Disney owns what? Historical Inaccuracies and Media Consolidation by Brittany Cozzens

As with Barbie, American Icon Walt Disney has created a worldwide network of people wishing to be in a fantasyland forever. Through massive parks such as Disneyland and Disney World, to movies and their beloved characters, and even a Disney themed town, Walt Disney created something more than just a place to love, he created a place where dreams come true.

However, after reading Mike Wallace’s “Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory” I began to see that “The Happiest Place on Earth” is just a successful money pit created from false happiness that consumers are ever so willing to invest in.

This false happiness comes from the Disney imagineers invention of creating a Disney realistic society when at the parks- it becomes a place that is “utopian in nature, where we carefully program out all the negative, unwanted elements and program in the positive elements” (Wallace 137). As someone else in class pointed out that though Disney may be full of historical inaccuracies, it wouldn’t be as popular or sell as much if it included the negative moments from our histories past. While this may be true, the problem arises people, especially young kids, growing up thinking those historical inaccuracies to be true.

But just what is the reach of the Disney brand and its inaccuracies? With further exploration I came to find that not only is Disney a family favorite but also is one of the worlds biggest and most loved media conglomerates. The Big 6 as they are know control 90% of everything Americans see, hear and consider important. That’s right; GE, News Corp, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and yes Disney pretty much rule the media world and how you get all of your information. But what all does Disney own you might ask- ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramax, Marvel Studios just to name a few. In an almost $276 BILLION dollar business, Disney has major say in not only what your children watch for fun but also everything else. Being such a large monopoly, it is scary to think that a company that prides itself on creating a new type of history, void of anything deemed negative that is integral to our nations history, is also the same company that rules the airwaves, TV stations, and so much more.

Disney- the happiest place on Earth, media conglomerate, monopoly, and more apart of your life then you will ever know.

http://www.freepress.net/blog/11/11/22/media-consolidation-illusion-choice

April 9, 2015

Maleficent may not be a communist, but she is the devil by Angie Indik

When choosing a Disney movie to examine for historical context, Pocahontas or Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, may appear to be the obvious option. I chose to view and analyze Sleeping Beauty instead. I did not do it for the challenge, I did it, truth be told, because it is the only Disney movie I own! It is also one of my favorites. This film was released in 1959, but the story is much older. It is a fairytale that Charles Perrault has been credited with writing back in the seventeenth-century. Historians believe there are even earlier versions dating back to the fourteenth-century. No matter how old the story is, the Disney interpretation of the tale would no doubt reflect the time period of the 1950s. My goal in watching this film was to try and decipher the less obvious historical messages in the movie.

For those unacquainted with the story of Sleeping Beauty, it is about a princess who was put under a curse by the villainess Maleficent. The Princess Aurora was to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and ultimately die before her sixteenth birthday. The curse did not work as intended as Aurora ended up falling into an eternal sleep, but would awaken with true love’s kiss.

Knowing this movie was made during the Cold War, I automatically felt I should see Maleficent as a communist. It must be there somewhere, right? Nope. She was not spreading a message of anti-capitalism. She was not against individuality. Perhaps she was against free speech as Princess Aurora could not speak during her deep sleep, but I think that’s stretching it a bit. I mostly saw a jealous woman hurt because she was not invited to a party celebrating Aurora’s birth.

While the movie did not strike me as having a particular anti-communist message, it did have religious undertones to it. The 1950s brought about a religious revival. This was a result of the anti-communist, anti-atheist feelings on the 1950s. Maleficent is presented as having big devil horns on her head. She breathes fire as she is transformed into a dragon. The villainess is seen as evil as the devil himself. On the opposing side, there are the three fairies, Meriwether, Flora and Fauna. They represent the good. They look like nuns. The trio wear dresses and habits; the only difference is they do not wear black and white, but rather blue, pink and green. They adopt and raise the princess Aurora just as nuns would in an orphanage.

