“You and I both know the real power in this world”
“ain't magic. It's money. Lots of it.”
Are today’s Disney films… anti-Disney?
Their themes and takeaways increasingly seem to be critiquing
the company that makes them. “Can you do that?”
Over the last ten years, Disney’s animated films
and live action remakes have not only foregrounded
progressive messaging on feminism and diversity;
they’ve also protested greed, monopolies and big corporations
taking over everything. In other words,
these new Disney films are openly critical
of the documented behaviors of the Walt Disney Company.
Films like Wreck-It-Ralph, Frozen, and Moana
all feature pointed allegories about the evils of capitalism,
while the live action remakes have written anti-corporate
messages into older films “The contract says
that I'd hire them. It never stipulated for how long.”
But of course, all these films
serve to help Disney itself rake in billions at the box office.
And while their animated movies preach against
the late-stage capitalism’s imperative to consolidate and form monopolies,
Disney gobbles up companies like Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox.
Understanding this disconnect tells us about more than just Disney.
It shows just how easy it is for corporations in general
to perform political correctness and reap the social
and financial benefits, without feeling any compulsion
to meaningfully act on their own messages.
If you’re new here, be sure to subscribe
and hit the bell To get notified about
all our new videos. This video is brought
to you guys by MUBI.
We love MUBI so genuinely, it is a key part of our lives.
MUBI is such an incredible platform. it has wonderful movies and
interesting conversations around those movies.
MUBI always picks something that’s interesting, that’s quality.
I crave that curation, today.
You feel like you’ve actually taken in something substantial
and then you think about it, you dream about it,
it stays in your head.
They have great taste, it’s something for everybody.
If you want to know about the world, And culture, and what’s really
fun and worth watching, check out MUBI
Right now, MUBI is offering our viewers 30 days free.
Just click the link in the description below
to start streaming now.
Thank you MUBI for supporting The Take
and for helping us bring these videos to you.
Early Disney films didn’t have much interest
in capitalism, or the modern world
of their times in general. They usually took place
in fantasy lands or wild forests filled with talking animals.
Most 20th century Disney characters are born into wealth and privilege,
from Princess Aurora to Ariel and Simba.
“And this will all be mine?” “Everything”
The movies that do include poverty, like Cinderella and Aladdin,
treat it as a temporary embarrassment solved by a loving marriage
that coincidentally provides near infinite wealth.
Given these pre-modern dynamics, it’s no surprise that
many Disney villains fulfill ancient archetypes.
Schemers like Scar, Jafar, and Hades fit the mold of Shakespearean villains
like Richard the III, Claudius and Iago --
too-smart second bananas with designs on a throne
they’re not entitled to by blood,
“When I'm king, what'll that make you?”
“A monkey's uncle.”
and who are punished for attempting to disrupt
the great chain of being. Snow White’s Evil Queen and Frollo
represent power drunk rulers who can’t bear to see
anyone else succeed, an archetype that dates back
to Greek and Roman tyrants like Nero and Agamemnon.
These villains care about power and pride,
nothing so tedious or practical as money.
And they’re impossible to imagine
roaming a board room or a stock exchange
because they tap into an image of power
that predates capitalism and free markets.
Towards the end of the Disney Renaissance,
the films did start to incorporate more modern themes,
following a shift in attitudes about economic justice.
Pocahontas, Mulan and Tarzan all embrace anti-colonial messages
“The only thing they feel at all is greed.”
(even if their approaches to these problems
have limitations or flaws by today’s standards
Both Clayton and Governor Ratcliffe seek to get rich
by stripping native lands of resources,
tying them to the mercantilist approach of early colonizers.
“When we put your furry friends in their cages.”
“Why?” “Why?
“For 300 pounds sterling a head.”
But while these villains are paragons of greed,
they are brutes rather than businessmen,
solving their problems through violence
instead of complex economic maneuvers.
No one was going to mistake Michael Eisner for Shan-Yu.
After public sentiment shifted with the wreckage
of the 2008 financial collapse, in 2009,
Disney’s Princess and the Frog showed a new willingness
to engage directly with the dangers of money.
Still, it would be a few more years
before the studio fully embraced changing attitudes.
The first Disney villain to encapsulate
the greed of modern businessmen doesn’t at first glance
appear to be greedy. Or modern.
