The Walt Disney Corporations objective, at least regarding to them, is to make people happy. In order to fulfill this affirmation, the company has grown from a small cartoon studio room run by Walt and Roy Disney to a significant multinational organization. Disney researcher Janet Wasko details the corporations multifaceted set up as "The Disney Empire" (29). The Disney experience has created and still creates joy for various people round the world. This "magic" is created by using principles, branding and illusion, allowing Disney customers to escape from simple fact allowing us to return into our inner child.
In her publication, "Understanding Disney: The Produce of Fantasy", Wasko argues that Disney reinvents folk tales to produce the ideals of America using the Traditional Hollywood Cinema storyline model. She shows how personas used in the Disney videos are predictable and comply with clear archetypes, including attractive, happy, heroes or heroines, who are on a voyage of self-discovery, as well as adorable, usually canine, sidekicks and villains with exaggerated and off-putting characteristics. Furthermore, she places a distinct emphasis on Disney as a corporation and business through its theme parks and branding. She discusses the way the Disney business has represented individual somewhat than group needs, as well showing a general sense of optimism from Walt and his employers continued throughout the years. This optimism and dream made by Disney is most beneficial illustrated by the now-famous brand from Pinocchio, "When you wish upon a superstar, your dreams become a reality".
The 2nd chapter of the e book "Disney History(ies)", focuses on the annals of Walt Disney and the Disney Company until his death in 1966. This section reminded me a lot of the first section of the publication Understanding Disney. It handled upon most of lots of the same things, which this chapter expands on them. Among the details was about Oswald the Rabbit and the issue that Universal got privileges to it and as a result Mickey Mouse was made and Disney became very controlling over "copyright and trademark-related issues" (Stein, 18). Within this chapter it elaborates why Disney lost the protection under the law over Oswald as well as why the creation of Mickey Mouse was so great for him and the business. Overall, this section was very beneficial on the development of Disney and it was able to show both the good and the bad of the Disney co-operation well.
Chapter three "The Disney Empire" talks about what took place to the company after Walt's death in 1966. It had been a development of market leaders of the business from Roy Disney, to the present CEO Bob Iger. I came across fascinating the quantity of alterations the company has truly gone through since Walt's death. However, more amazing was that whenever making decisions for the company they would all get back to the theory "what would Walt Do?" Keeping Walt's vision in mind has made the company seem one big conglomerate even under new management. Another, point I came across in the reading was that after 80 years Oswald the Rabbit was finally Disney's again. I though this takeover was a tribute to Walt and unlike the others that Disney has acquired I feel that owning Oswald showed the American consumer that the Disney Company values its small beginnings.
Chapter four, "Corporate Disney doing his thing", talked about the Disney individuals and the new ways Disney has found to remarket old heroes and reach specific audiences with recently added character types. The section said that with the introduction of the "Disney Princesses brand" was mailing mix communications to young girls about self-esteem and beauty, so Disney created another line for girls called "Disney Fairies. " This series was devoted to the Disney persona, Tinker Bell. I have to agree with Disney on this strategy, because she is an independent female who is aware what she needs, she by no means condition or form submissive like lots of the Disney Princesses before her. This demonstrates Disney's corporate side of the business recognizes its audience and gives them what they want.
Chapter five, "Analyzing the entire world According to Disney", was essentially a history of Disney motion pictures from its start in short cartoons, to its full-length animations, live action movies, and the purchase of several film companies. Disney's Silly Symphonies was ground-breaking in the technology it used and the forerunner for many other shorts such as Technicolor, as well as the Three Little Pigs. Walt himself, in my own opinion methods what he preaches. That is visible in Disney's force for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs even though many people including, Roy Disney had uncertainties about the success of this film. The Disney Company adopted in Walt's footsteps with experimentation of new solutions, such as computer animation and business ventures such as buying Touchstone, Miramax, Pixar, and Marvel. For Disney these business contracts have been profitable and mutually beneficial.
Chapter six, "Dissecting Disney's Worlds", reviewed Disney's background into television. At first Disney was unwilling to get into television, but he recognized its prospect of advertising his theme park. Disney was very tactful in his business ventures. Before he started out producing the weekly show, Disneyland, he tried out a few dried goes to gage his audience and see if television set was befitting the Disney Company. For each and every experiment he required he had a back up plan if it failed. Disney grew and was able to adjust to changing times. This consciousness continues to make the Disney Company successful.
Chapter seven, "Disney and the planet", is focused on the Disney Theme Parks and the public's opinion on them. Before scanning this section I hadn't noticed just how in depth Disney's occurrence was surrounding the world. I understood that many people across the world had heard about Disney, but I thought that was as a result of videos. I also had no proven fact that Disney was required to revamp its image to get viewers in France and China to meet their social needs. It had been interesting reading about these places from a cost-effective, business, and educational stand point.