The movie Sleeping Beauty also shows how the 1950s valued motherhood and the female being the homemaker. The three fairies were thrilled at the chance to raise Princess Aurora. Motherhood was something that was denied to them. Now they had a chance to take on the “sole important role” for a woman and be a mother. When it came to doing domestic work such as baking, sewing and cleaning, the film pokes fun at them as they could not tackle these projects without using magic.

While Sleeping Beauty is not inspired by a particular historical figure or event, history can be found in unlikely places such as this Disney cartoon.

April 9, 2015

Dangers of Disney by Sarah Klein

Controversy seems to surround Disney as much as their perfect, pretty princesses. Princesses who always look gorgeous, who have the ideal slim yet curvy body, and who always find their prince charming. For a children’s company that heavily appeals to young girls, Disney sure does manage to lump sum all types of girls into one narrow slot.

If an icon contributes to nuanced negativity, should it really be an icon? And furthermore, is it unfair to expect such perfectionism out of icons as large and all encompassing as Disney, even though they primarily reach America’s impressionable youth?

Let’s look at the facts. A quick Buzzfeed search sends me to an article posted April 7, 2015–yesterday. The title: “16 Terrible Love Lessons We Learned From Disney Princes.” I’m not even surprised. Disney certainly has a sordid past of promoting no sexual consent (Sleeping Beauty AND Snow White), changing yourself for the man you love (The Little Mermaid), and allowing yourself to be abused by your true love (Beauty and the Beast)… Just to name a few.

The model Walt Disney created as far back as 1923 certainly lived in a world very different from today. Only three years prior woman finally won the right to vote.

In 1937 Snow White almost gets killed then has to run away until a man saves her by kissing her while she’s unconscious. In 1942 Planned Parenthood is established.

n the 1950s Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty have to be saved by their prince charmings to live a happy life, while in 1960 the FDA finally approves birth control and in 1963 Congress passes the Equal Pay Act.

In 1989 The Little Mermaid changes herself for a man; in 1991 Belle lets the Beast be abusive. In 1992 the Supreme Court reaffirms the validity of women’s rights to abortion under Roe v. Wade. Hey, that’s when I was born!

As women have been making leaps and bounds in the real world, Disney continues to follow their outdated model of confining women to the life of princesses, in a role that is usually subservient and passive. Isn’t an icon supposed to change with the times and remain relevant? How can Disney continue perpetuating cold hard sexism to generations of impressionable little girls?

Oh yea, for this thing called money.

It certainly appears that when an icon is intertwined with making people money problems arise and morals and progress remain locked in the tower with the princess.

Too bad that intelligent little girls get the shaft.

Sources:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/krystieyandoli/terrible-love-lessons-we-learned-from-disney-princes#.qfly8qKgLg

http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about-disney/disney-history/1960-01-01–1969-12-31

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline2.html

April 9, 2015

The Grimm Truth by Alexandra Margaret Vene

As most people my age probably have, I grew up with Disney starting as far back as I can remember. When I was 3 or 4, my grandfather started taking me to the Disney store and I used to pick out items for my whole family. To this day, he has saved every Disney t-shirt and sweatshirt I’ve “bought” him (cute, I know). I have seen and loved almost all of the cartoon films, but as a little girl my absolute favorite were the princess movies. Surprise, surprise. Something about them was just so fascinating, and the “happily ever after” endings definitely added to the charm.

It was wasn’t until I was older that I realized many of the Disney princess stories are based on German fairytales dating back to 1812 and were written by brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (Princeton press). Disney, for the most part, just used the main character and the overall theme of the original fairytales and there’s an important reason why: the real stories are not quite Disney or even child appropriate…

Let’s use Cinderella as an example. I’m sure everyone knows the basic storyline of how Cinderella secretly goes to the ball and leaves her slipper which the prince uses to find her again. The Disney version has that same idea, to say the least, but there are some intense details that are left out. We don’t get as much back story as to what happened to Cinderella’s mother. In the fairytale, her mother dies and Cinderella plants a tree on top her grave. Cinderella’s tears over the grave prompt a bird to fly down and dress her in the ballgown and gold slippers (not glass!). There is no fairy godmother business at all. And for 3 days, Cinderella went to the festival (not a ball!) and got away from the prince, except on the third day he put tar down on the steps to try and catch her (stalker status).

