Delving into Disney’s impact in the media and the realm of copyright and entertainment law offered me a new perspective on the company and the future of the media world. Market economies and capitalism will always call for success and failure in each industry, and Disney has work arduously to maintain their power and position. After releasing biases of positivity from my childhood I was finally able to view Disney as the corporation that it is. It is my understanding that Disney is not necessarily a monopoly of the entertainment industry, but one of three powerful media conglomerates (in addition to Viacom and Time Warner).
Of course I had to do some research there myself!
I think if one company is powerful it is better that it is an evolving company like Disney rather than a sex selling one like MTV or other stations. I have grown to appreciate and respect Disney in a whole new way, both for their fair paying when they do merge with companies and their poise in copyright laws. Although it can be said that original creators should benefit from their works, as a pre law student I know that Disney in all cases fairly owned the rights that artists signed away. The salient finding of my research is that Disney is definitely one of the most impactful and influential media groups in existence.
This is taken from a scene in the Disney Channel Original series “Dog with a Blog.” This show blends the media age and ideas like “blogging” in a format for children.
Youth today are living under very different circumstances than even I was just ten to fifteen years ago. Children today are living in a digital age, bombarded by advertisements and commoditization. Children see this not only in television and film, but also in video games and the internet. They even meet Disney and other major media representations on smart phones and tablets. Now, for children, it appears, “there can be only one kind of value, market value; one kind of success, profit; one kind of existence, commodities; and one kind of social relationship, markets” (Grossberg 2005).
It is estimated that Americans on average spend more than six hours a day watching video based entertainment, and will soon match those numbers of hours we spend sleeping. The American Medical Association estimates that, “the combined hours spent in front of a television or video screen is the single biggest chunk of time in the waking life of an American child (Hazen 1997). Those figures were from 1997, imagine where we are at today with Netflix and many new on demand features available on television and the internet. Children are the most vulnerable to this exposure, which Disney seems to have recognized as they have recently spent around $180 million to expand their video games online and for gaming devices. Each film released has corresponding video games in multiple formats.
The case from ABC Family’s “Secret Life of the American Teenager.”
The real question when it comes to Disney’s impact on youth today is if a corporate controlled society distorts the sensibility of children. Although Disney Channel and films do not offer information about sex, drugs and other adult topics that could corrupt a young intellect or direct actions, they own and operate networks that have come under fire for use of sex and violence. The ABC Channel has offered shows with intense storylines and adult matters like teen pregnancy in The Secret Life of the American Teenager and murder in Pretty Little Liars. The impact of these shows and digital age will be better viewed in ten years as this generation ages, but Disney will definitely have an impact stronger than any other media conglomerate.
Works Cited
Lawrence Grossberg, “Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America’s Future,” (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), p. 264.
Cited in Don Hazen and Julie Winokur, eds. “We the Media, “(New York: New Press, 1997),p. 64.
Many universities and scholastic groups have analyzed and criticized Disney’s depiction of woman. Typically, in Disney films women are portrayed as a princess, queen, or homemaker. Many films are adaptations of folk tales from centuries ago, which could explain set gender roles and the importance of help from men to save women in many plot lines. The Disney Princesses of Belle, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine and others are shown with extremely small waists, large breasts, stomach bearing outfits, and in need to be rescued by a Prince or other man. Each Princess appears to be a damsel in distress. Although their 2009 release of Tangled depicted an independent and passionate Rapunzel, she indeed would not have been able to succeed without Flynn, her romantic interest.
Frozen, Disney’s most recent animated film, has received praise for its use of feisty females and a strong princess. The film surrounds the adventures of two sisters who attempt to put an end to the endless winter of their kingdom. For so many other films the princesses are show sobbing with their heads down when problems occur (in fact a post on Buzzfeed, an online comic page, showed nearly a dozen cases of Disney females crying over and hiding their faces when problems climax!) and relying on the help of men. But, was this a result of controversy over misogynistic depictions, or of an evolving society?
Frozen has also received praise from feminists because it was the first feature from Disney Animation to be directed by a woman. Although there has historically been much criticism of how the Walt Disney Company has portrayed women, Walt Disney himself has been recorded as supportive of women. According to archives of a speech given in 1941, Disney said, “If a woman can do the work as well, she is worth as much as a man. The girl artists have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men and I honestly believe they may eventually contribute something to this business that men never would or could do” (Disney Studio Archives 1941).
Paula Sigman Lowery, an archivist and self proclaimed feminist, discussed Walt Disney’s history of statements on women. She reflected to the Los Angeles Times saying, “His point was that he was not bringing women into animation to take away men’s jobs at a lower rate, which was what there was some concern about. So here is Walt Disney (in this quote) very early on saying this is art done by artists, whether men or women. I like to point this out because people have a mistaken impression that animation at Disney was always a man’s world.” Lowery notes that films have evolved with the role of women in society, and that one should not judge 1940s films to the standards of current ideals.
Works Cited
Keegan, Rebecca. “72 years before ‘Frozen,’ Walt Disney Spoke on Women in Animation.” 29 December 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/29/entertainment/la-et-mn-frozen-walt-disney-speech-on-women-animators-20131129
Happily Never After 