Interpreting and Experiencing Disney

Mediating the Mouse

Priscilla Hobbs, Priscilla Hobbs

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789384765
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Cultura popolare nell'arte

Ever since the premiere for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1928, Disney has played a central role in American popular culture, which has progressively expanded to include a global market. The company positioned itself to be a central role in family entertainment, and many of its offerings – from films to consumable products – have deeply embedded themselves into not only the imaginations of children and adults, but also into the threads of one's life experience. It is difficult to go through life without encountering one Disney product. Because of this, fans of Disney build connections with their favourite characters and franchises, some of which are fuelled further by Disney's own marketing practices.

Similarly, Disney responds to the cultural values of the era through its films and other media offerings. In this volume, scholars from varying backgrounds take a close look at facets of the Disney canon as more than agents of entertainment or consumption, and into underlying messages at the very heart of the Disney phenomenon: the cultural response that drives the corporation's massive production and marketing machine. The relationship between Disney and its fans is one of loyalty and love, shaping cultural behaviours and values through the brand and its products. Disney responds in kind with a synergistic approach that makes it possible to experience Disney in any format at any given time.

Primary readership will be academics, researchers, educators, scholars and students working in the fields of media and cultural studies, especially those interested in marketing and branding, and in the Disney Company in general. The accessible writing style and the range of topics covered make it suitable for postgraduate students and academics working in these fields, as well as third-year undergraduate students.

The book will also appeal to academics working in the related fields of tourism studies, film and television studies and, given the focus of some of the chapters, in gender studies.

Although academic in focus, the accessible writing style does mean that it may also have appeal to the non-academic reader and fans of Disney.

PART 1

INTERPRETING DISNEY

1

Abbreviating Mickey Mouse: The Art of Remediation in Disney Cartoons

Brent Cowley

The Walt Disney Company has consistently remediated their early animation to better ensure that their back catalogue corresponds with contemporary social norms and progressive mindsets. Remediation, a concept within media ecology, argues that new and old media re-present and refashion each other (Bolter and Grusin 1996: 311). Such remediation has allowed Disney and other studios to update existing films and television programmes, amended to audience’s and society’s ever-changing expectations, and redistribute them to newer generations of youth. One such remediation method used by Disney has been the re-editing of early animated cartoons for broadcast, home video, digital apps and online distribution. A series named Have a Laugh! (2009–12), for example, included 60 abridged and redubbed classic Disney theatrical cartoon shorts, initially released between 1935 and 1953.¹ Each short was originally six to ten minutes in length upon their initial release but was truncated to a mere two to three minutes for the series. They were promoted by Disney as being ‘Remastered, Restored, and Remixed’ adaptations of audience’s favourite cartoons and characters. Such ‘remixing’ is part of a larger trend by the Walt Disney Company of not only digitally restoring their historic media but also self-censoring their content to conform to modern-day social standards. These revisions have allowed Disney to better maintain their family-friendly corporate image and brand by eliminating their media’s past insensitivities. As Disney, and the media industry as a whole, transition into wholly digital environments, such as streaming and other forms of online distribution, remediation can potentially become even more commonplace as social norms and expectations continue to adapt.

Media ecology scholar Lance Strate (2008) has argued that ‘media are environments’ that can change depending on a historical period. He contends that societies (and corporations, in the context of this analysis) can each create their ‘own unique media environments’ (2008: 134, emphasis added). What follows will offer insight concerning how remediation of the Walt Disney Company’s past works attempts to control not only the media content but also their distribution and reception through the company’s consistently altered and sanitized digital environments. This chapter will first consider notions of media ecology, including David J. Krieger and Andrea Belliger’s concept of networked layers and filters in relation to Disney’s physical (i.e. theme parks) and digital environments (i.e. streaming, online, apps, home video, etc.). Further explanations of remediation will then provide insight into how and why such layers and filters assist in producing the ecosystems, as well as the illusions, possible in digital environments. The Have a Laugh! series is then used as a case study to examine the Walt Disney Company’s wider effort of re-presenting and refashioning the electronic distribution of their media within Disney’s ever-expanding digital environments. Historical context and textual analysis of several shorts within the Have a Laugh! series will assist in presenting examples of refashioned Disney media that are more in keeping with Disney’s contemporary image and brand within their media ecological environments. Such remediation has afforded Disney the opportunity to eliminate objectional content, such as smoking, violence, racial prejudice, queerness, gun use and Mickey Mouse getting uncharacteristically angry. This chapter argues that remediation, such as the abbreviated Have a Laugh! shorts, is only one example of Disney’s earlier sanitization efforts to eliminate or downplay past prejudices and insensitivities that might be seen as offensive to consumers. It contends that Disney creates, maintains and curates their ‘unique media environments’ in an effort to: attract and retain a loyal consumer base with positive attitudes towards the Disney brand and legacy, exploit nostalgic memories and emotions from childhood and maximize revenue through elements of political economy, which is the ultimate purpose.