Chapter eight, "Living Happily Ever After", focused on Disney Music. It illustrated the role that music has played out on improving the computer animation and evolving the story. This combo of music with computer animation has made Disney from its earliest type in Steamboat Willie to Fantasia, to the classical music that are as memorable as the motion pictures itself. The end of the section is basically a summary of the entire reserve and discusses how Disney is well known all over the world, as it has come to be a "universal" brand, taking much criticism and scrutiny along with it.
Wasko describes the way the company creates illusion by referring to universal topics and values. For example, in Beauty and the Beast, Belle's optimism and individualism overshadow the darker undertones shown through the type of the Beast. Break free, fantasy, and creativity are ever present in the company operations. For example, "Imagineering", Disney's research and development department, illustrate these beliefs with the creation associated with an idealistic town called "Celebration" (Wasko 59). Another example is the magic, relationship and contentment evoked by Aladdin and Jasmine in the film Aladdin. Aladdin has a genie and special carpet and jasmine has a family pet tiger, creating an environment of fantasy and wonder. Aswell, Aladdin and Jasmines love has a contagious effect, causing people to feel happy at viewing Aladdin's happy closing, where good triumphs over evil. This theme is becoming common throughout Disney, so that it is a proper know brand.
Fantasy in the Disney Empire, matching to Janet Wasko, must be made (5). Therefore, we can conclude that in order to understand Disney, we must also understand the people who work in it, which is observed in the theme parks. Alan Bryman explains the theme recreation area experience as "a family pilgrimage, " (81) one requiring plenty of "control and predictability" (99) for their successful operation. Within the imaginative world of a place like Disneyland, it is not hard to forget that the park is indeed a show, the one that must be run by people, or cast customers. After guests leave the recreation area each day, custodial crews work on a strict schedule to clean the park for another day's arrivals to make certain it stays the same and continues the illusion of Disney alive. For this reason, the world of dream and idealism the Disney Company has created has resulted in much criticism.
Wasko argues that the studio regularly moulds and changes the morals of the initial tales because of its own experiences into a specific world view, Americanizing and "Disneyfying" it (Wasko 113). She analyzes this theory of the Disney aesthetic, by evaluating the universal features with a "psychoanalytic research of Disney's world" with regards to Pinocchio. Matching to Freudian psychoanalyst Michael Brody, the plot incorporates a job reversal when Pinocchio will save you his father. This product, he argues, attracts adults, as it creates them feel that they'll be taken care of by their children (138). Also, Pinocchio is not blessed from a real human mother, but rather from a enchanting creation process (138). The idea of the protagonist being built by his dad appeals to male audience users, showing them they are with the capacity of creation. But, Although in lots of ways it might seem to be to be an archetypical Disney film, adding the usual principles of wish fulfillment, an idealistic young hero, cute sidekicks and the utilization of magic, Robin Allan argues that Pinocchio in truth generally eschews the conventions found in Disney's previous endeavor, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, including the use of musical comedy and romance.
Allan claims that it's an totally darker piece, in keeping with the sinister undertones of Carlo Collodi's original report, published almost sixty years recently (67). Allan recognizes several important elements which may have been altered during the version process, key among these being the Victorian morality the e book, but which is absent in the film. Specifically, he notes that Victorians assumed that "children were uncivilized and will need to have the devil forced out of these", with Pinocchio being portrayed as "a delinquent" who is naturally inclined to be disobedient and is also compelled into good behaviour by the cruelty that is inflicted after him (71-72). Disney's Pinocchio, however, is an innocent youngster who arrives in the world with no sense of morality, good or bad, and it is thus is easily led astray. Pinocchio in the film version appears to be naturally mischievous, repeatedly requesting Gepetto why he should do certain things, but is also portrayed to be wanting to please. The characterization of the villains, who are portrayed as exaggerated unsightly archetypes, which creates a visible contrast between the tale's "good" personas of Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket and Gepetto, who portray American ideals of honesty, bravery and generosity. The villains, Honest John, Gideon, Stromboli and the Coachman, all have "foreign" accents, that assist perpetuate a feeling of otherness, which carries on the conventional style of most Disney videos.
