Disney Is A Utopian Society

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.

No matter how old you are, when you go to Disney the inner child in you comes out. From the moment you walk into Disney until the moment you walk out you feel welcomed and special. There is one word that describes the Disney experience and that is that it is “magical”. Lee Cockerell writes of this “magic” from firsthand experience, as he was the Executive Vice President of Operations of Walt Disney World Resort for over ten years.

It’s no doubt that creating a family oriented theme park based on popular, beloved cartoon characters and imagination was a good idea. From Cinderella’s castle to the famous Main Street, U.S.A, there’s something extraordinary lying around every corner. Walt Disney World, other wise known as “the happiest place on earth”, or the place “where dreams come true”, was founded by a man with a dream of creating a place where children and parents could spend time together while making amazing memories. However, this extravagant amusement park is only one of the major accomplishments of Walt Disney.

Similar problems occurred in Disneyland Tokyo, where management didn’t even think about the height difference of Asians and Americans, resulting in too high public phones for Japanese guests. Concluding it is clear that the American company originally tried to implement a standardization strategy, when launching theme parks in other countries, without taking the local culture into consideration. Country specific procedures and regulations, and different local customer preferences forced Disney to adapt features of the US theme park business model to the local markets.

Disney World—the greatest place on earth. A place that anyone of age can have fun. According to the official webpage of Disney World, “the unforgettable happens [t]here”. Along with the opinions of many kids, teens, and adults, I agree that it is the greatest place on earth. The magical story book setting brings back the childhood nostalgia every American has felt in their life at least one time. However America is the only country to preserve the innocence from our childhood. But why? Why does America try so hard to protect our childhood innocence from the harsher reality?

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.

As a tourist corporation, Walt Disney is similar to a machine that regulates people's thoughts, compromises their individuality, and alters their perception on certain aspects of society.

Other than that, each park is designed and structured towards the country’s culture. As operations exist outside the United States, Disney had to consider and accept the cultural differences between their home market of the United States and different international markets. A key theory that assisted Disney in global expansion to Shanghai, China is the understanding of Hofstede’s cultural factors which focuses on six cultural dimensions; power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint (Steers, 2016). “Hofstede compares culture to the “software of the mind” that differentiates one group or society from another.” (Steers, 2016). Figure 1 illustrates the cultural differences between China and the United States through Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions.

Relevance: There is no escaping Disney. Whether or not you have realized it, Disney has influenced you in some way whether it be by the movies, or the imagination and make-believe. I’m sure some of you dressed up as princesses, pretended to duel each other as pirates, or played make believe. Even after Walt’s death, his company is still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire. Today’s children are evidence of a lasting legacy through his parks, movies, and merchandise.

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.

Willis voices her opinion of Disney World and her experience when she went to visit. She made comments on the fact that family is the basic social unit, everything is too safe and not enough of the real world, and they charge too much and try to entice consumers to an extreme extent. She responds very negatively to these facts but as a Disney Spokesperson, I am here to view these as a positive part of Disney World. Despite Willis’s opinion of Disney World, I believe that Disney is family focused, the happiest place on earth, and is invested in their consumers.

When thinking of Disney, what comes to mind? Is it the rides, characters, or perhaps the hotels that creates this as an unforgettable vacation? In the nonfiction book “Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service” written by Theodore Kinni main theme is the magical creation of magic and the factors that play a role in Disney theme parks and resorts guest experiences. This book is more like a handbook with tips and how Disney was created, along with history about Walt Disney himself. Walt Disney is the creator of Disney theme parks and resorts and ensures that everyone is getting the experience that they deserve. It took Walt a great deal of failures and success to create Disney and the invention of Mickey Mouse.

“Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” – Walt Disney (Goodreads). The success of Walt Disney films, theme parks and company has built a legacy and attracted the attention of millions of people. Through the animated stories they enable to fill children’s imaginations with entertainment. Disney has embodied American culture with its catchy tunes and mass marketing. It has portrayed different repertories through movies and TV shows that shine light into different cultures, which is centered to be a controversial aspect. Not only has Disney become controversial, it has also become popular with its accomplishment in being able to create a wide spectrum of animated characters.

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

Culturally, Disney cannot force itself on another people, which in this case was the whole of the European continent. Disney promoted its product, the theme park, similar to that of Tokyo Disneyland believing Europe wanted their piece of “Americana”.