Little did the prince know, Cinderella wasn’t dumb and she ditched her shoes. To find her, the prince set out to have all the maidens in the land try on a shoe to see whom it belongs to. Because all girls wears different sizes, obviously. So far, this doesn’t sound like a story that could be a problem for Disney, but this is where shit gets a bit gruesome. In the Disney version the two evil stepsisters attempt to stuff their feet in the slipper with a fail. In the Brothers Grimm version, however, that just wasn’t enough. To make the shoe fit, the stepmother cuts a toe off one sister and the heel off the other. Obviously, this is way too gross and graphic for Disney to put in a cartoon and I can understand why they changed the story around.

So who cares? I don’t have problem with Disney changing the original stories around to make them more appropriate for kids today. It’s completely understandable. But Disney’s films and stories have become so iconic that not many people know the real stories and where they came from. Even I grew up thinking the Disney versions were the real deal. Disney stole the ideas right out from under the Grimm Brothers and since they are dead nobody seems to really care. These iconic fairytales don’t actually belong to Disney, yet it gets all of the credit for the iconicity. I think it is important to know that the people behind Disney are not as original as we give them credit to be. It’s “Grimm”, but it’s the truth.

Sources:

http://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/aschenputtel

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10300.html

April 9, 2015

Der Fuehrer’s Face by Daniel Cannon

Both of the readings discussed in class this week have had to do with how Disney treats history. Their tendency to only want to show the good parts of history along with their frequent conflicts with historians about their desire to do this are both chronicled in Mike Wallace’s essays. The question is, how does Disney treat contemporary events? We have read two different articles discussing their treatment of history but how did they handle things that would one day become history?

Years ago, I came across an image of Donald Duck as a Nazi. At the time, I thought that this was just some clever play on the fact that Walt Disney was an Anti-Semite and did not put any more thought into it. I had not really thought about it again until this week. I was researching Disney and trying to figure out what their response was during World War II when I came across Nazi Donald Duck again. This time I read into it and it turns out that this is from Der Fuehrer’s Face, an Oscar winning short made by Disney in 1943 that was used as propaganda (see below). Disney, even though its leader hated Jews, seemed to hate anything that was anti-Capitalist even more.

The short animated feature opens with an excerpt of a Wagner piece and then transitions into a performance of “Der Fuehrer’s Face” done by a German oom-pah band consisting of Goebbels, Himmler, Mussolini, Tojo, and Goering. They march onto Donald’s house and force him awake so he can eat his rations and then go to work screwing on the tops of artillery shells and saluting pictures of the Axis leaders. The machine speeds up to the point that Donald cannot keep up and he draws the ire of the Nazi leaders. He wakes up in his bed at the end and he realizes this has all been a nightmare. He is wearing American flag pants and he kisses the Statue of Liberty while he praises his home country.

This is propaganda at its finest. It provides caricatures of famous leaders of the opposition and everything, while truthful, is driven up to the extreme as to scare the viewer at home. By casting Donald Duck in the title role, Disney makes the audience connect emotionally as they watch one of their icons being forced to live under Nazi rule. The very pro-America image at the conclusion of this cartoon along with the tomato in the face of Hitler at the end drives home the pro-American point very well. Disney entered the propaganda game to protect their own interests and to show the American people that they supported what the boys overseas were doing. This seems like a PR move and a good one at that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzH1iaKVsBM

April 9, 2015

Disney and The Truman Show by Sarah Butler

I have always been a fan of the Disney brand. It is something that I grew up with and because it is such an integral part of American culture it is hard to escape from. I went to Disney World as a child but don’t remember a lot of it because I was so young, but I went back twice during high school for spring training for my high school lacrosse team. While there we go to explore all of the parks and have an amazing and “magical” time.

