Mickey Mouse Monopoly

Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power

Part of the Series: MEF Debt & Consumerism Collection

Well this sure is a different look at the true implications of Disney movies. However, I think the people in this documentary were being a little too critical of Disney, and they have to remember that nobody's forcing their children to watch these movies. Although Disney is probably number one in children's movies (in terms of market share), there are still plenty of other options.

Hello, My name is Joseph Forest Jr. I'm a sophmore at Sacred heart University and hoping to obtain a Marketing Degree. This documentary had really showed me what Disney has hidden beneath there happy and cheerful movies, that there is a deeper meaning in every scene that any people overlook. As grew older and started to be more aware of what I saw watching, I noticed that my favorite movies when I was younger had deeper meanings and a lot of that time they were very provocative and sexual .Many Disney movies portray women as sexual beings, and this is the image that children are getting when they watch these movies. Disney princesses have not really changed over the years they are still drawn with large breast, small waist and subordinate to their male counterparts. Movies like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and even Movies like Bambi where most of the characters are animals but have human attributes, small waist, very flirtatious and always subordinate to male counterparts. During the documentary they say “Over the years how little the image of females has really changed, you still have the same highly sexualized female body with the big breasts, the tiny waist, the fluttering eye lashes, the coy expressions, and the seductress”(11:36-12:19) Over the years this image has begun to not be accepted because of its effects on the minds of young girls. This change in attitude can be seen in new Disney movies like Frozen, which is more girl power positive that pervious Disney princess movies. Disney movies put images in our children showing that a women need man to save her and on the other hand men are portrayed to be strong and never show fear even in the face of death. These images teach children how to act and show them that being girl means you have to talk and act in a certain way. During the documentary it is said “Girls who was playing at the playground, was up against the fence like this and were coming to her rescue” (16:58-17:19) In social situations it is common for girls to be portrayed as the victim, in need of a man for saving. This idea stems from the set up of Disney movies that are braining washing our society to believe that women need men to live a happy life. Another common social situation is that women belong in kitchen and are caretakers, but that is a misconception cause women are much more than the labels that are given to them by movies like Disney. During this documentary they tell us “ when you look at the image of snow white today, with a feminist sensibility you realize how ridiculous the image is here you’ve got this young female completely isolated, at home, enjoying cooking, cleaning, and her friends are the animals and she’s so happy. I mean it just makes no sense today given that feminism and feminists discourage had seeped down into everyday life.” ( 16:58-17:19)

Hi everyone, My name is Gabriella Pulice I’m a senior exercise science student here at SHU hoping to continue my education in Physical Therapy school. This documentary is one that really opened my eyes to a whole other way individuals may view Disney films. Just like every other little girl I grew up worshiping the princesses I saw in Disney movies, I wanted to be just like them because they were, in my eyes, absolutely perfect. Early on in the documentary one man stated “children have been raised on Disney for many generations now. They’ve seen mickey mouse and all of the icons of Walt Disney have been apart of their lives since they were children” (3:27) and I could not think of a more accurate statement. I grew up having an older brother and an older sister who are both significantly older than me but I also grew up watching the same movies they did when they were kids. Disney had an extraordinary way of marketing to both boys and girls with their different movies, my sister loved Sleeping Beauty while my brother grew up idolizing Peter Pan, to me it seems like no matter what interest a child has, Disney has something everyone will love. They even throw in some one liners that will appease adults and now when we watch those movies we are old enough to pick up on those sly remarks.
One thing that definitely stood out to me while watching this would be the interpretation of the female characters when they are interacting with the men in the films. For instance, when Jasmine distracts the Sultan by being “seductive”. “It gives young girls the idea that that is the way to get what you want, to use your body to manipulate men in order to get what it is that you want.” (15:30) I guess as a child I never thought of it that way, or the fact Disney is making women seem like they use men for their own selfish reasons. Now that I think of it, in Hercules Meg acts the same way, along with the Disney characters that always have that sexual, lustful look in their eyes. Women don’t go around batting their eyelashes, with perfect figures expecting to get everything they want in this day and age, and we definitely don’t expect a man to come around and save us from being a damsel in destress. As Disney had made more movies I think they are getting better at portraying that women are capable of being strong independent people.
Lastly, in the film when they were talking about marketing and toys for children that were directly proportional to those in the films something really sparked interest in my mind. Towards the end of the documentary a women said “if you are telling a child how to play, you are depriving the child of what may be necessary to that child’s development” (44:34). If you give a child a Hercules action figure they aren’t going to use their imagination to think up a new plot or a new game, they are going to try and recreate what occurred in the movie. By all of these toys being manufactured the use for children to use their imagination decreases which is a shame because creating new games and having imaginary scenarios is what helps shape the child to become the person that they will be later on in life.
I don’t think Disney consciously realized that they would be stripping children of their imagination and portraying women in a sexist way when these movies were created. But now we live in a more sensitive environment and children read into things too much, Disney needed to not only change the way they portray women but change the way that they portray Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, Asians etc. I really enjoyed learning all of these new things from this documentary.