Media ecology: Networks, layers and filters

David J. Krieger and Andrea Belliger’s book Interpreting Networks: Hermeneutics, Actor-Network Theory & New Media (2014) reinterprets the construction of meaning as networking and demonstrates new media’s place within their interpretation of what a ‘network’ is. Krieger and Belliger’s concept of networking also illustrates layers and filters that can be visualized as the embodiment of ‘reality’ (2014: 130). Their notion of reality through layers and filters can also be associated with that of a digital environment within media ecology. According to Neil Postman (1968), the word ‘ecology’ ‘implies the study of environments’, and, as mentioned earlier, Strate has argued that ‘media are environments’ (2008: 134, emphasis added). Strate would later contend that technology could be considered symbolically as extension of man as well as nature (2008: 127). The study of media ecology, then, frequently attempts to explore the intersections of media, technology and communication as well as their effects on human and technological environments.

Krieger and Belliger’s conception of networking contains three layers that constitute a ‘reality’ within an environment. A more conceptual interpretation of these three layers includes: physical perception, a network and operations. Physical perception, also known as ‘reality’, is the ‘real world’ that is perceived by an individual. If likened to a body, it would be comparable to what is seen on a body’s frame, such as eyes, hair and skin. The skin can also be interpreted as a filter that encloses and conceals the rest of the systems within the body. The network makes sense or meaning of everything within the system or environment. Like the brain, it oversees that everything is working efficiently and synergistically. Operations are the various procedures completed in order for the vast system of networks to function. Like the heart or lungs, which allow a body to perform properly, operations involve a multitude of responsibilities necessary to keep an environment active and operational. Like a layered cake that is stacked (network and operations) and then frosted (physical perception), each layer contributes in building a physical or digital networked environment. The frosted exterior of a cake, then, is how it is physically perceived, but like skin on a body, it conceals the network and operations contained within it. Although the network and operations make up the largest part of the ecosystem, they are often purposely hidden from view. The perception of the environment offers an impression of perfection that is frequently more in keeping with the intentions or overall objective of the network. Frosting on both the outside and inside, such as in between the cake layers, can also be representative of filters that prevent or skew the user’s perspective of how the layers might be perceived without a filter.

Recognizing the layers and filters used to create, maintain and curate physical and digital environments by the Walt Disney Company is a central approach in analysing how and why remediation has come to correspond so strongly within a broader perception of Disney media.

Disney environments and remediation

The combination of these layers and filters within a particular environment presents a structure that is often emphasized in both physical or digital environments, which, when referring to Disney products and media, will be denoted as a Disney environment. Based on conceptions described earlier, a ‘Disney environment’ can be defined as a physical or digital setting, real or imagined, that is created by the Disney network (executives, administrators, Imagineers or the synergy branch, etc.) for the purpose of presenting a ‘magical’ Disney environment in keeping with the company’s instantly recognizable and established brand. As detailed earlier, these Disney environments are conceived within the Disney network and are argued to have three key objectives: to attract and retain a loyal consumer base, to exploit nostalgic memories and emotions from childhood and for the ultimate purpose of maximizing revenue through elements of political economy. It is through Disney operations (technicians, editors, performers, cleaners, etc.) that the aforementioned objectives are accomplished as a result of meticulous organizational strategies envisioned by the network. The combined layers of Disney’s network and operations in turn can influence the viewer/consumer with the potential of encouraging changes in attitudes or behaviours. In reference to comparable media environments, Neil Postman asserts, ‘An environment is, after all, a complex message system which imposes on human beings a certain way of thinking, feeling, and behaving’ (1970: 173). Physical and digital Disney environments are also meticulously designed to encourage individuals to think, feel and behave in particular ways. These environments are intended to encourage increased devotion to the Disney brand and, as an extension, improved fiscal results for the company.

Physical Disney environment

There is perhaps no stronger example of a physical Disney environment than any one of the company’s theme parks scattered across the globe. Each park is conscientiously controlled by a network of administrators that coordinate each of the operations needed to make the park function properly and manage a physical perception of fantasy and perfection. The sights, sounds, smells and even cast member interactions are each an organized effort to encourage guests to think, feel and behave a certain way. Predictably, many rides at Walt Disney World, such as Splash Mountain, Star Tours and Expedition Everest, are calculatedly designed so that riders exit through the gift shop in an obvious effort to influence consumerism and increase revenues. The use of elaborate tunnels (utilidors) underneath much of the Magic King...