Disney

The concepts found in Ariel Dorfman and Armmand Mattelart’s piece called “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club” I found easy to relate and apply to Disney’s Donald Duck Cartoons during World War II. It is ironic that in the “Instruction on How to Expel Someone from the Disneyland Club” section of this article, the authors suspect that readers may label them as political agitators and Walt Disney as above politics, because in reality Disney was very involved in political activities. During World War II Walt Disney was commissioned by the United States government to make propaganda cartoons, supporting the war. The main character of these films was Donald Duck. Donald was portrayed as a soldier, going through various funny situations in a war time setting. The ‘enemies’ had slanted eyes, alluding to the Japanese forces, and were painted dark colors, to induce the sense of evil. As expected, Donald Duck was always victorious, and his dehumanized enemies were left defeated with silly or simple tactics. This allows the audience to presume that Donald Duck (America) can easily and is defeating its dark enemies (the Japanese). This cartoon not only conveys the idea we were winning and going to win the war, but also associated the war with laughter and good feelings. These good feelings that come with comedy and cartoons and related to the war, hence there are positive opinions of the war. This type of propaganda was especially effective because customarily children’ cartoons are not critically analyzed. “Above all, there is the implication that politics cannot enter into areas of ‘pure entertainment,’ especially those designed for children of tender years” (Dorfman and Mattelart, 124). This is a very dangerous implication, because if media outlets are accepted as ‘fluff’ or of no significance, then their meanings or ideologies are more easily transmitted to their audience. One of the first concepts we learn in Critical Media and Cultural Studies is that there is no such thing as “pure entertainment”. Much like the media genre of comedy, children’s media outlets are written off by the majority as meaningless, and as having the purpose of entertainment, and only entertainment. With this popular mindset, all of Walt Disney’s creations can be overlooked and accepted by not only our culture, but by cultures around the world. In reality, Walt Disney’s franchise is encoded with many hegemonic ideologies, which are then instilled into our cultures youth at a young age.