Hey everyone, my name is Ryan Welch and I’m a sophomore here at SHU. Like everyone has said already, I’m pretty sure we can all agree that Disney movies were a very large part of our childhoods, and still are today, and probably will be for the rest of our lives as they continue to pump out movies. The opening lines of this documentary were very troubling to me when Dr. Giroux explains how Disney is “political” and how he doesn’t understand why angry callers were hostile towards him on talk radio (2:00). What I don’t think he understands is that most children are too young to understand the true meaning behind most of the Disney movies. I myself didn’t understand most of them until I watched them in middle school and even now in college. I think it is very arrogant to say that Disney is corrupting our youth because their mission statement that Walt Disney established is to make other people happy. I highly doubt that his goal was to corrupt children and have them think something that isn’t a part of the social norm. There is a segment in which Dr. Giroux explains how publishers are “petrified” that Disney will sue them if they use any Disney names or pictures of their characters or theme parks (6:48-8:42), and where he says, “Disney is concerned about policing their image” (8:23-8:42). I find this statement to be completely absurd simply because of the fact that Disney wants to maintain the innocence of their company and their characters, TV shows, and movies. Why would any company want authors to bash their company in a book, magazine, documentary, or movie? I agree with John (which was published a year ago if no one can see it) when he says that these are adults picking apart children’s movies. These movies are meant for children and the majority of children should not be able to comprehend the meanings behind these movies. Disney has been creating so much joy since it was founded amongst children and their families and to say that they are corrupting our youth is insulting. Disney keeps everything it does geared towards families and making people happy. That being said, I do agree that the idea of Tarzan (white man) being the head of gorillas (African-Americans) can be conceived as a racist point of view. There are other examples of Disney promoting questionable methods, and yes, I do agree that they should be held responsible for portraying these messages to millions of people. This film was very eye opening because there were some part I agreed with and other parts I didn’t agree with. I didn’t agree with the fact that people believe that Disney is corrupting our children. I never once in my childhood felt a different way towards someone else because of a Disney movie. I agree that some of the messages can be questionable towards the integrity of human beings, and that Disney deserves criticism for that.

Hi all, my name is Sarah Zupetz and I am a junior at Sacred Heart University. I was very excited to watch this movie and have it reveal some of the layers that are placed in the disney movies. Obviously, Disney movies were a hallmark to my childhood, like many others, but I really enjoyed seeing it through another lens. "It was a very salient aspect of my childhood" , said one commenter about Disney films(4:18). I very much agree with her because Disney movies for a lot of people were shared with family members who may not be around anymore, but those films still hold a very special place in our childhood. "...Because Disney owns so much of the media they exercise unprecedented control over the images and messages that we are exposed to" (6:41). I think that this is a wonderful point made and quite a striking statistic that Disney owns so much of the media, meaning that they have a huge hold on what we see and what is represented in the media. Another striking point of this short film is how Disney impacts societal views on race, class and gender. Until recently, the Disney princesses were always waiting to be saved by a prince or could not do their task alone without a man. These princesses, who so many young girls aspired to be were hopeless (as presented by the Disney media) sending a tingling message to young girls that you can only go so far without a man. I think that now Disney is better at handling this issue and now for there are more princesses like Tiana or Moana who are strong women, but I enjoy how this documentary pointed out the social injustices put out by Disney. Another striking point was made at 28:34 in regards to Tarzan, "not only have they eliminated the black people in Africa, but they've also eliminated black people's presence". This could very well be promoting white supremacy, which once again is being fixed now, but it distributed this message to thousands which does come with a responsibility.