One thing that stuck out in my memory from these trips was being in Magic Kingdom and wondering if there was anything in the houses along main street besides the store fronts. I wanted to live there and never leave Disney but, I have learned that it is all a facade. Learning that EPCOT was originally meant to be simulated community made me rethink what Disney is all about. The “Mickey Mouse History” by Mike Wallace described EPCOT as, “Disney dreamed of “a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research,” a permanent testing ground for new ideas in urban planning. Under its gigantic bubble dome, American know-how, ingenuity, and enterprise would overcome the ills of urban life”(142).

This to me did not sound like the kind of place that anyone should want to live. It sounds to me like you would be a test rat for Disney and is frankly creepy from the pictures. You wouldn’t be living a free life you would always be monitored which feels morally wrong and corrupt.

This planned community sounded a lot like The Truman Show film starring Jim Carrey who plays Truman. In the film Truman’s life is staged and being filmed for the enjoyment of the public. Truman has no idea this is happening and is actually living inside of a bubble and make-believe world. Things start to fall apart and he realizes that his whole life has been a lie and he has just been a product of entertainment. If EPCOT turned into what it was meant to be, I feel that all of its residents would be like Truman and become products of entertainment and consumerism. The inhabitants of this city would all be products of Disney and Disney ideals. This presents a fundamental problem with Disney. Disney is meant for entertainment and when they try to create places like EPCOT and Disney’s America they are creating a false consumer reality. Disney would be controlling the thoughts of the public in an inhumane and immoral way. The fact that EPCOT did not become what it was planned to be is a blessing and shows that the public does not want to be controlled by a conglomerate just like Truman didn’t want to be controlled by a TV show.

April 9, 2015

History; As a Whole, It Wasn’t Very Happy by Calvin Thrall

Disney World markets itself with the (arguably brilliant) slogan “The happiest place on Earth.” While walking around the bright and clean streets of The Magic Kingdom, smelling the $8 elephant ears and listening to the cheerful and familiar music playing through PA speakers, one would be tempted to agree. Why is it that Disney World manages to be so goddamn happy all the time? What separates it from the dreary and unpleasant realities of our day to day lives?

In his essay entitled Mickey Mouse History, Mike Wallace provides an answer, sort of. Wallace points to the fact that, in order for Disney World to instill in its visitors a sense of enjoyable nostalgia about past times, imagineers must first whitewash the past. Gone from the rustic streets are the impoverished and the ill living without medicine, gone are the enslaved Africans, gone is almost any negative imagery at all (besides, as Wallace points out, the comical Disney villains present on various rides). What’s more, the imagineers truly believe that this sanitization of bygone eras actually captures more accurately the essence of those times.

You know, because Americans are inherently good – they occasionally just make silly mistakes like slaughtering and enslaving millions of people. Right?

Disney will never be able to present a comprehensive history of any topic, ever, because of its refusal to depict unhappy or unsavory events whatsoever. And that’s fine, because it doesn’t really pretend to be a historical site, nor does it pretend to be a place of education. And when you consider its status as a vacation spot for families (specifically familes with young children) you really can’t blaim them. Young children don’t want to feel that they’re being manipulated into learning when they set out to have fun (a truth that is exemplified in the attached image), and few people of any age would likely consider being taught about the horrific realities of America’s past as “fun” or “relaxing.” Disney World is only able to manufacture it’s “happiness only” zone through shutting out unhappiness in all forms, and because so many parts of human existence are unhappy, the “happiest place on Earth” feels distinctively artificial. When one exits Disney World after a trip to return to the “real world,” there’s almost a level of culture shock involved. Disney World is not a place people go to experience human history, it’s a place people go to get a taste of something that the world has never known: total peace, love, and happiness.

April 8, 2015

An Edgar Allan Poe-mance by Alexandra Margaret Vene

When I decided to Google “Edgar Allan Poe themed things”, I had a feeling shit was going to get weird. As it turns out, there are Poe themed restaurants, tattoos, and posters, but my favorite out of all of the oddities were the weddings. Yes, couples actually themed their weddings after the writer. Complete with things like raven centerpieces, skeleton hand boutenieres, blood red roses, and black linens, these weddings are designed to embody the style and themes of Poe’s work. I cannot be the only person that finds it difficult to see the romance in a Poe wedding, but after all he is a Dark “Romantic”.

