Disney

Fuck you. Don't you know Joan Crawford herself went to Walt Disney and asked him to make a ride for all the children of the world. That's how we got It's a Small World.

That's because you have no imagination or soul, OP.

You were smart enough not to drink the KoolAid.

Decent kids movies people grew up with. Fun immersive theme parks that every family wanted to visit. It makes sense but the disney adults still make me cringe.

Grab them young and you get them for life.

Branding 101.

They just didn't grab you hard enough when your were young enough, OP.

Me neither.

But then, I'm 60. Disney's tv presence was that weekly hour long show. (with some messed up shit sometimes. Don't get me started on Toby Tyler). There's was also that weekly half hour re-tread of old Mickey Mouse cartoons.

I preferred the old MGM ones. At least half of those were in color.

Reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club every afternoon were dated and Roy was creepy.

I preferred watching Annette Funicello cavorting on the beach with shirtless guys in those surf movies which weren't as dated .

Disney was so uncool back then.

And we lived in southern California. I was so fucking tired of going to Disneyland everytime some out of town relative showed up.

Not to mention Catholic School day at Disney every year.

Just be happy that you weren't indoctrinated and don't worry about the hive mind.

They have their own problems.

Not everything is for you, OP. If more people understood this we’d be happier. There’d be no Datalounge but we’d be happier.

Marketing and propaganda. Disney is like this cult that many American children are indoctrinated into. Those children grow up into adults who idealize Disney and see Disney as a comfort zone to return to when stressed. American life has become more and more stressful, so more adults are retreating to a childlike status to avoid their issues. I have no problem with people who enjoy the movies and music. But I do find it unsettling how obsessive the fans can get to the point they spend thousands of dollars every year, take a pilgrimage to Disney, will put themselves in massive debt over it and force their children to participate in their indulgences.

This is creepy. Disney already did this with Celebration, Florida.

You are not the center of the universe, OP. Not everyone and everything circle around you.

Brand loyalty (Disney, Apple, Microsoft, Mattel, Netflix, Aldi, etc.) = Commercial Cult

I like the early films and the classic cartoons; Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics were brilliant. I enjoyed Disneyworld when I was seven years old but haven't been back and see no reason to return.

The postwar stuff was increasingly tragic (horrible child actors with British accents pretending to be from California), and their recent output is simply corporate product. The liveliness of the original animation is mostly lacking. "The Emperor's New Grove" was the last film of theirs I really liked and it was a complete outlier.

Adults who collect Disney figurines, etc., really sort of creep me out. But I feel that way about kitschy clutter regardless of what it is.

OP hates puppies and ice cream too.

OP never wanted to be a little Princes I take it.

Those wannabe Disney princesses grew up to be Karens.

The Disney movies were good when I was a kid but grown adults into it - no, no. Especially the middle aged/old couples who don't have children but go to Disneyworld.. I don't really get that. Why do they want to go to an overpriced theme park where the lines are long and with a bunch of kids?

Don Bluth, Hayao Miyazaki, Wes Anderson, Pixar, Laika and Ralph Bakshi made better animated films. I do like Walt era of Disney as it was artistically ambitious (Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio and shorts like The Old Mill). But after it went Walt died and Disney even more corporate in the 80s. All the movies prioritized a profit with tons of market research and merchandise sales attached. I did enjoy Zootopia and Moana though.

*But after Walt died and Disney became even more corporate in the 80s.

I do think 80s Disney films like Tron, Return to Oz, Flight of the Navigator and The Great Mouse Detective were overlooked. Once The Little Mermaid was a hit, Disney went the formulaic and market-based route. I give them credit for trying to get back to ambition with Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame which were the darkest of their 90s output. Emperor's New Groove and Treasure Planet were ambitious too but by not being successful nixed further plans. I don't think Americans were ready for mature animated stories.

Every once in a while, people have different tastes, OP.

Sounds like you like movies about food, eating, and loneliness? Others might like mysteries, adventure, etc.

Go to the parks and get the steaming service - I have stock so help a sista out!

Rancho Mirage? Even Disney can't fend off the 110 to120 degree heat three months out of the year they get.

Fritz the cst is a good animated film

I have an old friend from high school that is like this. She goes to Disneyworld with her family at least twice a year. I don't get it, but to each their own. I do like Winnie the Pooh as a child but Disney took that over.

Disney people are so defensive about it. Every disney adult I know had a shitty childhood

How comes no one feels this way about Knotts Berry Farms?