My name is Megan Uhrynowski and I am a freshman at Sacred Heart. I really enjoyed watching this film because like many other young adults, Disney films were a major part of my childhood. One quote that stood out to me was, "Disney is very good at policing their image" (8:24). The materials and storylines of every movie have to be consistent to what Disney wants to represent. After watching this film I also learned that Disney is very strict when it comes to other people using their name. An example of this is that if you were to use a picture of the Disney castle in another book/article, you would have to get permission first. This stuck out to me because it shows that Disney wants to portray a positive image to viewers. These films want children to be creative and to use their imagination. They also want to be independent and not allow other publishers and companies not to copy their ideas. The documentary goes on to say that children copy the image of girls and boys in the films, which I could relate to. Growing up I always idolized the Disney princesses and hoped one day that I could be like them. Another interesting thing that I found was that there are stereotypes of people in the modern era that are portrayed in the films. In Beauty and the Beast, the beast is very abusive to Belle, yet she stills stays with him and loves her. "He rips her family away from her... his behavior is without question frankly and horrifically abusive" (20:13). The whole story is that Belle returns to the Beast, she socializes him, excuses him, and reinterprets his rage and personality as tender and vulnerable. She goes on to fall in love with him. These types of relationships are very scary yet, this film portrays that it is okay to be in an abusive relationship. I liked how the film asked young children whether or not they would happy for Belle if they were friends with her. Most children were able to understand that the Beast was very mean to Belle. They would feel bad for her because she gets yelled at a lot. Other children said that they would be happy for Belle because she found someone that she likes. The last thing that I found quite interesting is the way that Disney portrays their products. "It makes seamless marketing between the show and the ad indistinguishable for children" (46:40). The film then goes on to explain that it is hard for children to not see these ads and it makes them want the products more. Disney makes a lot of money based on advertising. A mother went on to say that she loves Disney movies and wants her children to learn important lesson from them, but she finds it appalling that people are running out to buy t-shirts with the name of the movie all over them. Overall I thought this film was really interesting to watch because it brought up a lot of thought about something I thought I knew so well.

This was a very interesting documentary and a good eye opener (note: I am Asian and grew up in Asia and in North America). I myself grew up watching Disney with family and friends, and I do consider myself as a Disney fan. I never really thought about the stereotypes while watching these films as a kid. However, as I grew older, I did start to notice stereotypes shown on film (i.e. portrayal of Middle Eastern people in Aladdin, and weak female characters that need saving, Scar is the black baddie & Mufasa/Simba are our white heroes).

Disney may have had a political agenda, and I was (mostly) oblivious to them. If I did see the stereotypes, all I did was say a comment but never really delved deeper into it as all I thought was "Hey, this is a good movie", which is a problem. We need to talk about these issues because they are real, and the media really does influence children in the way they see the world if what is portrayed is all they see.

However, I would have liked to see this documentary talk about the time period these movies were made as well as the influence of these stories. Many of the Disney movies are based on books or fairy tales written a long time ago, and they may have influenced the story. I am not arguing that Disney movies don't have an issue, I just want to see a bigger picture. If you have watched Disney's latest movie "Zootopia", you can see that they have made strides to combat stereotypes (I think).

Overall, this was a great documentary and I enjoyed it. However, in my opinion, there were some parts of the documentary where I thought they were reading too much from some of the Disney movies.

Hi everyone my name is John Ryan. I am a sophomore at Sacred Heart. Just like Jordan I grew up watching Disney films, usually with my family and still remember all the laughs and fun we had watching them together. I have nothing but good things to say about Disney's films. Within the first few minutes I knew I was going to hate this video. Specifically (:20) when the woman said " Disney is dangerous because it is a sublime kind of education, it is absorbed into our young peoples minds as entertainment". To a child there is nothing dangerous about a Disney movie, they have not had any life changing events occur to change their ideas on the movies. It even says at (2:52) "Disney's massive success comes through the images of magic, innocence and fun" which is exactly what it is supposed to be. These people are adults, who are picking apart children's movies. Disney movies are supposed to be enjoyable which they are in my opinion. We should let kids have their own perception on the movies, they shouldn't be influenced by parents who are fed up with society and corporate America. Although I do now see what they mean by racism in disney movies for example at (26:53) the gorillas in Jungle Book and how in the song one of the gorillas which an African American voice says " I want to be a man cub and stroll right into town just like the other men" meaning priveleged or white as they imply. We should not interfere with the youth's imagination and innocence let them be kids.

My name is Jordan Bognar. I am a big fan of the Disney movies. I grew up watching them all. They all hold fond memories for me. Disney movies left me with a positive message. There was always a happy ending. Disney as we all know is a huge corporation driving in huge profits from their theme parks, toys, apparel, etc. I don't think these profits effect how they produce their movies. I think children just love these creative, imaginative stories. I don't think they have that much control or influence over children's total imagination. Children like to copy and pretend they are someone else like a prince or princess. For some children it might be a way to escape reality. The part in the Mickey Mouse Monopoly that was disturbing was when they showed the children from abusive homes watching one of the movies where a character was harming another. The faces on the children showed their pain. The critics in the documentary stated how little people of color and certain ethnicity were cast in the Disney movies, but when they are in the movies they didn't like how their roles were portrayed. They felt very stereotyped. I think Disney does a great job with keeping its media power geared towards families. They encourage reading together, traveling together, watching TV together. They are family driven. Watching this documentary definitely opened my eyes to a different prospective. I just never looked at it through other peoples eyes. The quotes that stood out to me were: 1. You can read into a movie too much (:46), 2. Children have been raised on Disney for many generation now (3.25), 3. One of the most important cultural institutions that we have today is the media (10:43)