Long considered a figurehead of family values and wholesome adolescence, the Disney franchise has faced increasing criticism over its gendered representations of children in film, its stereotypical representations of race and non-white cultures, and its emphasis on the heterosexual couple. Against a historical backdrop of studio history, audience reception, and the industrial-organizational apparatus of Disney media, Seán Harrington examines the Disney classics through a psychoanalytical framework to explore the spirit of devotion, fandom, and frenzy that is instilled in consumers of Disney products and that underlie the fantasy of the Magic Kingdom. This compelling study demystifies the unsettling cleanliness and pretensions to innocence that the Disney brand claims to hold.

Much has been written about the Walt Disney Company's productions, but the focus has largely been on animation and feature film created by Disney. In this essay collection, the attention is turned to The Disney Channel and the programs it presents for a largely tween audience. Since its emergence as a market category in the 1980s, the tween demographic has commanded purchasing power and cultural influence, and the impressionability and social development of the age group makes it an important range of people to study. Presenting both a groundbreaking view of The Disney Channel's programming by the numbers and a deep focus on many of the best-known programs and characters of the 2000s--shows like The Wizards of Waverly Place, That's So Raven and Hannah Montana--this collection asks the simple questions, "What does The Disney Channel Universe look and sound like? Who are the stories about? Who matters on The Disney Channel?"

Disney Theme Parks and America’s National Narratives takes a public history approach to situating the physical spaces of the Disney brand within memory and identity studies. For over 65 years, Disney’s theme parks have been important locations for the formation and negotiation of the collective memory of the American narrative. Disney’s success as one of America’s most prolific storytellers, its rise as a symbol of America itself, and its creation of theme parks that immerse visitors in three-dimensional versions of certain "American" values and historic myths have both echoed and shaped the way the American people see themselves. Like all versions of the American narrative, Disney’s vision serves to reassure us, affirm our shared values, and unite a diverse group of people under a distinctly American identity—or at least, it did. The book shows how the status Disney obtained led the public to use them both as touchstones of identity and as spaces to influence the American identity writ large. This volume also examines the following: • how Disney’s original cartoons and live-action entertainment offerings drew from American folk history and ideals • how their work during World War II cemented them as an American symbol at home and abroad • how the materialization of the American themes already espoused by the brand at their theme parks created a place where collective memory lives • how legitimization by presidents and other national figures gave the theme parks standing no other entertainment space has • how Disney has changed alongside the American people and continues to do so today. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of history, media, cultural studies, American studies and tourism.

This work demonstrates that not everything that Disney touched turned to gold. In its first 100 years, the company had major successes that transformed filmmaking and culture, but it also had its share of unfinished projects, unmet expectations, and box-office misses. Some works failed but nevertheless led to other more stunning and lucrative ones; others shed light on periods when the Disney Company was struggling to establish or re-establish its brand. In addition, many Disney properties, popular in their time but lost to modern audiences, emerge as forgotten gems. By exploring the studio's missteps, this book provides a more complex portrayal of the history of the company than one would gain from a simple recounting of its many hits. With essays by writers from across the globe, it also asserts that what endures or is forgotten varies from person to person, place to place, or generation to generation. What one dismisses, someone else recalls with deep fondness as a magical Disney memory.

This book sheds new light on the socio-economic impact of multinational corporations. Combining Cultural Studies and International Political Economy, it provides a revealing analysis of the Walt Disney Company, and by extension the wider Hollywood studio system. It does so by examining the cultural and economic forces powering the industry's expansion, the 'civilisation' that Disney disseminates, and the various ways that societies beyond the USA have adopted facets of the Hollywood productions to which they are exposed. Identifying both the strengths and the weaknesses of these transnational firms, it demonstrates the significance of their contribution to American power and predominance.

These scholarly essays examine Disney’s cultural impact from various perspectives—including film studies, history, musicology, gender and more. The academic field of Disney Studies has evolved greatly over the years, as the twelve essays collected in this volume demonstrate. With a diversity of perspectives and concerns, the contributors examine the cultural significance and impact of the Disney Company’s various outputs, such as animated shorts and films, theme park attractions, television shows, books, music, and merchandising. By looking at Disney from some of its many angles—including the history and the persona of its founder, a selection of its successful and not-so-successful films, its approaches to animation, its branding and fandom, and its reception and reinterpreted within popular culture—Discussing Disney offers a more holistic understanding of a company that has been, and continues to be, one of the most important forces in contemporary culture.

Disney – This 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. This volume brings together scholars from several European countries to explore various dimensions that constitute ‘Disney.’ In line with current media and cultural studies research, the chapters deal with human-human and human-animal relations, gender and diversity, iconic characters and narratives, Disney’s contribution to cultural and visual heritage, and transmedial and transfictional spaces of experience and practices of participation associated with Disney story worlds.

A presence for decades in individuals’ everyday life practices and identity formation, the Walt Disney Company has more recently also become an influential element within the "big" curriculum of public and private spaces outside of yet in proximity to formal educational institutions. Disney, Culture, and Curriculum explores the myriad ways that Disney’s curricula and pedagogies manifest in public consciousness, cultural discourses, and the education system. Examining Disney’s historical development and contemporary manifestations, this book critiques and deconstructs its products and perspectives while providing insight into Disney’s operations within popular culture and everyday life in the United States and beyond. The contributors engage with Disney’s curricula and pedagogies in a variety of ways, through critical analysis of Disney films, theme parks, and planned communities, how Disney has been taught and resisted both in and beyond schools, ways in which fans and consumers develop and negotiate their identities with their engagement with Disney, and how race, class, gender, sexuality, and consumerism are constructed through Disney content. Incisive, comprehensive, and highly interdisciplinary, Disney, Culture, and Curriculum extends the discussion of popular culture as curriculum and pedagogy into new avenues by focusing on the affective and ontological aspects of identity development as well as the commodification of social and cultural identities, experiences, and subjectivities.

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. On the other hand, other authors argue that Disney productions can help individuals cope with difficult situations or embrace progressive thinking. The different approaches to the assessment of Disney films as cultural artifacts also vary according to the theoretical perspectives guiding the interpretation of both overt and latent symbolic meaning in the movies. The authors of the 15 articles encourage readers to engage with the material, showcasing a variety of views about the good, the bad, and the best way forward.

Focusing on Disney’s production of Shanghai Disneyland, this book examines how the Chinese state and the local market influence Disney’s ownership and production of the identities and the representations of Shanghai Disneyland. Qualitative methods are here applied to combine both primary and secondary data, including document analysis, participant observation, and in-depth interviews. Shanghai Disneyland is purposely created to be different from the other Disneylands, under the “authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese” mandate. In order to survive and thrive in China, Disney carefully constructs Shanghai Disneyland as Disneyland with Chinese characteristics. Previous studies tend to link Disney with cultural imperialism; however, this book argues that it is not imperialism but glocalization that promotes a global company’s interests in China. In particular, the findings suggest state-capital-led glocalization: glocalization led by economic capital of the state (direct investment) and economic capital with the state (market potential). Furthermore, the four categories of glocalization with different conditions, considerations, and consequences illustrate various global–local dynamics in the process of a global formation of locality. The Glocalization of Shanghai Disneyland will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, communication studies, business studies, and Asian studies more broadly.