Disney, Multiculturalism, and
American Culture
HUM 3085: Florida Culture
Fall 2010
Dr. Perdigao
October 15, 2010
Victorian/modern divide
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American modernism: “fin de siècle, transatlantic cultural movement that gradually
came to dominate Western art and culture in the first few decades of the twentieth
century” (Watts 103).
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“this cultural movement emerged in the United States in direct opposition to the
principles and sensibility of Victorianism. Inspired by the great European
experimenters like Freud, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Joyce, American modernists
began to challenge bourgeois culture by undermining several of its bulwarks—a
moral creed based on repression and rationality, a system of intellectual inquiry
based on formalism, a genteel tradition of narrative realism in arts and letters.
Second, in a more positive sense, modernists sought to recombine aspects of human
experience that had been strictly separated by Victorians—human and animal,
civilized and savage, reason and emotion, intellect and instinct, conscious and
unconscious—in order to reconstruct the totality of human nature. By smashing
through a brittle surface of rationality and genteel beauty, they hoped to recover the
vitality that lay in instinctual motivation, a fluidity of perception, and a turbulent
subjectivity.” (Watts 103)
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Disney’s “sentimental modernism”—blend of real and unreal, naturalism and
fantasy, manipulation of each to illuminate the other; nonlinear, irrational, quasiabstract modernist explorations by utilizing tropes from Victorian past—“an
exaggerated sentimentality, clearly defined moralism, disarming cuteness” (104).
Changing Faces
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“El Groupo”—Disney on “goodwill tour” of South America, fear of Nazi influence,
solidification of ties between US and South America, popularity of characters
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Saludos Amigos (1943) as result, followed by Three Caballeros
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“good neighborliness” (247) but rather than evidencing multiculturalism, a form of
cultural parochialism, versions of Goofy, Donald Duck, all familiar characters just
dressed differently
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Transition from sentimental modernism: surrealism
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Three Caballeros presenting a “world that was falling apart” (243).
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Late 1940s, critics turned against Disney
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Emergence of Donald Duck as key character, change in Disney themes
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Voice—Clarence “Ducky” Nash (253)
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Appearance in popular culture—as Whistler’s mother, Leonardo’s madonna,
Titian’s Adonis, Rembrandt’s Noble Salve (255)
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Like PhilharMagic, Donald taking over stories
Disney’s World?
Surreal Donald
Changing Faces
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“Donald’s character also symbolized a more complex, post-Depression era, in
which economic recovery was still fragile and global pressures more mounting. His
bombastic confidence masked a kind of insecurity as he desperately lashed out at
impediments to his happiness” (256).
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“age of adjustment psychology” when “individuals traumatized by the Great
Depression increasingly perceived success in terms of finding an acceptable social
role and fitting into society” (257).
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Self Control (1938): Smiling Uncle Smiley with radio advice show
Cured Duck (1945): course on psychological techniques
Modern Inventions (1937): rage against the machine—robot butler, mechanical
barber chair
Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943)—assembly line; authoritarianism versus liberation
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Donald Duck’s popularity “rooted in the regenerative climate of the postDepression United States” and also “subtly reflected a gradual rethinking of
America’s global situation” (258).
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Mickey Mouse unable to “survive in this hostile environment” (258)
Museum of Modern Marvels
Modern Inventions (1937)
The Riveters (1940)
Donald and Psychoanalysis
Self Control (1938)
Donald’s Better Self (1938)
Cured Duck (1945)
Nutzi Land?: Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943)
Disney’s politics
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“libertarian populism”—”autonomy of ordinary citizens in the face of overweaning
authority” (288)
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“live-action history films”—American frontier, Wild West, American Revolution,
Civil War
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Response to Cold War—“respect for the past had begun to emerge as a crucial
article of faith in the anti-Communist creed” (289)
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Robin Hood figure—The Story of Robin Hood (1952); The Swamp Fox on ABC’s
Walt Disney Presents (October 1959-1961); Zorro (October 1957-July 1959); The
Sign of Zorro (1960)
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New politics?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/business/media/05mickey.html?_r=2&hp
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Liberal conservative?
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Disney and the FBI; George Washington Award from the Freedom Foundation in
1963; Nobel Peace Prize discussions
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Domination in television, new media, integration as dedifferentiation
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Television: park; television as park
Hiaasen’s politics
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http://www.carlhiaasen.com/bio.html
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“It’s not surprising that one company was able to change the face of Forty-second
Street, because the same company changed the face of an entire state, Florida,
where I live” (4).
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“The absolute worst thing Disney did was to change how people in Florida thought
about money . . . Everyone in Mickey’s orb had to drastically recalibrate the
concepts of growth, prosperity, and what was possible. Suddenly there were no
limits” (4).
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“The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America’s values ought
to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company and not the other way around” (9).
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“Enough Orlandos, already” (26)
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Power of Disney to make reality
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http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/16/us/new-disney-kingdom-comes-with-real-lifeobstacles.html?pagewanted=all
Michael Eisner—is that you?
From JungleLand to Disney
Rewriting
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Disney Magic: “Would your first choice of a rescue vessel be a lifeboat whose
design was inspired by a 1928 cartoon?” (46).
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Gorda Cay: Castaway Cay
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Rewriting story with conquistadors, shipwrecked pirates (48)
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1980s Country Walk, Arvida Corp.; Hurricane Andrew
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1986, Nicholas Daniloff, correspondent for U.S. News and World Report
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“Disney Imagineers have created tropical forests and jungles, streams and
waterfalls, and savannas and rocky ridges—fascinating lands filled with natural
beauty, where animals and visitors will participate in the unrehearsed drams of life
in the wild” (73).
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“What Team Rodent has ‘recreated’ in Orlando—from an African savannah to an
Atlantic reef, from a Mexican pyramid to a Chinese temple—has been engineered
to fit the popular image and to hold that charm for tourist cameras. Under the Eisner
reign, nothing in the real world cannot be copied and refined in the name of
entertainment, and no place is safe” (79).
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Idea of “real Florida”