(upbeat music)
What’s up, Wisecrack? Michael here and I’m back in a heavily-sanitized
Wisecrack studio. Please people, wear your freaking mask. Anyway. Today,
I’ve got Disney on my brain - and not just because my nostalgic mom keeps sending me this photo.
And who can blame me? They basically own or license everything I love, and everything I hate.
And that’s not to mention the new season of The Mandalorian, because they own Star Wars. Also
X-Men - That’s right. They own the x people. And just take a gander at the top grossing films last
year, and you’ll be greeted by one name, and one name only. See, from Endgame to Aladdin,
from Frozen II to Toy Story 4, Disney made seven of the top ten highest grossing films of 2019. And
while this feat is impressive even for the big mouse, it’s not exactly something new. In fact,
many of the top 50 highest grossing films of all time were either made by or later bought by
Disney. Now maybe for some of you, this doesn’t matter as long as you get that Marvel Cinematic
goodness injected into your eyeballs a few times a year, and I totally get it. But what if I told
you that Disney's ever-broadening artistic reach is actually bad for culture, and not just because
they made the worst Star War. How? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on how Disney Ruined
Culture. And I guess spoilers ahead for films you absolutely saw if you were ever a child.
- (Michael) In the past few decades, Disney has gone from an industry giant to an absolute
behemoth, acquiring everything from the Muppets to Pixar to Marvel to Star Wars to, most recently,
21st Century Fox. Of course, Disney’s game of Hungry Hungry Hippos but for intellectual property
goes way back to the beginning. According to the company’s own telling, founder Walt Disney moved
to Los Angeles almost a hundred years ago with, and I quote, “a lot of hopes but little else”. How
wholesome. Four years later, Disney got his first taste of success with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The
only catch? When Disney tried to make another round of these cartoons, he found out that his
distributor had gone behind his back and poached all of his animators. Worse, upon reading the fine
print of his contract, Disney realized he didn’t even own the rights to Oswald – his distributor
did. And thus, like a super villain’s origin story, our intrepid young Walt vows to never
get screwed again. Or as Disney.com puts it: “He saw to it that he owned everything that he
made.” After that, Disney set up shop in a studio five minutes away from Wisecrack headquarters
in what is now a high end grocery store. Here, he created the company’s most iconic character.
From then on, Disney became a veritable creative and financial powerhouse. By 1937, it would break
all box office records with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Early on though,
this success was predicated on a simple formula: find an existing story, make it as cute and
wholesome as possible to maximize your potential audience, and then dive into your Scrooge McDuck
sized money-pool. Of course, you might think this is fine. After all, pop culture is, by definition,
entertainment aimed at the largest possible audience. And Disney definitely had one thing:
an aesthetic. You know, round faces, saucer eyes, big goofy grins. And if the kids love it,
how could it be bad? But as we’ve mentioned before Disney’s reign of cuteness was not
a happy accident or mere coincidence - Walt was basically ruthless in his quest to make
all things adorable. And, in the process, Disney has spent the last 100 years acquiring stories,
adapting them, and ultimately, twisting their original artistic intentions beyond recognition.
All of which is to say: is all this cuteness actually super un-cute? But to see the Disney
method in action, let’s dissect an early example: Pinocchio. For the uninitiated,
this story revolves around the titular puppet, who just wants to be a real boy. As the magical
blue fairy tells him, his wish will be granted if he proves to be brave, truthful, and unselfish.
- (Blue Fairy) And some day
you will be a real boy. - (Pinocchio) A real boy!
- (Michael) But Pinocchio’s not about that life. He runs away from home,
joins a puppet show and LIES to the Blue Fairy about it, which famously leads to this.
The fairy lets him off the hook but Pinocchio doesn’t stay out of trouble for long: He’s
soon whisked away on an all expense trip to the dubiously named Pleasure Island. There, Pinocchio
and his resort buddies engage in all sorts of vices, from drinking to smoking to gambling, only
to find out that they’re turning into… Donkeys. But with the help of his cricket companion,
Pinocchio narrowly escapes, only to learn that his daddy got lost at sea looking for him.