^^^ The community will be a ghost town during the peak heat months (an increasingly longer time with climate trends) just like the rest of the surrounding developments. Wealthy multi-homed Snow Birds are the target buyers, and they fly back north in the summer.

[quote]How did Disney ever become so popular?

Easy. Tommy Kirk (L) and Tim Considine.

R27 Walt Disney was rumored to be a chickenhawk.

I think it's because it's forced on a lot of people. When I was growing up, Disney was marketed to kids and you knew there would be a time when you would leave it behind and develop more adult pursuits. But now people are so heavily marketed to and aren't given a chance to find some sort of adult activity that really interests them.

OP sounds like he was a…”delightful” five year old.

I'm with you, OP. Couldn't be less interested in Disney corporate dreck.

Growing up I was a 90s/2000s-era Warner, Universal & DreamWorks kid. I feel lucky for that.

Throughout my childhood and preteen years, me and my siblings enjoyed wearing out the VHS tapes of DRAGONHEART, THUMBELINA, QUEST FOR CAMELOT, THE PAGEMASTER, THE ROAD TO EL DORADO (very gay subtextually btw..), THE IRON GIANT, ROVER DANGERFIELD, THE KING & I (animated with Miranda Richardson), LARS THE LITTLE POLAR BEAR, AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST, THE SECRET GARDEN, BABE THE SHEEP PIG, CHICKEN RUN (a British classic), A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (live action with Emily Browning & Liam Aiken), PETER PAN (live action with Jason Isaacs), CASPER (live action with Cathy Moriarty, Bill Pullman, & Christina Ricci), THE FLINSTONES (live action with Rosie O. & John Goodman), EVOLUTION (live action with Julianne Moore, David Duchovny & Seann William Scott), THE LOST WORLD aka JURASSIC PARK I, THE MUMMY, THUNDERBIRDS (live action with Bill Paxton & Ben Kingsley), A SIMPLE WISH, BALTO (and the sequel ALEU’S QUEST), SMALL SOLDIERS, ANTZ, CATS & DOGS, OSMOSIS JONES, SPACE JAM, the ICE AGE and SHREK franchises, SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS, THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, and of course my eternal favourite that is the stunning unsurpassed SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON.

D**ney could never.

Spirit Of The Cimarron was weird. It was all Matt Damon doing an internal voiceover.

I guess it was trying to differentiate itself from Disney's "talking dogs"

I personally enjoy the DisneyXXX porn website, it's better than Pornhub!!

I worked for Disney in the 90s - which was called the Disney Decade in in-house marketing & strategy docs. I was very aware that it was a formula relating to aging. As others have pointed out, get them young, they’ll come back to relive their childhood with their children.

I don’t understand the Disney adults. When I started working for them I was just looking for security and a steady paycheck at a company I knew was never going away. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that people were actually passionate about Disney. That adults cared on a cosplay level. My boyfriend at the time was VERY much that way. Working there was hard for him. He couldn’t reconcile his experience w what he grew up believing.

Disney became ubiquitous by massively promoting itself. When I was a kid I loved Disney stuff but in those days most people did outgrow it. It wasn't like now. Obviously there were no Disney stores or anything like that. No Disney Channel. There was only one theme park. There was one TV show, once a week. If adults went to Disney movies alone, without kids, that was considered unusual.

Just wanted to add, as teens (in the 70s) most of us considered anything Disney to be uncool - the squeaky clean - at the time - movies - like Kurt Russell movies. And a lot of that stuff *was* lame. I saw Fantasia at a small "art" cinema. It had been out of circulation a long time. It was considered a head film, for fringe audiences. Obviously home video changed everything.

I have to give them credit for how they came back, but I never bought into their uber-marketing or their ethos as an adult.

It's the child abuse.

Disney mentally abused generations of children by forcing them to watch Bambi's mother die in a fire, Dumbo's mother get cruelly shackled and caged, and that kid having to kid his own beloved dog, Old Yeller.

People usually cling desperately to their abusers, and Disney is no exception!

Once I found out what they did to all those lemmings I knew they could not be trusted and were evil.

R38, I hate it when I have to kid my dog.

"Hey Fido! Tree any cats today?"

Disney's painstaking completely hand done animation work in full length feature films was groundbreaking, exquisite, and holds up today against computer generated schlock.