Or a businessman. In Disney’s 2012 film,
Wreck-It-Ralph, King Candy presents himself
as the benevolent monarch of Sugar Rush,
“Hello, my royal subjects”
but Ralph and Venelope eventually discover
that he is a character from another game, Turbo.
Turbo is the perfect metaphor for a corporate raider.
When Road Blasters challenges his dominance,
he takes it over and runs it into the ground,
like the Private Equity behemoths that tanked Toys R Us and Payless.
In taking over Sugar Rush as King Candy,
Turbo latches on to a successful product,
restructures its corporate hierarchy to put himself on top,
and forces workers to compete for a chance to participate
in the value they create. “This event is pay to play.”
His final form as a cybug, or virus
that will try to keep growing and consuming the whole arcade,
seems symbolic of modern corporate behemoths
who eat up all competition -- and it came out exactly two days
after Disney announced it would purchase Lucasfilm
and the entire Star Wars universe. Over the last fifteen years,
The Walt Disney Company has become the epitome
of a larger trend towards corporate consolidation
as fewer and fewer companies own everything.
“I can take over any game I want.”
It’s dominated the film marketplace by snapping up
Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox. In 2019, the last year
before the Covid-19 pandemic, Disney had nearly forty percent
of the market for all movies in the world,
almost triple its next largest competitor.
It produced all 8 of the top films that year,
and 5 of those came from studios it purchased.
Disney creations like Wreck-it-Ralph might critique greed
and corporate takeovers, but Disney the corporation
has embraced those methods to supercharge earnings for shareholders.
“I'm now the most powerful virus in the arcade!”
The year after Wreck-It Ralph, many people noticed Frozen’s
winking send-ups of classic Disney princess tropes
like the damsel in distress, true love’s kiss
and falling in love at first sight.
“Who marries a man she just met?” “It’s true love”
But far fewer noticed how similar Prince Hans is to Turbo.
While he may be in a Medieval monarchy setting
and use romantic trickery rather than computer code,
Frozen’s villain is (like Turbo)
obsessed with snatching up someone else’s creation.
He’s essentially a vulture capitalist, manipulating the rules
to pull off a takeover and get rid of the competition.
“As 13th in line in my own kingdom,”
“I didn't stand a chance.”
“I knew I'd have to marry into the throne somewhere.”
Similarly (and more overtly), in 2014’s Big Hero 6,
the rich CEO Alistair Krei tries to buy
the main characters’ invention until a former employee
points out that the company’s greed leads to shoddy business practices.
“Mr. Krei has cut corners and ignored sound science to get where he is”
Undeterred, the CEO tries to solve it by
throwing money at the problem. “I’m offering you more money”
“than any fourteen-year-old could imagine.”
The central conflict in 2019’s Frozen II
centers on the former king’s attempts to build a dam
that can harness nature at the expense of the local people.
“You see the dam will weaken their lands”
“so they will have to turn to me.”
It’s a plot that offers clear parallels
to extraction capital mining of coltan in the Congo
or lithium in Bolivia -- industries that provide
the components of computers, which enable viewers
to log on to Disney Plus and see Frozen II critique
the exact practices that enabled them to watch the movie.
Perhaps the recent movie that goes furthest in its message
about the dangers of consumption is 2016’s Moana.
Maui’s song, “You’re Welcome” has the feel of a corporate bigwig
bragging about his contributions to the world
while conveniently ignoring the destruction he has unleashed.
The central irony encapsulated in the song’s title
is that Maui is calling attention to all he’s given
while he’s actually in the process of taking Moana’s boat.
This paragon of corporate braggadocio is also specifically tied
to the art of film, in that his skin is covered
in tiny animated movies, and he triggers the apocalypse
while trying to harness the power to create,
the very power that Disney uses to make its billions.
“They believed if they could possess it,”
“the great power of creation would be theirs.”
Furthermore, while Maui does reform
and become a hero, the film’s villains all represent
the dangers of greed. The kakamora are predatory pirates
and the giant crab, Tamatoa, is obsessed with collecting
“shiny” treasure and gobbling up innocent fish.
Maui’s greed triggers a darkness that begins to consume the world,
threatening the survival of islands with rich cultural history,
and representing a powerful allegory for climate change in our own world,
where corporate-fueled global warming is raising sea levels
that could submerge island nations across the world.
