’ve always been bored with just making money. I’ve wanted to do things, I wanted to build things, or get something going.” (LeeBron) Disney stated that when he realized that he wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. Disney never wanted to be boring or be known as the man who did not have a childhood and was always pushed around by his father. Disney wanted to be successful in life, he wanted the name ‘Walt Disney’ to be remembered, and it will be forever. Disney has achieved many important and exciting accomplishments within his life. He created “full length animated films, short films, live-action features, and television shows” (LeeBron) Disney also introduced theme parks. He created Disneyland in Anaheim, California. He also developed Epcot which stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”, and Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. Walt Disney was an important figure in the 1920s American History because he made a change to the world with the idea of bringing inanimate objects to life with cartoons and created all new kinds of happiness.

Since the 1930’s, the Walt Disney Company is known for producing characters, images, as well as stories which have created happiness for audiences around the world. This corporation has grown from a small cartoon studio run by famous Walt and Roy Disney to a million dollar business. In Janet Wasko’s novel, “Understanding Disney”, Wasko explains Disney as corporation calling it “The Disney Empire”. Throughout her novel, Wasko argues that Disney is set up like a typical profit seeking corporation, as well as creates and manufactures fantasy, and lastly re-invents folk tales by “Americanising” them.

My topic is the colonialism of The Walt Disney Company. When defining colonialism, I will be referring to two general definitions that are applicable to modern day colonialism as seen through cultural appropriation, and cultural commodification of Disney and the tourist industry. Oxford Dictionaries defines colonialism as, “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically,” and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s defines colonialism as, “a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.”

Disney’s long-run success is mainly due to creating value through diversification. Their corporate strategies (primarily under CEO Eisner) include three dimensions: horizontal and geographic expansion as well as vertical integration. Disney is a prime example of how to achieve long-run success through the choices of business, the choice of how many activities to undertake, the choice of how many businesses to be in, the choice of how to manage a portfolio of businesses and the choice of how to create synergies between those businesses (3, p.191-221). All these choices and decisions are

The Walt Disney or simply ”Disney” is an American mass media corporation, it was founded be Walt Disney and his brother Roy o Disney in October 16 1923. It is one of the biggest animation industries with it’s hand in live-action film, television and theme park. The company current name was came in 1986 and expanding in different area’s like theater, radio, music, publishing and online media. It is one of the biggest organization which has many product of it’s different sectors. From television to media to theme park to publishing it has many hands. It is the leader in animation industries. Now it is one of the leading organizations with annual revenue of 45 billion. It was Walt’s understanding that coordinating the talents of the people he hired, and pointing them at the direction of his ultimate goal was his most important job. Walt was an innovative and visionary man that used his animation background to co-found, manage, and set the platform for The Walt Disney Company’s future. Disney has five main

Walt Disney was a very influential man to the entertainment industry. He made animation a whole new type of entertainment. Although Walt went through many struggles and problems, he pushed on and eventually saw results for all his hard work. Many hardships got in Disney’s way such as unsupportive parents and even bankruptcy; Walt pushed on through, always creating, working hard, and persevering to accomplish his dream.

For my final paper where we had to pick a topic from current popular culture, I decided to write my paper with the focus on Disney movies. More particularly with the focus on the Disney princess movies. When it comes to the Disney movies they have always been and will always be such a huge part of our society. While growing up most children grow up watching these movies and get the idea that that is what they want to be when they grow up. When you ask a young girl what she wants to be when she is older there is a good chance that she will say that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. I have always been such a huge fan of Disney movies and I have a feeling I always will be. I found it very interesting this semester when we spend the short class period talking about the Disney female and male characters. It is rather interesting and something that I can say that I really never noticed before but the fact that the majority of all the female characters all had the same face shape. Whereas the males there were none two that were the same. However for this paper I will be looking into the relationship to cultural meanings about gender and other identity markers, such as race, sexuality, and cultural norms as seen in some of the more classic well known Disney movies.

Disney successfully blurs the border between entertainment and pedagogy but introduces the misuse of stereotyping and social influence.

How Marxist theory is presented in Disney/Pixar films, with a focus on Toy Story 3 and Wall-E.

For most of society, the word Disney elicits warm feelings: memories of early Saturday mornings with family watching cartoons, family trips to Disney World, or a movie that was so encapsulating it was watched over and over again. Disney achieves a high level of regard from most of society unparalleled by other companies. Penn State education professor, Henry A. Giroux, accompanied by Grace Pollock, argues in his book The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence that society is blinded by Disney’s façade of “childhood innocence” and that Disney’s marketing tactics are far from innocent at all.

The Disney Corporation has had both positive and negative effects on American society. Disney has majorly affected both the youth and adults in America by way they interact with each other, what they expect from each other, and how parents bring up their youth in harsh and unrealistic expectations according to Disney. Disney has fostered a strong sense of imagination in the past, present and future youth of America. This sense of imagination is necessary to the development of children when it comes to success in life and self-confidence. The Disney Corporation knows how to work it’s audience for a profit and mastering that skill has allowed Disney to accumulated billions by advertising and selling fantasies to young children and their parents. It’s also these very ideas that influence what Americans believe our government and policies should be founded on. In “The Mouse That Roared” the author states “Education is never innocent, because it always presupposes a particular view of citizenship, culture, and society. And yet it is this very appeal to innocence, bleached of any semblance of politics, that has become a defining feature in Disney culture and pedagogy” (Giroux 31) This quote defines Disney at large. Disney has created the idea of ‘imagination’ in American society and perpetuates it in everything America does and influences everything America stands. In everyday American life, politics and business, The Disney Corporation has a hand in it.

The success of movies and television programs were due to diversity and distribution. It does its own distribution and targets several markets from children to adults. Finally, the Disney character consumer product sector, which includes clothing, home goods, and toys, has been an extremely important asset to the company. For example, by establishing deals such as an agreement with Mattel, Disney was able to manufacture more than 14,000 Disney licensed products. Furthermore, Disney expanded it’s retailing by opening up Disney stores.

“Animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world,” said Walt Disney of his beloved cartoons. While it is true that cartoons are an interesting medium of visual entertainment, their unique ability to convey information to people, adults and children alike, make the animated film medium one of the most far reaching means of propaganda. Today it is impossible to imagine American animated cinema without Disney and its cartoons. The American captivation with Disney has not changed much in the seventy years since World War II. In the early 1940s, two thirds of Americans went to the movies every week and these moviegoers were enamored

Disney is one of the most successful and largest companies in the world. They have their hand in nearly every form of entertainment as well as media, and broadcasting. Disney is best known for their animated films, unique cartoon characters, catchy musicals, and fairy tales that most of us were first introduced to as children. They are one of the few entertainment companies in the World whose primary demographic is children and teens. Nearly everybody is familiar with the Disney name and its brand, and its realistic to suggest that nearly everybody has experienced a Disney film and animated character at some point in their lives; which may have helped to influence them or their behaviors or even their

Disney has become a marketing goliath and the #1 entertainment company in the US. They have been able to develop a creativity-driven philosophy that over time was tempered by financial responsibility and that benefitted from powerful synergies between its divisions. From the very beginning, Disney has been synonymous with innovation within the children’s entertainment industry, from their introduction of animations with synchronized audio, full-length animated feature films and then later into theme parks and on-ice and Broadway shows. One important element of Disney’s success was the extent to which they integrated and expanded into different