- (Jiminy) It says here that he went looking for you and uh, he was swallowed by a whale.
- (Michael) Pinocchio then sacrifices his little wooden life to save the old man from the literal
belly of the whale. But lo and behold, now that Pinocchio is good, he’s brought back to life
by the blue fairy, but this time as a real boy. And everyone lives happily ever after.
If only life was that easy. But what if I told you that the author of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi, never
intended for his story to give children that warm fuzzy feeling? And that once Disney had bought
the rights to the story, the company whitewashed Pinocchio to fit the big mouse’s cutesy aesthetic?
If you have any doubt, then I present to you the original ending to Collodi’s Pinocchio:
"Without loss of time they tied his arms..., passed a running noose ‘round his throat, and
hung him to the branch of a tree called the Big Oak... A tempestuous northerly wind began to blow
and roar angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing violently,
like the clatter of a bell ringing for a wedding. And the swinging gave him atrocious
spasms…" That's, really bad. "His breath failed him and he could say no more. He shut his eyes,
opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder, and hung stiff and insensible."
You heard right, Collodi had Pinocchio gruesomely hanged! This inspired so much angry fan mail that
his editor demanded he bring the puppet back to life and continue the series – which he
begrudgingly did. In Collodi’s defense, though, Pinocchio being hanged was pretty much par for the
course. It’s hard to see in Disney’s version, but Pinocchio was intended to be a tongue in cheek,
albeit bleak, morality tale. The simple moral? Be good or suffer. Throughout the story, we see
a mean-spirited and rude Pinocchio – a stand-in for all misbehaving children – robbed, starved,
stabbed. And also his legs get sawed off. But we’re not supposed to feel especially sorry for
him - His actions cause all of his suffering. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, Collodi also heaped on
the psychological abuse, making Pinocchio at one point think he had killed Geppetto AND the Blue
Fairy, which I didn’t even know was possible. And while you and I, growing up on a media diet full
of high-saturated Disney cuteness, might find this story repulsive, it’s pretty run of the mill if
you’re familiar with old German folklore. More recently, we’ve seen similarly gothic tones in
children’s books like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Now let’s be fair, maybe
you don’t want your kid’s bedtime story ending in gruesome death. But there’s still something
unsettling about the way a media giant like Disney can take a beloved fairy tale, purge it
of its original intentions, and thus rewrite the narrative in our collective memories. Instead of
staying faithful to Collodi’s artistic intention, Disney did what it would continue to do for
decades: buy a story, bleach it in a caustic vat of cuteness, and pump it out in exchange for cold
hard cash. Gone were the dark, satiric overtones, and in their place were syrupy lines like this.
- (Jimmy Cricket) Thank you m'lady. He deserved to be a real boy.
- (Michael) As for Pinnochio himself, he went from being a total frat bro to the naive piece of
pine we know and love today. In the process, his character design underwent similar changes, with
Walt Disney scrapping the angular designs found in Collodi’s story for a character model that
can best be described as “what would happen if Mickey Mouse had a baby with a tree.” Obviously,
Collodi’s estate was kind of pissed, with his grandson suing Disney’s Italian distributor
for infringing on the “moral copyright” of the story. Now I know what you’re thinking: “it’s an
adaptation. Artists are allowed to adapt!” And sure - they are. Plenty of great art exists
because someone took an existing story and made it their own - sometimes undercutting the original -
like “Pride and Prejudice” but add zombies. More seriously, something like There Will Be Blood
took the first few pages of Upton Sinclair’s equally awesome book “Oil” and basically threw
away everything else. But nobody would accuse Paul Thomas Anderson of whitewashing “Oil,” and
I don’t think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has somehow cheapened the Jane Austen novel.
Maybe part of the difference lies in formula and scale. PTA hasn’t created a billion dollar
industry by stripping stories of their content and replacing them with a deranged Daniel Day Lewis.
- Draiiinage!
