Why Disney is the worst, in four parts

There seems to be a current cultural obsession with all things Disney. It’s the 23rd most loved brand in America (14th for American women).

Sorry to burst your bubble, peeps: Disney sucks.

Look, it’s boring to badmouth someone else’s interests just because you don’t find them appealing (“don’t yuck someone else’s yum,” etc.). I get it.

But cultural critique is important in the world we live in.

So hold on to your mouse ears…

1. The Disney princess trope is harmful to girls

Someday, my prince will come! Except when he doesn’t. Many little girls identify with princess culture, as epitomized by Disney movies, but studies show that princess culture is harmful to girls.

In summary, princess culture:

1. teaches girls that beauty is their most important asset
2. reinforces body image issues
3. conditions stereotypically feminine behavior
4. reinforces outdated gender roles
5. does not change behavior for the better

What if your prince never comes? What if you don’t want a prince? What if you actually want a princess but you’ve been told you should want a prince? What if you are the prince? Why are we teaching tiny children about romance and marriage at all?

What if you aren’t the fairest in all the land? What if you aren’t able to make a dude fall in love with you without your voice or consciousness or even a pulse? WHAT THEN?

What if you don’t want any of this? What if you just want to keep on sleeping for another hundred years??? Seriously, WHY WOULD YOU WAKE UP A SLEEPING STRANGER WITH A NON-CONSENSUAL KISS?? SLEEP IS THE BEST!!!

And if you don’t really care about women, 1) fuck you 2) while young boys find Disney princess culture to be empowering because it’s so different from the toxically masculine options generally targeted at them, Disney stereotypes of masculinity are harmful to men, too.

2. Disney borrowed fairy tales then changed US copyright law

Copyrights in the US last for a long ass time. Ever wondered why waiters at cheesy restaurants in movies (until 2016) always serenade the protagonist (until 2016) with some bonkers birthday song (until 2016) that literally no one sings, ever? It’s not just wacky shenanigans and pieces of flair: “Happy Birthday” was copyrighted until 2016.

I’m not arguing against copyright: it protects the artistic expression of ideas, and ensures that artists, musicians, and other creative minds (who are often screwed over) get their dues.

But Disney is in it for themselves.

According to an actual lawyer,

“…5 years before Mickey Mouse’s copyright was set to expire, Congress changed the scheme again. In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which lengthened copyrights for works created on or after January 1, 1978 to “life of the author plus 70 years,” and extends copyrights for corporate works to 95 years from the year of first publication, or 120 years from the year of creation, whichever expires first. Once again, Mickey Mouse’s copyright protection lived to fight another day. Now, Mickey’s copyright will not expire until 2023… The question is: what will Disney do now? Disney would not possibly allow its most famous character to go into the public domain, would it?

Whatever. I get it. Protect your assets.

BUT DISNEY HAS BUILT IT’S EMPIRE ON THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Fairytales, man!! Disney took advantage of America’s previously lax copyright laws to get started, then changed the laws to their advantage.

Again, whatever. Except they’re consistently dicks about it:

Disney threatened to sue childcare centers for having pictures of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on the wall; Disney once sued a couple on public assistance for $1 million when they appeared at children’s parties dressed as an orange tiger and a blue donkey; Disney sent takedown notices to social media services upon users posting photographs of their new Star Wars toys; and so forth.

So, copyright is 100% cool when it protects the people who need protecting, but not when a gazillion dollar company uses it to screw over…checks notes…children and the needy.

Unless of course, it’s profitable to turn the other cheek.

Thank goodness for Fair Use.

3. Walt Disney blacklisted film industry workers during the Red Scare of the 1940s

As a Russian Studies major and nerd about Cold War history, this one is my favorite.

Walt Disney eagerly testified against a group of workers to J. Edgar Hoover’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947, claiming they were behind a strike at his studio, effectively ending their careers in animation.

Were these workers communists? Maybe. Yeah. Some of them. But no one likes a narc.

He was also anti-union, and this distrust of “politically motivated labor unions” continues with labor violations in mouseland to this day.

It’s no real surprise Disney was so anti-Communist: “’Disneyland was, and still is, a mall.'” The whole premise is to part parkgoers with their money. Capitalism is at its core.

Which is funny because…

4. Disney is leading us to a scary era of media conglomeration

Disney owns Pixar, Fox Network, franchises like Marvel and Star Ways, and 60% all of Hulu.

This is dangerous. Do you know what happens when a few entities control all the media?

Now that Fox is part of Disney, it’s hard to imagine that we’re not heading toward a universe where essentially all the major media companies in the world are owned by three or maybe four parent companies. And while the most obvious concerns surrounding that possibility stem from how news might take on corporate interests, there are a host of others that range from the political to the artistic.

It’s basically the capitalism equivalent of communist state TV. It’s the radio in my study abroad friend’s Stalin-era apartment in motherflippin’ Russia that you could not turn off, just all the way down.

And Mr. Disney himself recognized the value of film as propaganda.

Mr. SMITH: From those pictures that you made have you any opinion as to whether or not the films can be used effectively to disseminate propaganda?

Mr. DISNEY: Yes, I think they proved that.

Sure, they may not participate in blatant government propaganda again, but if they control the media, they control the message.

Fox News (not owned by Disney, it’s confusing) already has too much of a hold on America. It’s scary.

So yeah. Disney sucks.

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED on how the Disney Vault serves as a means to inflate demand by artificially lowering supply.

Or how he kinda screwed over the actress who voiced Snow White.

Or how the Peter Pan ride is terrifying as fuck.

Or how so many people (like certain family members of mine in Central Michigan) only venture outside of their rural white Christian homogenous bubbles for annual trips to “Disney.”

As Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

Travel is 100% a privilege, but most people need to be exposed to different cultures and lifestyles for the good of humanity, when possible.

My extended family works really hard and doesn’t have a lot of money, so I get why they want this manufactured happiness in a place they can drive (20 hours) to. But they aren’t truly experiencing people different from themselves at a theme park, and I know they need this additional perspective.

(I unfriended them all on Facebook a while back, so maybe this has changed.)

For the amount of money my cousin pays to take her family to Disney World resort every year, several times a year, I can only imagine that a trip to New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington DC, or literally anywhere else would be similarly priced.

Plus at the end of the day, it’s all fake. The blue pill of vacation. An illusion, Michael.

I can confirm: I saw Cinderella smoking a cigarette on a behind-the-scenes tour during a high school trip to Disneyland.

Kinda ruined the magic.

Oh shit – was I supposed to add a TM to Cinderella?