Marxist Theory Of Disney And Pixar Films

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.

In the middle of Disney’s success, Disney faced many controversies. One of the most persistent and supported controversies by many people across the globe is the prevailing of sexism behind its film plots and themes. Sexism, as defined by Oxford, is “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.” Many animated films by Walt Disney Animation Studios, especially from the older ones, are filled with obvious sexist tones. The sexist tones that are said to exist in Disney films should be analyzed and be made public for the sole reason that more than millions of people as proven by their sales views these films.

The Mickey Mouse Monopoly documentary reveals the obscure social messages behind the animated films created by the Disney Company. Although we are conditioned to believe that these movies are pure forms of entertainment, further examination has proved that there are hidden messages concerning gender, race and class that Disney is instilling in the minds of children. The speakers in the documentary argue that Disney is extremely political and hides its ideas behind innocence, magic and fun. When masked by features that are appealing to a younger audience, it is difficult to realize these ideas without taking a closer look.

“Our heritage and ideals, our codes and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings”. (Disney) This quote by Walt Disney himself just shows how he felt his values were in good thought. But the problem is his movies didn’t always portray these values. Many of the Disney Classics that our generation has grown to know and love have exposed children to many bad values. Classics such as: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Pocahontas display lessons not suitable for those of

Disney’s Pixar film, A Bug’s Life, is much more than meets the eye. The film is not only an animated comedy; it holds deep sociological theory within its plot. Many of the major themes and concepts of the movie can be viewed through the lens of the famous theorist Karl Marx. Marx’s theory is famous for focusing on how society functions. In particular he concerns himself with how capitalism, the working class, and the revolutions create problems in our society. My paper will analyze how Marxian theory and concepts fit into major climactic scenes of the film.

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]

alt Disney's movie has always been my favorite even at the age I am now. So now you probably wonder, " what does this have anything to do with why I should recommend you to English 101?" Well professor, Walt Disney is the creator of the world's largest animation empire as we all know today, but at first, in 1991 Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because from their perspective; he lacked imagination and does not provide merit ideas to the team. Moreover, from Albert Einstein to the successful author Stephen King today, many of these influential figures failed many times before they could even reach success. The 19th best- selling author Stephen King had been rejected thirty times before he convinced his publisher to finally publish

Disney creates gender roles, racial roles, and white supremacy through socialization within their motion pictures. For example, Walt Disney’s “Snow White”, “Fantasia”, and even “The Little Mermaid” all show females as obscenely beautiful, male dependent and flirtatious creatures who couldn’t save themselves from a Chinese finger trap. Males are the perfectly sculpted rescuers who can be easily wooed by a woman’s body; and these exaggerated roles create a false standard for children and can lead to severely underdeveloped sociological skills. Moving onto the racial roles; in the movie “All dogs go to

Marxism is an ideology based on the economic and political theories of Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels. Karl Marx who was born in Germany in 1818 was a revolutionary whose ideas on society were the foundation of communism. Under modern capitalism the means of production, such as factories, land, and technology are controlled by a small minority who Marx called the bourgeoisie. Production is carried out by the working class, known as the proletarians who have to sell their labour or face poverty or starvation. Taken together these two classes form the economic base of society, what Marx called the substructure. Marx saw that there was conflict between these two divisions

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

Walt Disney was a legend that has inspired many young artists to, in the words of Mr. Disney himself, “keep moving forward”. However, many claim that Disney was a “racist”, an “anti-Semite”, and a “fascist”. They are wrong in accusing such things because

Through the theoretical approach of Marxism, The Beauty and The Beast (2017) is a Disney film that depicts the divide between class structures in a traditionally oriented society. The Marxist theory is used as a tool to analyze the film in order to have the ability to examine the core concepts of the theory and investigate the theme of the film in its entirety. The film depicts two class structures that consist of lower, peasant-like villagers and a middle-class structure. The film depicts various social hierarchy’s that attempts to challenge humanities perception of power through the theory of Marxism. This paper will describe how the theoretical approach of Marxism applies to the Disney film, The Beauty and the Beast (2017) through

Mickey Mouse Monopoly appeals to pathos when they discuss Disney’s influence on children and interview children and their insights on various Disney films, showing how sociological ideas presented in Disney films effect the cultural development of children. This is really directed at parents and people who want to be parents as it makes them think about all the issues Mickey Mouse Monopoly is bringing to light. Justin Lewis, a university professor, points out that Disney is so large and spread out globally, that its stories “will be the stories that will form and help form a child’s imaginary world, all over the world, and that’s an incredible amount of power, enormous amount of power” (Mickey Mouse Monopoly). He continues to say that we should question what Disney is teaching and what children are learning from their films. He uses rhetorical question to strengthen his point, asking if “these [are] the stories we really want our children to hear” (Mickey Mouse Monopoly). He brings to light that if those kinds of questions aren’t being asked, then people are allowing Disney to shape the imaginations of millions of children. This really sets up the film’s discussion on the influence Disney has on children. By introducing this part of

In the eyes of intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and anyone else who wants to be recognized for their own ideas, it is considered appalling to steal the ideas of another and pass them off as your own. However, intellectual property can be hard to claim therefore making plagiarism difficult to confirm. Many Americans assume that Disney outshines their competition due to their staff’s unbelievable ability to come up with exciting new original ideas. However, in recent discussions of Disney’s newest movie, Coco, a controversial issue has been whether Disney has stolen aspects from one of 20th Century Fox’s and the animation studio Reel FX’s works, The Book of Life. On one hand, some argue that when making a movie about the same holiday there are bound to be similarities. From this perspective, it is a mere coincidence that there are many similar aspects within the two movies. On the other hand, however, others argue that there are too many coincidences within the movies for Disney not to have been influenced by 20th Century Fox’s work. In the words of American journalist Drew Grant, one of this view’s main proponents, “Coco’s animation is so strikingly similar to that of The Book of Life that it’s impossible not to imagine Coco’s animators mining the previous film for concept art” (Grant). According to this view, Disney is lying about their source materials and inspiration. In sum, then, the issue is whether Disney stole key aspects from The Book of Life and will not admit it or

Marxism is a convoluted idea which includes classical Marxism, Neo-Marxism, Hegemony and Althusserianism etc. Frankfurt School must be the imperative one in contributed to Marxism. The contribution of the Frankfurt School is the critical theory. In 1923, a group of Marxists established the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt. Horkheimer, Adorno and Benjamin were the great contributors to that theory. They are attempting to reconstruct classical Marxism in Neo-Marxism which was influencing our society or cultural industry. In this essay, it would focus on demonstrating and critique the ideas of Neo-Marxism by using The Lego Movie (2014) to illustrate the relationship with dominant and subordinate class, popular music is a kind of tool to exploit workers and ability to step out of the framework by society directly.