- (Michael) Disney, on the other hand, regularly takes stories like Pinocchio or Sleeping Beauty or
hell, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and throws them into the commercial meat grinder. Worse,
they’ve been doing this pretty consistently for the past hundred years. Seriously, if you were
to put all the Disney films on a spinning wheel, whatever you land would likely be an adaptation
in which the original story has been blanched, artistically ground down, and pumped out as a
cute little Disney sausage. Actually, why don’t we just spin that wheel and find out? Ah yes,
the 1989 classic, The Little Mermaid. A timeless story in which a young mermaid makes a faustian
bargain with a sea witch to gain legs so she can win the hand of a hunky Prince. Based on the Hans
Christian Andersen tale of the same name, Disney’s retelling strips the story of a lot of its darker
and more religious overtones. In the Big Mouse’s version, we’re treated to a love story that ends
with a happily ever after. The Prince ultimately realizes that he really digs this mermaid,
the mermaid frees herself from the sea witch's curse, the prince harpoons said sea witch, and all
is basically right with the world. The message? True love saves all. But the source material isn’t
nearly as happy or uplifting. That’s because Andersen flatly rejected this message. First
of all, his story portrays love primarily as suffering. For example, Andersen’s mermaid
doesn’t just give away her voice in exchange for legs, but also endures the pain of being stabbed
every time she takes a step. Nevertheless, she delights in dancing for the Prince and making
him happy. What’s more, in Anderson’s telling, the prince never returns the mermaid’s affection,
instead he marries a local princess. So yeah, rough deal. But there’s a reason for
this. Andersen wanted the mermaid to be saved, not by love, but by sacrifice. At the start of
the story, the mermaid despairs not just because she’s half-fish, but also because she doesn’t
have a soul and won’t be able to chill with her prince in heaven. In fact, the whole bargain with
the witch revolves around Ariel gaining a soul if she manages to kiss her true love. But as Andersen
explained to a friend, he never wanted the mermaid to gain a soul simply because she fell in love
with a straight up hunk. He thought such an ending would be explicitly “wrong.” In short,
Andersen would have despised Disney’s ending, in which a kiss – and a strategic boat crash
– saves the day. See, in Andersen’s tale, the MERMAID saves the day with a christ-like sacrifice
where she gives up her life and love to save the prince. And lo and behold - she’s rewarded for her
good deeds and turned into a gentle spirit. If she helps mankind for the next three hundred years,
she’ll be rewarded with a soul. Hooray? Well, according to Andersen, this is the “more natural,
more divine path” though it probably wouldn’t have jacked up Disney’s 1989 stock prices. And at this
point we could keep rambling off examples. The real Pocahontas is not a story about the freedom
to love who you choose: it’s about colonists kidnapping a Native American woman and murdering
her husband. The original Sleeping Beauty is literally about a woman being nonconsensually
impregnated in her sleep and giving birth to twins… also in her sleep. Now, we’re not gonna say
Disney should be making more films about assault because that’d be horrible. However, the general
Disney meat-grinder which polishes off any rough and unsavory edges comes with consequences. In the
case of Pocahontas, it’s a very shitty history lesson that some people might never question.
But that’s just the first of many ways that Disney’s story telling might actually be a major
disservice for developing young minds. That’s because most of the stories Disney adapts are
fairy tales. And while these stories may often be dark and complex and vaguely disturbing,
they also offer children a symbolic template for understanding the world. For example,
in a children’s cancer clinic, researchers found that patients were able to use fairy tales to
express and cope with their anxieties. One child, for example, identified with the Big Bad Wolf in
Little Red Riding Hood, venting his frustration and anger by drawing an oversized wolf with
massive teeth. Another child drew a comically tiny wolf as an expression of confidence and bravery
in the face of his struggles. Here, we see how the darkness of fairy tales can actually offer a light
to children confronting adversity. But Disney often strips these fairytales of their bite,
instead inserting a bland, wholesome narrative - as we saw with Pinnochio and the Little
Mermaid. And ironically, in the process, Disney’s developed new narratives that are, in their own
rights, potentially quite destructive. As psychologist Susan Darker-Smith points out,
young girls who identify with characters like Cinderella or Belle, from Beauty and the Beast,
are more likely to end up in abusive relationships as adults. While interviewing victims of domestic
abuse, Darker-Smith found that many identified with the heroines of these stories in which
love conquers all, believing that “If their love is strong enough they can
change their partner’s behavior.” Of course, the reality is tragically different. Ironically,
by peddling a convenient narrative in which all the world’s problems can be solved by true love,
Disney fails to give children any tools for navigating real-life problems. And
that was kind of the whole point of fairy tales - to convey the darker and crueler
aspects of life so as to better prepare children for the realities of adulthood.
