Is the Mouse Raising Our Kids?

My mothers always brings up how as a kid I would watch Winnie the Pooh films and say “again!” after each time they finished so that I could rewatch them. Disney was undeniably a significant influence on my childhood as I grew up three hours from Disney, owned an annual pass, and regularly consumed Disney media.

I am a first generation American whose parents hailed from Chile, the country where Dorfman and Mattelart were political émigrés. I unfortunately confess that growing up, Disney and its capitalistic agenda ensnared me to the point were I knew more about the fantasyland of Disney than of my motherland, Chile. Both my parents grew up during the dictatorship of Pinochet, which was facilitated by the American government, due to America’s fear of socialist president Salvador Allende. Dorfman and Mattleart wrote this article before the military coup of 1973, so I find it interesting to see the ways in which American imperialism was already infiltrating different nations and cultures, through something as “pure” and “innocent” as children’s literature and comics.

Dorfman and Mattleart state that Disney and its characters invite us “all to join the great universal Disney family, which extends beyond all frontier and ideologies, transcends differences between peoples and nations, and particularities of custom and language” (110). Considering that at the heart of Disney and its stories lie capitalist ideologies and American values, I would agree with the authors that this is not the case. In fact, a medium that is as innocent seeming as Disney is the most dangerous because it convinces us that we do not have to think critically when consuming any of it’s entertainment. Many would argue that “any attempt to politicize the sacred domaine of childhood” engenders a perversity in which happiness, imagination, and innocence are lost (111). What is scary about Disney though is that it is politicized it is just invisible. Consequently, we believe children naturally behave in these ways or have a particular imagination when in reality they are just emulating the traits of characters they see in Disney.

I have always wondered, who really raises children? Parents or Disney?