The Disney Corporation has had a very noticeable impact on contemporary society, as mentioned by Henry Giroux.
In particular, it is a powerful "teaching machine". While providing entertainment, its products subliminally send messages to its consumers (who are mostly children) about how society "should be". It promotes a sanitized, simplistic, exclusive idea of culture, one that almost completely disregards certain fringe elements of society (such as the poor, immigrants, minorities) that are left to question their self-worth and strive for an almost unattainable idea of "the american dream".
Examples would seem almost redundant after the detailed discussion we had last class about racism in movies like Aladdin!
Disney's claim of being "family friendly" is completely laughable when we consider the fact that Walt Disney was famously anti-Semitic. Perhaps it is important to take this into account when we compare the evolution of the concept of "family values" from the 1950s through to present day. The traditional American family, or the American dream, back when the Disney corporation was founded represented a the view of a narrow non-majority conservative American ideal: The white, Christian, heterosexual nuclear family living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. While this ideal still undercuts many of society's major institutions, it has evolved somewhat to include a larger population: therefore, the issue of race isn't as emphasized as heterosexuality.
However, Disney seems to have failed to cope with, and mimic, this evolution, and is therefore easy to single out as an institution that doesn't respect all the members of its following. It is easy, and often necessary, to demonize the views of such corporations as, because they have a significant influence on society and social change, they often prohibit progress and the transcending of archaic racist and elitist patterns of thought.
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