In the earlier years of the Walt Disney Company, the main focus was on producing quality animated films for children.

I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with ‘expressing’ myself or obscure creative impressions.

(Disney.W, cited in Wasko, 2001, p13)

As the company was so successful at doing this, it soon branched out into other areas of the entertainment industry. The first of these ventures was the first ever Disney theme park – Disney World, built in 1955. Soon after this came television programmes suitable for youth viewing in the late 1950’s.

Before long the Disney empire encompassed much of the entertainment world and subsidiary companies such as ABC Television, Touchstone and Miramax movies were set up.

This isolates the latter from the Disney name, and gave them the freedom to explore mature themes without impacting on the ‘family oriented’ Disney reputation. It also allowed the total corporation to expand financially.

Mills’ analysis of Walt Disney’s reasons for taking the company in the direction in which he did, would seem to imply that Disney was at least doing it for the right reasons, as believed he was helping to improve American society. His reasons for this are however largely irrelevant, as the fact remains that, whether it was Disney’s intention or not, the Walt Disney company was heading further and further away from it’s original ethos.

This change in the cultural philosophy of the Disney empire can be summed up by the following quote:

(Giroux. H, 2002, www.gsels.ucla.edu)

(Giroux. H, 2002, www.gsels.ucla.edu)

Some topics in this essay:
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