Understanding Disney. Janet Wasko
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used it; (2) it signified the “universality” of Disney’s products; and (3) the Disney message created “an identifiable universe of semantic meaning.” Following Real’s lead in the previous edition of Understanding Disney, the concept of the Disney universe was defined as “the company, its parks, products, and policies, the individuals who manage and work for the company, as well as Disney characters and images, and the meanings they have for audiences.”
But, as noted above, the Disney company has expanded dramatically since 2000, becoming one of the largest and most dominant media and entertainment corporations in the world. The company has added several key companies and franchises that also have become known as universes – Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. These are now owned by the Disney corporation, which has become greater than just one universe. We can now refer to something called the “Disney Multiverse.”
The definition of “multiverse” refers to many universes or, more specifically, “a hypothetical collection of potentially diverse observable universes.” Though scientists are not all convinced of the actual existence of multiverses, it is a concept that is often used as a metaphor.
The notion of a Disney Multiverse has received some attention from fans who explore overlapping films and worlds, game designers who have created a few Disney Multiverse games, and so on. The company itself has provided examples of their multiverse, for instance at their theme parks, and most recently in the film, Ralph Breaks the Internet. But, as in the Marvel and Star Wars universes, these examples relate only to narrative universes, or in other words, focus on locations, time periods, stories, and characters from films, television programs, books, and so on.
In this discussion, the Disney Multiverse refers to the totality of Disney, not merely its various narrative universes. It includes all of the previously mentioned components of the Disney corporation – its corporate management, directors, shareholders, and employees; its corporate ethos, policies, and strategies; its divisions, products, services, and properties; its content, values, and meanings; and its audiences, consumers, and fans; as well as the other universes that it owns (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox) (see Figure 1.2). Not only are we interested in how these universes are different – with their own products, characters, narratives, etc. – but also important are the ways in which they are controlled by the Disney corporation and influenced by its policies and strategies, as well as how these universes may connect/interact as part of the Disney Multiverse. More details about these components and their relationships will be explored in this volume as we seek to understand this immense, multifaceted, and significant entity.
Figure 1.2: The Disney Multiverse
Interestingly, a 2009 episode of the Fox-distributed satirical television show Family Guy was called “Road to the Multiverse.” In the program, Stewie and Brian travel by time machine and at one point visit the “Disney universe,” where they find the characters, dialogue, songs, and settings to be very obviously “Disney-like.”2 In this edition of Understanding Disney, we will be exploring the road to the Disney Multiverse.
Studying Disney
Studying Disney can be challenging in many ways. When it is introduced as a topic for discussion, Disney is most often accepted with unqualified approval, and even reverence, by the American public, as well as by many international audience members. Many feel that the Disney company is somehow unique and different from other corporations, and its products are seen as innocent and pleasurable. There is a general sense that its products are only entertainment, as Walt Disney constantly reminded everyone. It is as though the company and its leaders can do no wrong – after all, they’re making so many people so happy. And they do it so well – how can one not be awed by their success?
There is also some hesitancy to discuss Disney as a business, despite the overwhelming emphasis on stockholder value and corporate goals by the company itself. In some settings, calling Walt Disney a “capitalist” would be considered risky, despite his role as head of a profit-motivated company. Furthermore, taking a critical stance towards the company that has created the happiest places on earth may be considered overly pessimistic, not to say downright un-American. After all, why should it be taken so seriously? As we’re told continuously, it’s just entertainment.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the Disney phenomenon seriously and to insist that it is a legitimate focal point for cultural and social analysis. It is appropriate not only to look more closely at the Disney company and its products but also to critique their role in our culture. Indeed, with the proliferation of Disney products and the diversification of corporate activities, one must insist that Disney is fair game for serious critical review.
This is not to say that the Disney phenomenon has gone unnoticed. Indeed, the attention that Walt Disney, the Disney company, and Disney products have received in print is staggering. Several books consist mainly of references to Disney material,3 while a search on Amazon’s website in September 2018 resulted in more than 50,000 books listed with “Disney” in the title. (Of course, many of these are Disney products.) To this must be added the constant attention that the company and its products receive in the popular press, which has contributed to the Disney phenomenon.
In some academic circles, the study of Disney in particular, and popular culture in general, has been perceived as an irrelevant, frivolous, “Mickey Mouse” occupation. Nevertheless, Disney has been the focus of study in a wide variety of disciplines, with countless books, essays, and articles on Walt Disney, his contribution to animation, the history of the Disney company, and the analysis of its products and their creators.
In the 1930s, cultural pundits and film critics celebrated Disney as art, while members of the Frankfurt School often used Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck as examples in their discussions of the culture industry. In addition to Michael Real’s study, the Disney empire attracted the attention of communications scholars in several classic studies in the 1970s, specifically Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart’s How to Read Donald Duck and Herbert Schiller’s The Mind Managers.4
However, in the 1990s, there was a boom in “Disney studies” that attracted the attention of the popular press and others, not always in a favorable way. Numerous scholars continue to direct attention to the phenomenon and have joined in “the fashionable sport of Disney bashing.” Analysis has featured rhetorical, literary, feminist, and psychoanalytic critiques, stressing social issues, such as race and gender representation. Anthropologists, architects, historians, and geographers are still seriously discussing the impact of Disney’s worlds (especially the theme parks), considering their aesthetic, cultural, and social implications.
Why another book (and a second edition) on Disney?
Despite all of the attention and analysis, there is still a need to look at the entire Disney phenomenon from a critical perspective.5 This is especially important in light of the intensification of Disney’s corporate power during the last few decades and its increasingly dominant role in the media/entertainment industry. This book will look at the wide range of perspectives that have been used – and must be used – to understand the Disney Multiverse. The company’s continued expansion and ongoing popularity calls for the deliberate integration of political economic analysis with insights drawn from cultural analysis and audience studies or reception analysis, or, in other words, analysis emphasizing the economic as well as the ideological, or production as well as consumption. In the case of Disney, this approach is expressed in the notion of manufacturing fantasy.
If we are to fully understand the Disney phenomenon, the reception or consumption of Disney products needs to be considered. Though some analysts have attempted to integrate audience responses and reception with textual readings, most of the analyses of Disney texts merely reinforce the subjective nature of these readings. Also, by focusing only on individual texts, the overall output or ideological