A key difference which represents Pinocchio as different from other Disney tales and the traditional Hollywood Cinema storyline is a definite lack of consequence for its villains. In most Disney tales, the villains, if not killed outright, as is the truth with the Wicked Witch in Snow White, Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, or Captain Hook in Peter Skillet, they are in least stripped with their electric power and humiliated in some way. Pinocchio's villains, in contrast, simply go away when their function in the storyplot is completed. For instance, the fate of the other guys turned into donkeys at Pleasure Island is never fixed. This has the effect of earning the Pinocchio world feel decidedly more open-ended than most Disney movies. The film, it appears, is acknowledging the fact that life is filled with threat and the unfamiliar, and this, despite overcoming the hurdles that face him in the film and learning to be a real young man, Pinocchio will continue steadily to face obstacles in his life and will not simply live "happily ever after". Despite only being the studio's second feature film, Pinocchio can be seen to oppose traditional notions of archetypical Disney aesthetic, which should go against Wasko and the critics in her publication, despite having its use of attractive dog sidekicks and catchy musical figures.
I believe that Wasko wrote a very informative reserve, providing knowledge to it readers on the business and corporation aspect of Disney more than just the films and images itself. She provided numerous perspectives and views in her evaluation, which ultimately shows that she doesn't necessarily take a bias for, or against Disney. But, there have been some elements of the book that i do not trust, especially in the chapter "Analyzing the planet According to Disney". Sayers' criticizes the theory that Disney's movies "falsify life" and are "not really related to the great truths of life" (126). I believe that this statement is true to a certain extent, but is not completely true, as seen above with the life span lessons in Pinocchio. He appears to feel that the misrepresentations of life in the motion pictures are negative. In my own opinion I feel that some illusion and enthusiasm is good once in a while. Walt Disney himself is quoted in this same chapter as declaring, "I do not make movies generally for children. Call the kid innocence. The most detrimental folks is not without innocence In my own work I make an effort to reach and talk with that audience" (118). I believe the point of all of the early Disney movies, as well as the later animated movies is to provide some get away but to instruct not only children, but adults some valuable lessons in life. Children face enough of the harshness in the "real world" that many of them have the ability to inform that the world of a Disney film is make-believe, and it is separate from the world where they live in. I think that many kids today are smart enough to see the difference. So that more and more mainstream mass media becomes saturated with assault, it's nice that we now have still these animated movies, which usually cause a remedy or "happy ending".
Going additionally, Sayers is quoted as saying that the Disney adaptations of traditional fairy stories make it so that "there is nothing to make a child think or feel or consider" (128). WHENEVER I read this, I again disagreed. I've distinct memory from my early childhood of this amazing feeling after having a Disney movie done, when I needed nothing more than to be a number of of the characters I had formed just been watching. For example, seeing Pocahontas urged me to spend additional time outside and appreciate mother nature, where I'd go on adventures in my back garden. Disney films provided the basis for so a lot of my youth make-believe games. While it is most evident that Disney condenses and changes the original fairy stories, Disney is not aiming to take, for example, an Andersen or Grimm storyline and present it is their own, they have got simply taken a concept and managed to get into a far more family friendly story. The Disney versions are certainly more well known in today's modern culture, but I don't feel that is a negative thing, they are simply just another version allowing parents to take pleasure from viewing the Disney films with the kids without being completely bored.
Lastly, there were the few critiques about The Lion Ruler in this section. One reviewer evidently found that there are no strong feminine characters in the movie (133). Nala moves further than one to find some kind of food for the rest of her family and friends, as well, she really helps to convince Simba to return and take his place as king. Not to mention the fact that she actually is a lion, who are seen as majestic and powerful animals. The other comment made about The Lion King was about the visible racism of experiencing the three main hyena people be voiced by dark and Latino celebrities. In response to the, Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin, who are two of the voices, are popular comedians, and they are participating in hyenas, where their barks sounds like laughing. I think this is a classic exemplory case of critics possibly looking too deeply in to the story.
The idea of a singular Disney aesthetic that pertains to the entirety of the corporation has been applied to numerous occasions both as a criticism, classifying these motion pictures as repetitive and uninspired, so when a positive trait, stressing their value as reliable, child-friendly entertainment. As seen in Wasko's book, the company itself has invested a great deal of effort into securing the thought of an individual Disney brand and world, looking with Mickey Mouse button. Additionally, the legacy of Walt Disney is regularly found in order to maintain the image of an individual guiding eyesight shaping the whole Disney studio, regardless of the fact that he has been useless for almost 50 years.
I believe that the assumptions a single Disney cosmetic is available throughout all Disney products is an overly simplistic argument and that we now have a lot more factors to be considered. While certain qualities can be seen to use to multiple films, I don't believe that any one guideline holds true for each and every and every film. Yes there's a template which is implemented, making Disney a recognizable firm, but how is the fact different from almost every other movie or media company today?