When I read about him on the Poe Museum website, I realized that maybe Poe did embody some romance. His marriage to Virginia was nothing short of happy (and disturbing) and it seemed as his home life was what kept him going through the poverty that he faced. When his cousin wife died, Poe was devastated and could not even bring himself to write. However, it did not take him long to become infatuated with another woman who inspired some of his poems such as “For Annie”, the only issue being that she was married. Since he couldn’t be with her, Poe became engaged to a different woman who he had been with before and as he traveled they wrote love letters back and forth. Unfortunately, he died before they ever married.

But the point of talking about Poe’s personal life is that maybe there is some sense in an Edgar Allan Poe themed wedding, even if most of his writing is dark and gruesome. After all, to have a love like he had for Virginia is pretty special. Even if she was his baby cousin.

At the Edgar Allan Poe museum in Richmond, VA, there is an “Enchanted Garden” and the museum website claims that Poe thought gardens were an “art form”. The museum hosts weddings in the garden, for a fee obviously, where couples can get married and…

“live happily evermore”.

April 8, 2015

You Can’t Sit With Us! by Annmarie B Persico

A princess, a boxer, a Phanatic, and a statesman are sitting in a bar eating cheesesteaks and soft pretzels having a Philadelphia Icons party with me. In walks Edgar Allen Poe…

This pretty much defines how I feel about Edgar Allen Poe as a Philadelphia Icon.

A “City of Neighborhoods”

Yes we are the “City of Brotherly Love” but as a resident Philadelphian I adhere firmly to the belief that we are a “City of Neighborhoods” and Poe does not check all of my “You’re a Philadelphia Icon if” boxes mostly because he isn’t from a neighborhood. He lived here for 6 years and wrote some major pieces of work here, he is undeniably a Literary Icon but as far as I’m concerned Baltimore can have him. I’ve made the argument in class that Poe was using Philadelphia as a launching pad into greatness (aren’t all Philadelphians) but that fact of the matter is he didn’t even live in a section of Philadelphia that was Philadelphia yet.

“Many of the current neighborhoods around Philadelphia existed as separate boroughs, districts and townships in the County of Philadelphia before absorption into the city via the 1854 Act of Consolidation. Before consolidation, Philadelphia’s city boundaries extended only as far as William Penn’s original plan, from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill and from Vine to South Streets.” Poe’s neighborhood didn’t even make the cut. “Consolidation brought into the city neighborhoods such as historic Germantown in the northwest, formally founded one year before William Penn’s arrival, and the Spring Garden community on the city’s northwest edge.”

Ben said it best, if you’re from the city and you meet someone from the city the first thing you asked is where did you grow up? And if the answer isn’t a neighborhood than you are probably going to doubt their Philadelphia-ness.

“Implicit in the “City of Neighborhoods” dynamic is the intense pride Philadelphians hold about the distinct residential areas comprising this city. Philadelphians love their city but they particularly love those sections of their city where they were born, raised and in many instances continue to live.”

Strike 1 Mr. Poe.

Exposure to your Home-City Icons

When born and raised in a city as wonderful as Philadelphia you are exposed at quite a young age to some ritualistic pilgrimages to places where icons walked and lived. Who didn’t go to the Betsy Ross house, the Franklin Institute, the Art Museum, or a Philadelphia sports game at least once during their Philadelphia childhood? If you aren’t making these pilgrimages yourself, then you are at least schooled in knowing when and where significant events in Philadelphia Icons lives happened.

I’m 25 years old and didn’t even know the Poe House existed in Philadelphia.

Now we can maybe blame that one on a sheltered childhood, or a lack of parental interest in exposing me to Philadelphia Icons properly but I’ve known where Grace Kelly lived, went to high school, and got married since I was 5. My sister changed her parish to get married at the same church as her even though she will never admit it. I knew Rocky ran up those steps since forever. And I certainly knew that the founding fathers were hanging out writing the Declaration of Independence in our fair city from a young age too.

