Disney's Credibility

Rather than looking at Disney as a place of magic, Janet Wasko examines Disney as a corporation, which is known to be the largest entertainment corporations

Disney is a lie. Why? This corrupt company brainwashes consumers into handing over their hard-earned money in order to purchase overpriced merchandise, all while under a facade of innocence and happiness. Fairy-tale endings and a cheerful mouse might represent Disney’s projected values, but underneath the exterior lay indicators of Disney’s corrupt ideals. Common people are deceived into handing over their hard-earned money to corrupt companies in order to purchase overpriced products. The power that these companies gain allows these businesses to control, to a certain extent, politics and influence political decisions. These companies will not hesitate to fire American workers in order to save a handful of dollars and stifle any trace of dissent. Therefore, large corporate companies should stop exploiting and manipulating consumers for profit.

Giroux, H.A. (1997). Are Disney Movies Good for Your Kids? In S.R. Steinberg & J. Kincheloe (Eds.), Kidculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood (pp. 53-67). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

In the realm of entertainment, Disney leads the way with creativity, bringing to life fairytales and stories that only the most imaginative child could come up with. Children of all ages, teenagers, and adults leave the theater of a Disney movie inspired, empowered, and entranced by the magic and wonder brought about.

According to Carl Hiaasen, “The secret weapon is trust. Disney is the most trusted brand name in the history of marketing. It hooks us when we’re little and never lets go; this unshakeable faith that Disney is the best at knowing what’s best.”(13) It is time that this myth be shattered.

Background: The history of Walt Disney, and the Disney Corporation, is one shrouded in admiration and accolades for the accomplishment of the American dream. Walt Disney himself is an icon for the American work ethic, i.e., hard work pays off. He is seen as a Horatio Alger, "rags to riches," success story. Beginning his work in animation in the 1920s, Walt Disney gained fame worldwide for his films and theme parks. But Walt Disney created more than films and theme parks. By infusing them with an ideological stance glorifying "the American way of life," his brand of democracy and conservatism, he created a cultural institution. The moralistic stance of his enterprise became common knowledge and it is said that his 1933 version of Three Little Pigs was the last of his cartoons in which the film’s moral messages were open to interpretation [3]

The Walt Disney Company is one of the top 5 largest companies in the world in terms of media and the entertainment industry. It has established its roots in various areas from community services to the business world with a strategic market goal that targets various people or age groups. Leadership, organization structure, attitude and job satisfaction all play major roles in ensuring that an organization is successful (Nayak, 2016). The Disney Company has been very successful in the various business fields it has been involved in and the company’s founder, Walter Elias Disney, attributes his success to God. Although Mr. Disney has been accused of being anti-Semite, he is very religious and references his prayer life as his foundation for success.

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.

According to the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Walt Disney Corporation historically stood for “basic American virtues and values” but now represents a “significant departure from Disney’s family-values image, and a gratuitous insult to Christians and others who have long supported Disney.” Their belief is that Disney entertainment products produced while Walt Disney was alive differ substantially from those produced in the post-Walt era. Through time, it is inevitable that particular things have changed since the production of Walt’s personal films from the 1920’s to the 1960’s (such as being aesthetically and cinematically advanced, in

In order for Disney to remain a dominate player within all of its markets, the company must focus on key aspects of its internal environment. Disney must concentrate on aspects such as core competencies, corporate governance, and synergies to assist in forming a sustainable competitive advantage.

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.

Admittedly, many of Disney’s original works are not being viewed by their intended audience. Author of Patricia Digón Regueiro 's states, “it may be of interest to know that in his early cartoons created by Walt Disney were not directed at

The Walt Disney’s concern is that they don’t want tourist feel like they are in the world they live in while they are in Disney. Therefore, SunCal can post on all kinds of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to ask Disney’s visitors opinion about how they think about the plan to build condominiums in the resort district. If the tourists are in favor of SunCal’s plan, SunCal could have the evidence to convince Disney to accept the

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

This shows the audience that Disney actually dominates the media and has tremendous influence on both national and international popular culture.