Disney

Demonising Disney - long synonymous with a certain conservative, patriarchal, heterosexual ideology - is not new. This book sets out to deconstruct the political culture of the Disney canon in the years since the emergence of the so-called New World Order.

In Disney and Philosophy, essays from thirty-two deep-thinking Disneyphiles chart a course through the philosophical world of Disney, tapping into the minds of the great sages of the ages--Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Descartes, and Goofy--to explore universal questions of freedom, personal identity, morality, family, and friendship.

Emerson Goes to the Movies: Individualism in Walt Disney Company's Post-1989 Animated Films traces the theme of Emersonian individualism in the Walt Disney Company's post-1989 animated films, to reveal that the philosopher's influence extends not only over American literature, but also over American popular culture, in this case Disney cartoons. Disney films are heavy with ideology and American national myths, and, because of their educational role, it seems relevant to acknowledge this dimension and discuss the sources of the Disney worldview.

How to Read Donald Duck (Para leer al Pato Donald in Spanish) is a 1971 book-length essay by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart that critiques Disney comics from a Marxist point of view as being vehicles for American cultural imperialism. It was first published in Chile in 1971, became a bestseller throughout Latin America and is still considered a seminal work in cultural studies. It will be reissued in October2018 to a general audience in the United States, with a new introduction by Dorfman.

Kids around the world love Disney animated films, and many of their parents trust the Disney corporation to provide wholesome, moral entertainment for their children. Yet frequent protests and even boycotts of Disney products and practices reveal a widespread unease with the sometimes mixed and inconsistent moral values espoused in Disney films as the company attempts to appeal to the largest possible audience. In this book, Annalee R. Ward uses a variety of analytical tools based in rhetorical criticism to examine the moral messages taught in five recent Disney animated films: The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Mulan.

The Disney name stands not only for a company that has had global reach from its early days, but also for a successful aesthetic programme and ideological positions that have had great commercial success but at the same time have been frequently criticised. Straddling traditionalism and modernism, Disney productions have proven adaptable to social discourses and technical and media developments throughout its history.

In 2009, Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, including its subsidiary film production company, Marvel Studios. Since then, the MCU--the collection of multimedia Marvel Studios products that share a single fictional storyline--has grown from two feature films to thirty interconnected movies, nine streaming Disney+ series, a half dozen short films, and more than thirty print titles. The MCU is a deeply political universe. Intentionally or not, the MCU sends fans scores of messages about a wide range of subjects related to government, public policy, and society.

In this volume of 15 articles, contributors from a wide range of disciplines present their analyses of Disney movies and Disney music, which are mainstays of popular culture. The power of the Disney brand has heightened the need for academics to question whether Disney's films and music function as a tool of the Western elite that shapes the views of those less empowered. Given its global reach, how the Walt Disney Company handles the role of race, gender, and sexuality in social structural inequality merits serious reflection according to a number of the articles in the volume.