As the life-giving Mother-Earth-esque Te Fiti
gives up on humankind and turns into a fearsome threat,
this echoes how our environment sends more and more
extreme weather our way as a direct result
of man-made pollution. "Without her heart,”
“Te Fiti began to crumble, giving birth to a terrible darkness.”
All of this makes Moana a powerful and insightful portrayal
of the dangers of consumption to our whole planet,
way of life and human existence itself --
but it's a bit off considering that, in spite of Disney's stated efforts
to curb their carbon footprint, in 2014
it still produced 1.63 million metric tons of CO2.
Disney’s anti-Disney messaging extends past the animated movies
and into the Live Action Remakes, as the new films align their stories
with modern sensibilities and express their distaste
for growth and takeover. In the Live-action Aladdin,
it’s no longer enough for Jafar to want to be Sultan;
his real crime is his desire to invade
the nearby country of Shirabad.
"And I thought I had power before!”
“First, I'll lay waste to those fools in Shirabad!"
And in Maleficent, King Henry’s attempt
to annex the Moors leads to his death and Aurora’s curse.
But if you can argue these changes
are relatively small, the Live-Action Dumbo
takes this critique to a wild new level.
The remake expands on the original Dumbo
with an elaborate story about a greedy impresario
selling Dumbo’s act to the masses.
What makes the film so strange is that its villainous impresario
sounds an awful lot like Walt Disney. Dumbo first introduces V.A. Vandevere
with language that evokes Disney’s founder
“The emperor of enchantment… the architect of dreams”]
The character spouts phrases a bout magic and childhood
“You’ve made me a child again” that align perfectly
with Walt Disney’s portrayal in Saving Mr. Banks.
“There's no greater joy than that seen through
the eyes of a child, and there's a little bit
of a child in all of us.” Although Vandevere’s park
is in Coney Island rather than Anaheim,
Dreamland’s rides also evoke Disneyland.
The animatronic Wonders of Science mimics Disneyland’s
Carousel of Progress, and the Rocket to the Moon
shares a name with one of the first rides at Disneyland.
Even the Dreamland circus suggests the
Mickey Mouse Club Circus, a short-lived big top in Disneyland
that was almost converted to “Dumbo’s Circus Land.”
Most striking of all, just before Dumbo’s first performance,
the film shows kids buying Dumbo stuffed animals
dressed in yellow and red outfits. These dolls don’t look anything
like the blue and silver outfit that Dumbo wears
in his performance in the film, but they perfectly match
the color scheme of the Dumbo dolls
you can buy throughout Disneyland.
While the imagery and language connect Vandevere
to Walt Disney the man, his financial deal-making
ties him to the modern company. "The future of”
“the entertainment business is to bring”
“the audience to you. And I've built that destination."
Vandevere takes control of Dumbo through a corporate merger,
giving Max Medici stock and incorporating the entire company,
as Disney recently did to Fox. Then, also like Disney and Fox,
he proceeds to spin off the less profitable
parts of the company through corporate downsizing.
“Vandevere’s fired them all.”
Crucially, these corporate machinations
make him the villain of the film. When Vandevere discovers
that Dumbo’s mother distracted him during a performance,
he sends her to her death to protect his profits.
So, Disney created a character that actively evokes their founder,
then made him a corporate psychopath
willing to orphan a baby elephant. “Get rid of the mother.”
“But sir, you can’t just kill her.” “Why not?”
But why? Why does Disney
keep making so many movies about how evil it is?
In the age of social media, we increasingly expect
both celebrities and brands to advocate for causes
and publicly align with social justice issues --
if they want to keep the money flowing in.
The expectation that the things we consume
will stand on the right side of history is even stronger
when it comes to cultural products like films.
In 2016, Matt Damon’s film The Great Wall
faced massive backlash for centering a white protagonist
in a story about Chinese history. "It's historical fantasy"
The controversy helped tank the movie,
which lost almost seventy-five million dollars.
2017’s Ghost in the Shell also lost money
after controversies over casting sparked outrage
“Ouch”
Backlash against movies can obviously also come from people
who feel that stories are too progressive,
with right wing pundits promoting boycotts against films
like Frozen, Star Wars: The Last Jedi,
and Captain Marvel. But these boycotts
evidently did little to hurt The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel’s
huge theatrical runs, or stop Frozen and its sequel
becoming the two most successful animated films in history.
“Let the storm rage on.”
Films that embrace progressive values tend to make money,
so aligning with the changing culture provides major financial rewards.
