Blaming it on the Mouse

If you can think about Disney as a producer and circulator of ideologies, rather than the dream-maker, you should also take a moment to consider how its nuanced depictions of love have affected your own outlook on life. Consider Disney as a producer of culture that has the ability to pervade all sorts of boundaries and manifests itself into one of the most dominant hegemonic powers that disseminates the ideologies that have come to define notions of beauty, love and femininity. Disney may not be the original source of the problem, but as a supreme hegemonic power, Disney is a major producer of it. This blog will serve as an in depth analysis of what Disney films and their promotional products really tell us as a society, specifically focusing on the now nine Disney Princesses that I deem to be important inscriptions of both race and gender that contribute to the Disney complex that defines life and love around the world. As I move forward, I will categorize each blog post under the titles of ‘The Children,’ ‘The Roommate’ and ‘The Politics.’ ‘The Children’ will focus on experiences of children concerning Disney’s fairytale production, outlining instances where Disney has been instrumental in defining thoughts about race, gender and love. As any decent marketing executive worth their cookie cutter mould can tell you, starting out by marketing a product to the impressionable minds of young children creates a brand loyalty that is their dream. The pieces classified as ‘The Roommate’ will narrate the thoughts of a girl I know personally that thinks that real life is a fairytale, she is the ultimate believer, who buys into everything that Disney and society as a whole has told her. Try as you might to shake her out of it ‘The Roommate’ still believes that the happily ever after legitimately exists in real life. The trick to Disney’s success is its pervasiveness; most people don’t quite understand how the series of unrealistic expectations that are Disney propaganda manifest themselves in different ways in society that seem relatively far removed. Through ‘The Politics’ I will explore Disney’s propaganda and its implications on a personal scale while, in some instances taking into consideration the theories of Angela Davis, Ellen Willis and other public intellectuals. Remember one thing, even though Disney is a big part of the problem, and possibly the largest proliferator of these ideologies today, it is not the original source.

(image courtesy of spaghetti016 on deviantart.com)