I once went to a museum exhibition of original cels. The ones from BAMBI looked like Monet paintings. The attention to musical scores and other details was extremely high. FANTASIA was a unique film ahead of it's time, and, oh my God, it used classical music for the masses! FANTASIA is still a stunning film achievement worth watching.

I don't give a shit who Disney was, anymore than I gives a shit who Stravinsky was.

This just in: creative geniuses are very often shites.

Creatively, Disney's studio in the early days made a massive creative contribution.

Compared to the shallow shit kids are fed today?

Please.

You were too discerning even as a five year old?

Well, then, I'm surprise6you werent writing better screenplays yourself by six.

One knows the commodification of Disney taking over the world is complete when they get an exhibition at the Met Museum. Former director Philippe de Montebello would be spinning in his grave if he were dead. And this isn’t to say that Mary Blair’s artwork shouldn’t be hanging in a museum, because it 100% should, just not in this context.

[quote] as teens (in the 70s) most of us considered anything Disney to be uncool - squeaky clean.

Yeah, it’s always been like that.

R41, your sig is perfect. For you.

Disney Channel used to be Disney-related when it launched in the 1980s and was a premium network. But by the late 90s, it dropped that in favor of marketing to preteens and becoming Nickelodeon's competitor on basic cable.

Don Bluth was such an underdog. The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven (ignore all the sequels) destroys most Disney movies. Bluth left Disney on bad terms and aimed to create his own studio and his movies in the 80s were beating Disney at the box office. But Disney's success in the early 90s screwed over Bluth again, as Bluth was pressured by studios to mimic the Disney formula and constant executive meddling, butting heads and budget cuts led to Bluth having an awful 90s output of films. Plus all those sequels to his 80s films that he had nothing to do with and cheapened his brand. Anastasia was his only critically acclaimed work in the 90s and while it was Disneyesque, it was more subversive and had a cynical tomboyish lead rather than a traditional princess type. Bluth's Titan A.E. flopping was a massive disillusionment for Bluth and truly showed Hollywood did not give a shit about ambitious, character-driven animated stories. Bluth is still around and teaches animation but he truly got screwed over.

There wasn't anime when Disney started. He didn't have serious competition.

DreamWorks was very ambitious in the late 90s and early 2000s because they were in a very nasty feud with Disney. They were founded out of pure spite by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former head of Disney animation. The Prince of Egypt (a mirror to Hercules but Judeo-Christian), ANTZ (a mirror to A Bugs Life but with Woody Allen) and Road to El Dorado (a mirror to The Emperor's New Groove but with a gay couple). Spirit and Sinbad flopping at the box office killed off their 2D animation interest while Shrek being a huge surprise hit made DW invest more in 3D animation.

Shrek itself was a giant "FUCK YOU" to Disney animation. Mocking all of the Disney formula. Lord Farquaad was a carbon-copy of Michael Eisenberg, this evil king enslaving fairy tale creatures for profit. Princess Fiona choosing to stay an ugly ogre and marrying Shrek. Both of them choose a simple, poor life in the woods as opposed to gaining the upward mobility of Disney films. Donkey is an obnoxious portrayal of the talking animal sidekick who is mostly dead weight.

Of course DreamWorks once they got what they wanted. They ended up corporate and soulless like Disney pushing out shitty sequels and an obnoxious formula and overreliance on celebrity voice actors

r41 I imagine had Fantasia been a massive success. Disney would have continued to push the limits. His first five: Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi were cutting edge works of art. The WW2 era was mostly crap. He tried to go back to his artful roots in the 1950s with Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty and Alice, the more abstract and visually stunning ones weren't as successful as he hoped. Though they ended up becoming appreciated a decade later during the counterculture. Walt Disney gets a lot of hate, he was not a nice person and a union buster. But he was ambitious and appreciated aesthetics and modern art. Even Disneyland as a concept was innovative and showed what a conceptual mind that he had. He was a great mind, ahead of his time. Disney as a brand though is corporate and soulless and a far cry from what Walt himself was about.

I loved Disney movies as a kid and grew up watching all the classics on those clamshell VHS tapes—The Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, Alice in Wonderland, Fantasia, Snow White, Fox and the Hound, etc. I will occasionally revisit those movies that I really loved as a child, but frankly, as an adult, I've never had any interest in keeping up with current Disney. I always find it weird when people my age are going to see Disney movies in the theater.