Of course, this all begs the question: should Disney care? According to the legendary and
incendiary free market economist Milton Friedman, definitely not. He argued that companies don’t
have the same responsibilities that people do. A person might have a responsibility to be a nice
neighbor or recycle, while a company’s only responsibility... is to make more
money. And Friedman’s definition of corporate responsibility has pretty much become gospel.
In other words, Disney will only do what is required to make the most amount of money,
regardless of the social consequences. It’s the capitalist raison d'être of companies the
world over, and it explains why Disney operates a cuteness factory. Indeed, when Disney went “dark”
in the 1970s and 80s, it put out a series of grimmer, edgier films like The Black Cauldron that
were huge box office failures and nearly brought about the collapse of the great Empire of Mouse.
The so-called Disney Renaissance of the 90s was a major course-correct back into the sentimental
cuteness that has sustained the company ever since. And it’s no wonder. Cuteness, after all,
has a very particular way of hijacking our brains. And more importantly: it sells. Studies have shown
that cuteness increases our concentration, a useful trick to make sure humans pay close
attention to their adorable young – or you know, pay more attention to a dysfunctional snowman.
Even more telling, when volunteers were hooked up to an MRI and bombarded with cute images,
their nucleus accumbens – also known as the pleasure center of the brain – lit up and started
pumping out dopamine. In other words, when viewers saw Mickey Mouse’s adorable body bob up and down
on screen 100 years ago, they were unwittingly receiving the first microdoses of Disney-branded
brain candy. Interestingly enough, the phenomenon of “cuteness” being used for potentially nefarious
purposes has a name: cultural theorist Joshua Paul Dale calls it ‘evil cute’. And while Dale
specifically cites gambling machines that use cute cartoon kittens as an example,
it’s not hard to argue that Disney’s precious animated friends might also qualify. In the end,
cuteness is just a means for Disney to pad its bottom line - regardless if it’s telling stories
that are ultimately “good” for children. And while you might not be too devastated
to hear that Disney sabotaged your favorite 16th century tale about a naughty, sentient puppet,
the Disney-fication of storytelling becomes more viscerally upsetting when the big mouse starts
screwing around with more iconic cultural works. You catch my drift? Ever since Disney acquired
the universe’s most beloved franchise, fans have increasingly despaired at the creative
choices that resulted. The last trilogy began with sentimental fan service befitting
of Disney. It seemed to briefly flirt with darkness and complexity in The Last Jedi,
suggesting Star Wars wouldn’t fall completely into the pits of cuteness. And then… this. That’s
right, Disney quickly course-corrected and opted for a “sweet” conclusion based on a magical kiss,
romantic sacrifice, and, of course, everyone you care about is Jedi royalty now.
- (Rey) Rey Skywalker.
- (Michael) All of which is to say, there’s no property or franchise which Disney won’t find
a way to wrap its cute little tentacles around. So what happens now? Honestly?
Probably nothing good. As Disney continues to grow, which it’s almost certainly going to do,
it’s reasonable to worry that we’ll see an expansion of their blanket philosophy of
cuteness. And, as we’ve seen in the past, that cuteness probably comes at the expense of story,
nuance and morality. It definitely makes us nervous for the future of a franchise like
X-Men - it’s hard to imagine Disney signing off on something as subversive as Logan. And
as Disney continues to gobble up more and more of the media we love, we’re worried that there
won’t be space for grittier, darker stories - for grown up fairy tales, if you will. But
what do you guys think? Is our loathing for the Disney empire totally reasonable and warranted,
or do we sound like overly-quarantined haters? Let us know in the comments.
As always, huge thanks to our patrons for your support. Hit that subscribe button like it’s a
fairy tale you’re ready to ruin for buckets of money and as always, thanks for watching. Peace.