Disneyland by Christopher Anderson

1
Disneyland by Christopher Anderson
2
Introduction

• Walt Disney was one of Hollywoods most important
  independent producers
  
• Television was crucial to Disneys plan to create
  a media and merchandizing empire
  
• ABC and Disney targeted a middle-class family
  audience with young children
  
• Disney offered the blueprint for the future
  development of media industries (31)

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Topics of Discussion

• ABC and Disney
• Total Merchandizing
• Buena Vista Studios
• Audience Demographics
• Programming
• Reflexivity
• The Disney Canon
• Conclusions

4
ABC and Disney

• Along with David O. Selznick, Disney was the
  first to link film and TV
  
• TVs signal scope gave it entry into the American
  home
  
• ABC buys the series Disneyland in 1954 for
  500,000 to obtain a 1/3 share in the Park
  
• Coca-Cola and Johnson and Johnson were previous
  sponsors
  
• In 1996 Disney Company buys ABC for 19 billion
  in cash and stocks

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Total Merchandizing

• products are aimed at baby-boom families and
  stamped with the Disney imprint (18)
  
• one product sells another movies, amusement
  park rides, books, comic books, clothing, toys,
  TV programs . . . (18)
  
• each Disney product . . . promoted all Disney
  products

6
Buena Vista

• Diversification became necessary in 1953 for
  Disney to create a leisure and entertainment
  corporation (20)
  
• In order to break from the restrictive studio
  system (18), Disney created Buena Vista (20)
  
• Cartoon shorts were unprofitable (20)
• Buena Vista made nature documentaries and
  live-action films (20)

7
Audience Demographics

• ABC cultivated ties with Hollywood to define
  the network as different (20)
  
• TV viewing is a habit, just like going to the
  show was a habit (20)
  
• Demographics refers to audience analysis the
  young housewife youthful families (20)
  
• ABC alignswith small-ticket advertisers
• Leonard Goldenson refers to the Disney deal as
  ABCs turning point

8
Programming

• One third of each program was devoted to
  promotion but blurred publicity with
  entertainment (23)
  
• behind-the-scenes footage from the Disney
  studio (23) ie., building the Park making
  cartoons making films (23-4)
  
• Never exposed issues of labour relations in these
  episodes
  
• Uncle Walt educated viewers (24)

9
Reflexivity

• Refers to making films about filmmaking
• Disney, like Barnum (Greatest Show on Earth
  circus owner), allowed viewers the thrill of
  seeing how an illusion is created

10
The Disney Canon

• Mickey Mouse obtains canonical status (25)
  meaning that studio products are not disposable
  commodities of pop culture, but artifacts worthy
  of remembrance (25)
• Footage from Disney films are recontextualized
  (placed in a new context) making them more
  important edifying and specialized (26),
  
• eg. Pinocchio in the whale is associated with
  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and an undersea
  documentaryall part of the total merchandizing
  effect

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Conclusion

• Disneyland the program created phenomenal
  interest in Disneyland the park
  
• a suburban amusement, a bourgeois park (27)not
  designed to offer cheap thrills for the urban
  masses (or lower class) (27)
  
• Disney is compared to Edison and Henry Ford
• Disneyland becomes part of the culture of the
  automobile and the superhighway (28)

12
Broader Conclusions

• Disney exploited the quest for authentic
  experience which exists somewhere outside the
  realm of daily experience (29)
  
• Contrary to Walter Benjamins belief, TV and
  mass media intensifies the desire for
  authenticity by invoking a sublime ever
  out-of-reach experience (30)
• Disneys texts draw the viewer outward toward
  greater consumption of further Disney texts
  and products (30)
  
• The new Hollywood will do the sameby fusing
  all texts into one (ref to Wagner)