Virtually all of the hardcore Disney adults that I know (the uber fans who visit Disneyland multiple times a year, hang on every new release, wear the merch) were sexually abused as children (and I don't say that as a joke—it's true).

They have made some beautiful movies. Who doesn't cry at Bambi? Please do not piss on my Disney parade.

Chip & Dale were Gay, right?

They were oxycotin addicts.

Recently rewatched Bambi for the first time since I was five years old (and I still remember the trauma). Man, it’s utterly beautifully painted and animated. Still traumatising even as an adult, though. But many of those earlier times, and a few later ones, captured genuine magic.

Younger than most of you and by the time I was a kid Disney was all about Princesses and girl things, though you also had Toy Story which was pretty gender neutral and then all the Monsters Inc stuff which was more for boys.

Disney also put out a bunch of sports movies like Mighty Ducks and Air Bud in the 90s that were tween-boy oriented.

R55 haha yeah THE MIGHTY DUCKS movies were very....ummm....formative....

Everyone has a soft spot in their heart for fantasy. Disney brings out our inner child.

A key thing that's horrifying about Bambi is our knowing what happens to a deer when she is "dressed" by a hunter. Fucking hell I couldn't bear it. That sentient being, with a baby; that something like that should happen to an animal.

Disney sells nostalgia nowadays.

R44 - And your moronic response is typical of you.

R58 - You should read the original work from which Disney took the story: it's far darker, and Disney dialled some of that back.

Ditto Pinocchio.

R61 and THE FOX & THE HOUND.

In the book—which is more of a detached, cold-blooded, Man vs. Nature chase/hunt story than anything—Copper catches and runs Todd to the fox’s fatal exhaustion in the end. It’s quite emotional and fraught, because by this point in the novel, the old fox has already evaded death several times, dodging errant vehicles and poisoning/gassing as well as the vicious leg-traps and wild bear attacks we see in the film. Copper is also suffering by the end of the novel, as his Master has lost almost all of his land & money to urbanisation and to addiction, and all of the dogs he grew up with are either dead or sold.

Then, in the epilogue after some time has elapsed, Copper’s alcoholic reclusive Master becomes too poor, old & senile to live independently let alone track anymore (he can only go to a nursing home with a ‘No Pets’ policy, for some reason), so crying he reluctantly takes the by-then ageing Copper out back and shoots him in the head.

Lucky I was raised rural with a father who hunted, or reading that kind of story at age 10 might have scarred me.

^^forgot to mention that Copper/the Master gas Todd’s kits to death then maul his main/favourite mate (an older vixen, not like the Vixy of the movie), by way of revenge for Todd purposefully luring the dog Chief (younger than Copper in the book, not older as in the movie) into the path of an oncoming train.

R62, call me crazy, but I have never understood the reason for books like that.

"Kill yourself now kids, because life is endless horror!"

Not much of a moral.

R64 well, fwiw I took it as a warning about how as horrifying and brutal as Nature and living wild can be, the destruction thereof can be just as devastating and tragic.

It makes sense some Disney obsessives were molested as kids. I noticed the same with some obsessive Kpop stans and Marvel and DC stans. They have severe trauma and live vicariously through the comfort of their pop culture fixation. Also there's a subset that are also on the autism spectrum or have other mental conditions.

There's a big difference between enjoying something and having a hobby and having that interest be so intense that it takes over one's life and thoughts.

R64 tbh, there have been moments I’ve wondered whether TFATH would make for s good adult film, a dark sad meditative indie. But maybe it would be too depressing.

R66 Speaking of, this documentary was fascinating and heartbreaking, about how a family who found a key to unlock their Autistic child through the Disney movies and actually reach him and build a relationship. This type of situation is the best hope for most families with a Autistic child and it was happened upon by a chance observation and a blind belief that it might work. How many families wouldn’t have noticed out of sheer exhaustion, or wouldn’t have pursued it because it wasn’t medically sound? How many families live each day hoping a miracle like this will happen to them? This has been the best use for Disney I’ve found yet.

A someone mentioned above, Pinocchio the book is a fascinating read, I’m a big reader of both classic and contemporary literature and stumbled upon reading it a few years ago and read it for the first time. It was hand down one of the best books I read that year.

[quote]There's a big difference between enjoying something and having a hobby and having that interest be so intense that it takes over one's life and thoughts.

Most of the people who have created great art, music and literature have an interest so intense it takes over one's life and thoughts. What's your point? We should all work in offices and paint by numbers?

