Disney’s Dark Side
The Walt Disney Company is the world’s largest media conglomerate by revenue (“Fortune 500,” 2013). The ensuing political-economic analysis of Disney’s global popularity will use, as its points of departure, two statements:
(1) Disney’s popularity results from its advantageous economic position as owner, producer, seller and distributor of popular culture goods, such as its films and the merchandise and theme park experiences related to those films.
(2) Disney’s economic power bolsters its role as the definer, imprinter and promoter of capitalist ideology so that this ideology remains the dominant and unquestioned principle by which modern societies live by.
Disney’s popularity stems from its economic power as owner, producer, seller and distributor of films. An examination of how Disney handles the production stages involved in the making of animation movies is instructive in this respect.
Lee (2009) notes that the global market for animation films is dominated by productions from US-based studios such as Disney and Dream Works. Disney’s animation films are often among those that rake in the highest gross earnings worldwide (Lee, 2009).
However, Disney’s huge profit margins are not solely due to its creative expertise. It is partly explained by the huge savings in costs that it makes by subcontracting the simple, routine, labor-intensive production tasks to studios in developing countries.
In the 1960s, Disney farmed out jobs to countries like South Korea and Taiwan, whose production facilities relied on low-wage, female employees who rarely had labor unions representing their interests. From the 1990s onwards, low-skilled production jobs moved from Korea and Taiwan to China, India and Africa where labor costs were even lower (Lee, 2009).
Disney, therefore, has profited from monopolizing on the international division of labor. Disney’s exploitation of sweatshop workers in Haiti and China is well documented (Artz, 2004; China Labor Watch, 2009). In 1996, it was reported that workers on a Disney production line in Haiti were being paid USD$1 to work 10 hours a day, continuously for 50 days (China Labor Watch, 2009).
In 2011, The Guardian reported that toy cars, based on the Disney movie, Cars, were being made in a factory in China, which used child labor (Chamberlain, 2011).
Disney’s disregard for fair labor practices, and its subletting of low-skilled work like inking and painting to developing countries, even as it retained for its US employees the specialized work of scriptwriting and creating Disney characters, attest to the relevance of Marx’s view that the owners of production (in this case, Disney) are in an advantageous position to exploit workers in developing countries. In this way, the owners of production maintain the vicious cycle of class exploitation of the poor within the capitalist economic paradigm (Marx, 1976a).
Another way by which Disney maintains its financial dominance is through conglomeration. This allows Disney to leverage on the synergies that result from cross-media ownership. In 2010, Disney acquired computer game-maker, Tapulous, in order to develop games featuring Disney artiste, Miley Cyrus. This allowed Disney to increase earnings by horizontally integrating itself with the gaming business to ensure greater reach for its cultural goods (Baran, 2013).
The use of advertising and publicity in the form of what Bryman terms, “Disneyization” is another way in which Disney sustains its global popularity (Bryman, 2004 as cited in Macionis & Plummer, 2012).
“Disneyization” is a sales strategy that aims to create wants for Disney products by allowing potential consumers to experience the storyline within which the merchandise derive meaning. The strategy is best encapsulated by Disney’s theme parks. Visitors to theme parks get to be part of staged productions inspired by Disney animation films. These interactive performances give visitors the chance to participate in, and identify with, the storylines. Immersion in the story tempts visitors to buy the toys, merchandise and CDs related to the Disney film as a way of taking home mementos to remind them of their wonderful theme park experiences (Macionis & Plummer, 2012).
Disney profits hugely from this. Artz (2004) notes that from 1994 to 2004, Disney sold over USD$2 billion worth of toy versions of the protagonists in its animated features. Disney theme parks have more visitors annually than all 54 national parks in the US combined (Artz, 2004). The global presence of Disney parks (they are found in cities from Paris to Shanghai and Tokyo, for example) also means that Disney rakes in billions of dollars from consumers beyond US shores.
So, Disney maintains its popularity not so much by the creative genius of its managers and artists, but by its willingness to exploit cheap labor and through mergers and acquisitions that horizontally integrate it with related industries in order to expand delivery channels, and hence, global access to its products.
Disney also boosts its global influence by using its ownership of the means of production to bolster its role as the definer and imprinter of capitalist ideology onto the collective consciousness of people. Wittingly or unwittingly, the company fulfils its role as promulgator of capitalism by “softening” and “distributing” messages that justify class hierarchy, via its animation films. It does this so that capitalism remains the dominant and unquestioned principle by which societies live, even if capitalism’s inadequacies as a social system become apparent.
The company’s effectiveness in this regard is seen from the fact that people intuitively associate Disney with innocent and wholesome family entertainment even though its abuse of labor rights in developing countries has been widely publicized by news media.
While it is naïve to assume that Disney indoctrinates people with a unified ideology (Trifonas, 2001) – an idea based on the presumption that it is possible to brainwash people who have diverse ideas and beliefs by imposing on them a single political message – it is worth bearing in mind that the creators of widely disseminated cultural products have an unfair advantage in ensuring that their ideas hold sway in the public sphere (Trifonas, 2001).
Although the polysemic potential of cultural texts allows people to interpret narratives in ways other than those intended by their creators (Fiske, 1987), those seeking to enforce an ideology may, on occasion, trump the public’s capacity for diverse interpretations.
Disney may not be guilty of imposing a coherent ideology on the masses, but it is certainly in the position to enter the non-commodified areas of life, invade the intimate regions of individual experience and stunt people’s capacity to construct social meanings by themselves (Trifonas, 2001).
In the films, Lion King and Aladdin, for example, Disney uses graphic representations and storylines to maintain power relationships that remain unquestioned throughout the films. In Lion King, the lesser animals like the meercat, boar and hyenas are portrayed as cartoonish or conniving, while the lions are portrayed as strong and mighty. The story’s main plot focuses on the power struggles between creatures of royalty, the lions, while not a single moment is wasted on talking about the unhappiness of the lesser animals that have to put up with the power struggles between the superior animals.
Likewise, in Aladdin, the protagonist never questions the feudal order, and it does not occur to him to use his magic lamp to feed the poor. Nobody in a Disney animation film is happy until the chosen one, who is always wise, benevolent and powerful is reinstated as ruler. In an analysis of 11 Disney animations, it was found that elite authority figures exhibited 98 percent pro-social behaviors (Hoerner, 1986 as cited in Artz, 2004).
It is worth noting that Disney’s use of films to tacitly communicate the importance of preserving the social hierarchy seems to provide the backdrop for its use of power to obliterate groups that challenge its economic dominance in real life, as seen from its exploitation of sweatshop workers and its history as a dismantler of labor unions (Artz, 2004).
Evidently, peering into Disney’s political economy takes the fun out of its entertainment.
Richard Philip - 15 October 2013
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