*Side-note- Poe is definitely a literary Icon and my mom was an English literature major and still didn’t find the need to make me aware of “his” house.

Strike 2 Mr. Poe.

It’s my Party

Grace Kelly, East Falls. Rocky Balboa, South Philly. The Phillie Phanatic, South Philly. Bejamin Franklin, it doesn’t matter he harnessed electricity and was a founding father but we will give him Old City. I could offer my own personal Roxborough Icons that no one would know; mostly because they’re neighborhood people who grew up in and impacted my community while eating Wawa Hoagies and Deli’s cheesesteaks twice a week but I’ll just stick to my claims based on neighborhood pride and exposure to his story that Poe just can’t sit with MY Philadelphia Icons. Sure it’s a little Mean Girls of me, but who better than a Philadelphian to decide who makes the cut. Not everyone can be from Philadelphia- but my Philadelphia pride just couldn’t take the blow of admitting him to my Icons party.

Strike 3 Mr. Poe

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/the-latest/35592-philadelphia-the-city-of-neighborhoods

April 8, 2015

Dessert Should Always Follow Dinner by Daniel P Cannon

Picture it: It was Sunday March 22, 2015 and I was twenty one and a half years old. I literally rolled out of bed and on to the floor so that my day could start. Normally on Sundays I sleep in and then stumble my way through work but this Sunday was different. I was to visit the Edgar Allan Poe House on 7^th Street and then stumble my way through work. I walked the dogs, downed a Rice Krispy treat, and made my way to the bus at around 9:20am. All I could think about was how the sunny weather was so inappropriate and how I really needed an overcast sky or rain to truly get into the gothic state of mind Poe occupied. From the bus I went to the El and soon enough I was at the Spring Garden stop. The streets were somewhat empty of pedestrians and so I had a lot of time to think about what was about to happen. These thoughts left my mind when I saw the Raven statue outside and I knew I was in the right place. I walked up to the door, knocked once, and was let inside by the Ranger.

The first thing you see when you walk in is a gift shop full of Poe books and memorabilia. I own a Complete Tales and Poetry by Poe so none of this was of any particular interest. The Ranger informed me that the information movie was just beginning and then after that I could take the self-guided tour. The movie was informative and helped get me even more acquainted with Poe. The Ranger handed me a laminated self-guided tour sheet and told me which stairs to avoid and which direction to go. She told me I could start or end with the cellar saying, “It’s like dessert because it is the best part.” I chose to go to the cellar first. I walked down the steps, opened the door, and went inside. The door shut behind me.

My first real encounter with Poe was in 8^th grade. It was his birthday and so to celebrate him, our principal read us “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” on the top floor of our old school building which was still decorated for the Haunted house we throw every year. Each of us had to move old leaves off the ground and sit Indian style as we were read these horror tales. Nothing struck me as particularly but this started an interest in Poe that I have not been able to shake. I bought a book, watched any special I could about him, and reveled any time that we discussed a story of his in high school English. I enjoyed him immensely but I was never scared of him. Then the door shut behind me.

It was an old school cellar. It was all stone and a lone staircase sat in the middle of the floor. I could see storm doors on the opposite side of the room but they were shut tightly. Everything was quiet and the only light was from two tiny windows on my right. I looked around and at this point, everything in my body was telling me to leave. I don’t know about ghosts or the supernatural, but I felt something in that cellar that scared the hell out of me. The rest of the house seems like a blur and it makes me wish that I saved the cellar for last because it wouldn’t have ruined everything else for me. Dessert should always follow dinner.

I spent the ride home texting my mom to try and calm myself down. I went into the basement of a horror icon and I finally felt the horror that inhabited most of his stories. I do not want to go back again.

Image Credits:

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/05/fe/c3/d3/edgar-allan-poe-national.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/EAP-NHS–Exterior.jpg