[quote]Virtually all of the hardcore Disney adults that I know (the uber fans who visit Disneyland multiple times a year, hang on every new release, wear the merch) were sexually abused as children (and I don't say that as a joke—it's true).

Let's stipulate that's true. FTR, I don't know any adult Disney obsessives. Whom does it harm if they go to DW or DL a few times a year? Going into debt is of course, ridiculous. But how many people are actually doing it? Isn't this a better outlet than molesting children?

In th 90s, my ex-wife and I took our sons to DW three times and we enjoyed the hell out of it. EPCOT is underrated. We ate at many of the restaurants on Lake Buena Vista and they were excellent. My partner has never been and I'd love to go again if it wasn't so ridiculously expensive to stay on the property.

[quote]Marketing and propaganda. Disney is like this cult that many American children are indoctrinated into.

What major company doesn't market their product to a demographic? You know what's a cult? People who declare successful corporations are manifestly evil. Yes, there are evil corporations and CEOs. Disney isn't one of them. Disney is a product and a brand that many trust and love and they have worked hard for over 80 years to earn that.

[quote] What major company doesn't market their product to a demographic? You know what's a cult? People who declare successful corporations are manifestly evil. Yes, there are evil corporations and CEOs. Disney isn't one of them. Disney is a product and a brand that many trust and love and they have worked hard for over 80 years to earn that.

Drinking that Kool-Aid, eh? Well Disney underpays and overworks all of its employees and not just their park employees but their animation and acting talent, Disney has a monopoly over the media now with it's acquisition of ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Pixar, LucasFilm and Fox which gives them a disproportionate amount of control over the public and Disney has a history of stealing concepts and ideas. Disney keeps lobbying to influence copyright laws in their favor. Majority of Disney films are from very old public domain characters and foreign cultures which are often watered-down and Americanized yet it has not stopped Disney from suing other studios and artists for using those characters. Disney corporate actions are very actually bad for freedom of speech and artistic expression. Corporations only care about profit not people. Americans are just brainwashed to think hyper-capitalism of "the biggest gun should rule" is good.

R68 Yep and I noticed autistic people are drawn to anime for a similar reason. The over-expressiveness and focus on relationships in anime helps them learn social cues. Japanese animation was influenced by classic Disney and Fleischer animation hence the big expressive eyes, tiny noses and big heads.

[quote] Well Disney underpays and overworks all of its employees and not just their park employees but their animation and acting talent,

My best friend's partner works for Disney. He makes a shit-ton of money. I've also met actors while on vacation (Mykonos, Ibiza). They did not seem to want for cash.

[quote]Majority of Disney films are from very old public domain characters and foreign cultures which are often watered-down and Americanized yet it has not stopped Disney from suing other studios and artists for using those characters.

Like the Bible? Greek mythology? Hans Christian Anderson? Like MGM didn't make movies using those sources? Who got sued for using Hercules or The Little Mermaid (the characters, not Disney images)?

R72 don’t forget about the land they stole from under local people to build their parks, the same parks that use up disgusting levels of energy and water to run, and cause environmental damage and disturbance off the scale.

R75 -Pearl-clutching whore.

I worked for a major corporation. I often thought I deserved more money. I'd love it if we had laws that make everyone get a living wage. But Disney is no different than any other corporation that has stockholders to satisfy. You don't like it and neither do I, but why single out Disney. Walmart and Target are much better...targets.

This is interesting too. Artists and their estates who worked on Marvel Comics during their golden age from the 1950s to 70s are getting sued by Disney because they refuse to stop claiming the characters they helped create decades before the Disney acquisition.

R78 I don't like the monopolization of our media because it's Orwellian. The media influences public perceptions and politics. When it's all in a small hands of a few corporations that borders fascism. Wal-Mart and Target at least provides goods that Americans need to survive, so while unethical themselves, they are far more utilitarian. Disney should have just stayed as an animation studio and theme park chain, buying ABC and onward lead to their descent into media consolidation which is disgusting and a challenge to freedom of speech.

I liked Fellini as a kid people need to not show their kids garbage and help develop good taste early.

This thread kind of got me thinking that I should visit Disney World. I went to Disney Land as a child. I went to Universal Studios a few years ago to see the Harry Potter park.

Kind of a bucket list thing.

1 adult. 5 days. Almost $5K at one of their cheaper resorts.

I priced out a family of 4 and it came to a little over $11K.

