This now leads up to the poor ethical decision Disney made. A little while ago, The Walt Disney Company bought Marvel and about two years later, the company’s new transition caused many issues within the staff. Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter was the largest shareholder in Marvel and after the merger he became the second largest shareholder of the Disney Corporation, behind the Steve Jobs Trust. Now, here comes the poor ethical decision. Perlmutter became to achieve great success from the movies he had been making associated with Marvel. The operating income from this division increased about 35% from 2011 to 2012, which can be credited to the addition of the Marvel product lines, but this profit came at an unfortunate price. Many lieutenants and executives …show more content…
Don Cheadle, another African-American actor, was hired for the same part in the sequel at a much cheaper price. Perlmutter apparently told Mr. Mooney, the director, the change cut costs. He allegedly added words along the lines of saying that no one would notice because black people “look the same”. Perlmutter, who is a top shareholder in the company, does have a lot of power in decision making, however he let that power really get the best of him. Forcing opinions on others until they chose to settle to his terms has gotten Perlmutter to the top within the company and almost nothing has been done to halt his bad choice of actions time and time again. He has poorly affected the overall progress within the Disney Consumer Products Division as other employees or stakeholders’ (other organizations that take interest in a company) opinions completely ignored and gone by the wayside. As a matter of fact, many of the corporate staff members leaving the company or filing lawsuits or complaints regarding Perlmutter was because of his horrible behavior. Perlmutters’ behavior caused such controversy and stirred up problems and created so much tension within the company. His horrid behavior was beyond unethical based on his actions within the
problems. In a study done on the role of the Walt Disney Company, Vincent Faherty explains
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
Back in the 1800’s, when calculating the population, African Americans were counted as 3/5 of a person (Antonia, p2). One would think that in the past two hundred years people’s beliefs would have changed a little bit, but the general white public are stuck into believing the common stereotypes commonly portrayed in movies. In films and television shows blacks are almost always portrayed as murderers, robbers, rapists, pretty much anything negative, like American History X, for example. Two black men are shown breaking into a white man’s car. People see this, and in turn believe that all black men will try and steal their car; as stupid as it may seem, it is true, and as a result, film producers try to incorporate this into their films. Very rarely, if ever, is it possible to see a minority depicted as a hero-type figure. Every once in a while, there will be an independent film from a minority director, but as Schultz states in Lyon’s piece, “We [blacks] are still being ghettoized in Hollywood, a serious black project of any scope is as difficult to get marketed today as it was in the ‘70s.” By making a barrier to entry for minorities in the film industry, it’s almost as if America is trying to keep black films out of the popular media. At first glimpse, it may appear that minorities are very hard to be seen in the filming industry, when in reality, they are becoming more and more apparent in America’s mainstream media culture, particularly in action movies.
The entire film is based on significantly different racial opinions, opinions of different writing styles and stereotyping of different people in general. Race is a huge issue in the film and many stereotypes are made.
The Walt Disney Company is a highly diversified media and entertainment company that has been growing by leaps and bounds since its inception in the late 1920’s. In the past few decades, The Walt Disney Company has expanded into numerous markets and diversified its business greatly. The company states that their corporate strategy is targeted at creating high-quality family content, exploiting technological innovations to make entertainment experiences more memorable, and expanding internationally. Upon studying the happenings of the company throughout the years, it is easy to see that the company is executing this strategy well through numerous strategic moves in the industry.
It allows opportunities to combine the performance of certain activities, thereby reducing costs and capturing economies of scope. This is done by acquiring IP that is underexploited or unused by the owner. They have opportunities to transfer their skills, technology, or intellectual capital from on business to another. This is yet again done through media networks, parks and resorts, and also their studio entertainment. All of which allow them to go globally. Along with the opportunity to transfer skills and technology, they can use their brand name across multiple product or service categories. This is seen in the multiple IP networks, studio entertainment, multiple resorts and parks that are all around the world, and lastly, in their consumer products that were ranked number one in 2011 for being the largest licensor of character-based merchandise in the world. Value chain match-ups seen in primary activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, the marketing/sales, and service. All lead to support activities such as technology, human resources, and general administration. Opportunities for skills transfer is seen in the media networks, parks and resorts,studio entertainment, and consumer products. Disney Company can share iconic Marvel characters in their parks/resorts, movies, and consumer products, due to buying the IP to Marvel and it does not stop at just Marvel ABC and ESPN are also involved.
(1) Michel G. Rukstad, David Collis; The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King; Harvard Business School; 9-701-035; Rev. January 5, 2009
The Walt Disney Company’s organizational culture, or “the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs considered the correct way of thinking about and acting on problems and opportunities facing the organization” (University, 2002, p. 448) is shown in part by their in-depth employee education, their manufacturers’ code of conduct and their environmental commitment.
