Disney’s Entertainment Empire: Exploiting Innocence

Disney is loved by millions of people around the world, but when it is exposed beyond the smiles and the music, Disney is far from being magical. When Americans are asked to describe Disney into words, majority would often reply with energetic responses, such as magical, imaginative, creative, and inspirational. Although Disney’s accomplishments dominated the world of fairy tales and fantasies, many people argue that Disney targeted innocent children for all the wrong reasons. Walt Disney developed his business into a multi-billion dollar television network, theme parks, motion pictures, vacation destinations and media corporations that carries his name. However, the controversial issues raised in Frank Zipes’ essay “Breaking the Disney Spell” and Chyng Feng Sun’s documentary, The Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney Childhood and Corporate Power, explain that Disney’s successes were possibly due to his use of vicious techniques that are considered racist, sexist, and manipulative. Disney created his flourishing entertainment empire through exploiting innocence, encouraging kids to over consume, and introducing children to sexuality at an early age.

Walt Disney exploits innocence by introducing children to the wonderful world of fairy tales, fantasies, and products. Disney uses children as a target for his bow and arrow to control their parents’ pocket and mentality into consuming Disney’s merchandises and commodities. Jack Zipes describes Disney’s misuse of his talents in order to market his corporation and brand. According to Zipes, “Disney violated the literary genre of the fairy tale and packaged his versions in his name through the merchandising of books, toys, clothing, and records” (Zipes 352). Disney turns common prope...

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...Although Disney contributes to an important part of the American culture, his destructive methods are causing problems in our society and children at an early stage of their life. Walt Disney, a famous visionary once said, “All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them,” and that is exactly what Walt Disney did. Through struggles and hardship, Walt Disney became one of the most successful American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. Aside from his accomplishments, Disney should not “capitalized on American innocence and utopianism to emphasize social and political status quo” (Zipes 333). Using fairy tale to convince audiences about utopian dreams and hope is not the right way of doing business because it give people false promises about life being easy like the happy endings in every Disney fairy tales.