I mean HOLY SHIT.

I once knew a Disney exec who for his tricks left Disney Dollars on the dresser.

Disney world is almost the same price as Antarctica why would anyone pay so Much for that? Just got to a local amusement park.

R82 You could always stay at one of those hotel like Willem Defoe managed in The Florida Project..

In my younger days I worked at the Disney Store briefly, the staff there were much weirder than I was anticipating. I guess the concept of "Disney adults" didn't exist for me until I met those freaks. I didn't last very long, I left to work at a clothing store (the discount was good).

What's your damn problem with Toby Tyler, R5?

The pin & Funko collector pod-people are insane.

[quote] How did Disney ever become so popular?

Because humans are sheep.

[quote]Even as a five year old I couldnt stand their lame movies

smell you!

Nostalgia has been big for the past 20 years. Maybe it was 9/11 that altered things and people became more regressive and reminiscent of "the good ol days."

In a previous topic on this, I also said this.

Disney is the bandaid to America’s damaged youth. Child abuse? Narcissistic parents? Bad schooling? Take the capitalist spawn to Disney World, it’ll make them all better. Simple people LOVE distractions. It’s the same thing that spearheads fandoms like furries. Nothing against that, but it is a sign that people want an escape from the ugly, boring lives.

When the late millennials and Zoomers hit middle age, it is going to be insane. Hard to predict at this time what’ll happen. And Mickey Fuckin’ Mouse is a partial culprit to the situation.

^ you think too much

Annette would be disgusted at how far the brand has degraded.

Well Walt Disney himself was a businessman first. He tried to do artistic films and pushed the limits of animation with experimental techniques. But the world wasn't ready for it. Fantasia was and is ahead of it's time. It took decades for Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland to be finally appreciated despite the efforts that Walt put into their art direction. You can watch the early films: Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi and Dumbo and see they were moving works of art. Same with the Mickey Mouse, Oswald and Silly Symphonies shorts that would exhibit extremely fluid and impressively detailed animation.

The Disney Renaissance was really overrated looking back. I only think it's praised because it did revitalize Disney Animation from it's slump (it was nearing bankruptcy) and thus made the company relevant again. And also nostalgic for many young Xers and Millennials who grew up with it.

But it was really formulaic and was originated with The Little Mermaid. A Broadway style musical, a spunky rebellious princess "who wants more", an effeminate villain with a bumbling sidekick, and an star-crossed romance. This was repeated over and over. Aladdin was probably what started the celebrity voice actor craze due to over-marketing Robin Williams. The commercialization of these franchises and push of "princess culture" saw a bunch of low budget direct-to-video sequels and merchandise.

This whole era was what saw Disney go from a small mostly animation and amusement park based company to a major media conglomerate that would eventually take over many smaller studios like Pixar and Marvel but also buy out ABC, ESPN and Fox. Disney Channel also went from a premium network that showed most Disney related content or second-run family oriented movies and TV to becoming a basic cable network marketed to "tweens" and pushing manufactured formulaic sitcoms to launch pop star careers. The whole brand was cheapened to be soulless and capitalist to the core.

Funny enough I actually find the Disney films from 2008 onward to the have much better writing like Bolt, Princess of the Frog, Tangled, Frozen, Moana, Big Hero 6, Zootopia etc. Though I can't say it wasn't due to tht Pixar acquisition and John Lasseters oversight. He was wiser than Jeffrey Katzenberg for sure.

If Standard Oil can be broken up so can Disney.

It is kind of sad in some respects. There are some older people, like 40 on Tiktok that live for Disneyland.

O.K. I have thought about the problem with Disney. Walt Disney had a vision for the company that involved Handing the view an experience that assisted one to suspend disbelief and enter a journey into the fantastic. O.K. Later after Walt's demise Disney changed. Disney became a vehicle by which to spoon feed the audience a set of images and sounds that direct the viewer to a fantasy that becomes practical installed whole or spoon fed to the viewers mind. This largely removing any work on the part of the audience themselves. Today Disney has become a bunch of social stories. Social stories are what special needs teachers use to train special needs kids to do the jobs in life that make them functional like going to the store or using the post office. That extended recently to stories that depict It being o.k. for women to kiss or The colored kid to be a doctor. They are kept fantastically simple for the sake of quick absorption. O.K great but i prefer to think for myself not to be trained as to my attitudes and opinions. Disney treats the audience like Special needs kids.