This clearly explains Disney moving its animated films
away from princesses falling in love to focus on female leads
like Queen Elsa and Princess Venelope who foster platonic friendships
and focus on fulfilling their own goals.
"Look, the code may say I'm a princess”
“But I know who I really am, Ralph. I'm a racer”
“wth the greatest superpower ever!" And Disney’s jokes mocking itself,
with films like Moana, Enchanted and Wreck-It-Ralph
gently teasing the tropes of its older movies,
"If you’re well dressed and have an animal sidekick,
“you're a princess.” is a strategic way
of positioning its contemporary (and most lucrative)
Disney princess characters as PC, culturally relevant characters
whose merchandise you feel comfortable buying.
The live-action remakes have also benefited
from including diverse and feminist messaging.
Both Belle in Beauty and the Beast and Milly Farrier in Dumbo
are young female inventors, while Jasmine and Nala
get new songs about embracing their power.
“I won't be silenced”
All this only goes up to a point that’s never too controversial
for a mainstream audience; for example,
promises of LGBTQ inclusion have so far materialized
only as fleeting moments or vague queerbaiting
But most centrally, while these changes are progress,
their purpose is financial rather than utopian.
As YouTuber Lindsay Ellis, who has discussed how Disney changes
the Live Action Revivals to accord with modern sensibilities,
put it, “They aren’t woke”
“to make the world better. They’re woke for you to buy stuff.”
With Disney embracing social justice
to pad profits, it’s also perfectly logical
for them to pit their stories against the unpopular evils
of greed and inequality. “The more you have,
the more you want.”
This entire approach depends on audiences
not connecting the villains on screen with similar actions
by the people or conglomeration behind the product.
But Disney has several significant advantages
making its narrow tightrope walk possible.
The first and most powerful is that corporations
are incredibly boring. It’s easy to get fired up
by cartoonish greed on screen, but much harder
to sustain that fire when confronting
complex antitrust negotiations or shareholder value propositions
or departmental restructuring to promote synergistic integration
“Very boring” Corporate Disney
also benefits from time. Individual films
have release windows, which make them vulnerable
to a backlash that tanks the opening weekend,
and even individual people may be brought down by controversies.
But companies can wait it out until people move on
to the next news cycle as there are so many scandals
these days that it feels impossible to track them all.
“The human world is a mess.” Most of all,
Disney benefits from the very thing
their movies have primarily critiqued: enormous and ever-growing size.
If you want to see a big blockbuster
or go to a family-friendly theme park
or buy the Olaf doll your kid desperately demands,
chances are good you need Disney
as much as they need you. Megafans of Lucasfilm
who don’t want it incorporated into the Disney brand
are still unlikely to protest by refusing to watch
the new Star Wars movie and sacrificing their own experience
of something they love.
“The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.”
Disney has become a company that is not only too big to fail,
but too big to meaningfully boycott. So as long as Disney’s movies
align with the zeitgeist and make viewers feel
what they want to feel in their entertainment,
the corporation can pretty much do whatever it wants behind the scenes.
“You’re only in trouble if you get caught”
In a way, Disney’s plot pivot
to explicitly oppose greed, monopolies, and corporate misbehavior
shows how far our cultural conversation has come:
we’ve embraced fairness and economic and social justice
to an extent that even multinational corporations
have to fall in line (or at least perform that they are).
Yet Disney’s anti-corporate films seem to be having little
discernible effect on the company’s moral
or business strategy, which keeps chugging along.
“Just keep swimming.”
Dumbo’s vicious dissection of Disney’s corporate strategy
came out on March 11, 2019. Nine days later,
Disney announced its official takeover of Fox.
Ultimately, this disconnect demonstrates the real problem:
it’s much easier to talk about the right thing
than to do it, and projecting the “correct” politics
as a superficial PR strategy is a pretty straightforward
ploy for corporations. Disney executives can build morals
into their films without applying
those morals to themselves because they know their audiences
care more about the stories than the boring details of the company.
In the end, the “anti-Disney” messages
we’re seeing in these films are all in service
of making more money, so that’s about
as pro-Disney as it gets. [“The selfish man”
“is like a mangy dog chasing a cautionary tale”
This is The Take, on your favorite movies,
shows and culture. Thank you so much
for watching and for supporting us.
Please subscribe and never miss a take.