The movie assumes everyone is equal and that there is no difference in race other than the individual himself or herself. For example in the scene where Detective Graham Waters is being offered the job of lead investigator by Mr. Flanagan, who is a member of the District attorney’s office. Flanagan wants to “buy” him to make the DA look like he is not racist since two black boys just stole his car. However, Waters takes into consideration this is wrong and points out the racist history. Flanagan tries to bribe Waters with this job by making his brothers record disappear and lays it all out on the table and states Flanagan says, “He had every opportunity you had.” he sits down again and states “Fucking black people, huh?” Flanagan shows that Waters brother had the same opportunities growing up, giving the idea that African Americans don’t suffer from any type of institutional racism. However this is not true in our society. According to the inequality website, nonwhites have a significant lower wealth and income than whites (non Hispanic). Meaning that Whites and non-white are not offered the same opportunities in society, which puts nonwhites at a greater disadvantage than whites, causing or being an example of institutional racism. Therefore this movie gives the wrong impression to viewers failing to give an appropriate view of racism in our
In Hollywood there is also a lack of representation with executives because the most of the power resides in people that are ethnically white. Brent Lang and Dave McNary believe that black films are usually not picked up by studios because very few people in powerful positions are black. Therefore, most studios don’t understand what would appeal to black audiences. This causes analysts to undervalue the potential profit of black films, turning executives away from being interested in pursuing black film projects. Examples of black movie profits far exceeding predictions are found in this quote from their article , How Tracking Fails Diverse Movies: “"Straight Outta Compton 's" $60.2 million debut was roughly $20 million more than most trade publications had predicted. "War Room," a faith-based drama about the power of prayer, more than doubled predictions with its $11.3 million launch. And last weekend 's champ, Sony 's "Perfect Guy," exceeded expectations by nearly $15 million when it kicked off with $29.4 million” (Lang and McNary). The history between black and whites in America come into play with the existence of a phenomenon called the “Hollywood plantation arrangement” which alludes to the relationship of black slaves and white slaveowners pre-civil war. This idea describes how “the relationship between African Americans and White Americans is rooted in a tradition of ownership, guidance, and responsibility” which “directly influences African Americans’ ability to access economic power and ownership, thereby limiting creative control and cultural protection (Ndoubou 7). The ruling class, which in Hollywood is the whites, use their power to maintain control by creating these images in media that make the blacks seem lesser...
The reason why I bought Walt Disney Co. stock (NYSE: DIS) was because the company has an incredibly powerful business model with its iconic movie-making business at its core. The company is really good at turning one hit movies into a series of very profitable ones. The recent movie released by Disney which is the Beauty and the Beast grossed $166 million in its first American weekend and $420 million internationally. (Noonan, 2017) Moreover, their successful films are leveraged across its empire, providing big opportunities in merchandising, theme park attractions, streaming, live shows and more.
This case provides a brief history of management conflict and change at Walt Disney Company. Former CEO Michael Eisner was considered to be controversial because of his abrasive style and tendencies toward micromanagement. It was this style that strained several important relationships to the Disney Company. Though his reign as CEO during the 80’s and 90’s helped advance Disney Company, it was his conflicting management style that led to his demise and the beginning of Robert Iger’s epoch at Disney. Since Iger has taken the helm as CEO Disney was ranked 67th in the Fortune 500 list for largest companies, it has become the largest media conglomerate in the world, and relationships and disputes stemming from Eisner have been reconciled.
The Walt Disney Company (referred to henceforth as Disney) is no exception. The company has instituted many policies and practices in place to ensure that the overall culture is one that is ethical and promotes ethical decision-making and problem solving. The company does this by ensuring that it caters to the needs of all its stakeholders, not just shareholders and customers. For
Walter Disney was the entrepreneur who had the creative skills. Knowing his limitations, he let other people do what he couldn't do good enough himself. This is an important skill, as it leads to quality products being made. The step from making short cartoons to doing full length cartoons and later live-action movie production is quite natural. What is not that natural and straight forward, and at the same time significant to the success of Disney, is the way in which Disney started to integrate vertically when they created the Buena Vista Distribution. The vertical integration along with the horizontal diversification has allowed for the exceptional building and exploitation of the huge synergies that exists in Disney, and which has to be regarded as the main reason for the success of Disney.
Through the ratio analysis, we can conclude that Disney is a stable company, keeping up with industry trends and up to par with industry averages. Although at times it can seem that Disney is a risky and unstable company, those conclusions are false since the unstableness has come through decisions which will better establish Disney’s position on the market. Although Disney’s competition, namely CBS, is on a similar standing as Disney when comparing ratios, Disney will manage to remain the largest media conglomerate in the USA and one of the best corporations in the world.