tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/disney-9591/articlesDisney – The Conversation2024-03-28T12:21:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2267682024-03-28T12:21:09Z2024-03-28T12:21:09ZRenegade Nell: Sally Wainwright’s highwaywoman series is a swaggering caper of a show<p>“Little word of warning. You don’t want to mess with me”, Nelly Jackson tells highwayman Isambard Tulley in the opening minutes of Renegade Nell. The Disney+ fantasy adventure series is the latest show from Happy Valley writer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-valley-the-art-of-sally-wainwrights-perfect-tv-ending-199616">Sally Wainwright</a>.</p>
<p>Nell has inadvertently stumbled on Tulley and his gang robbing a group of wealthy travellers in the woods. The date is 1705 and Nell is returning to her family tavern in Tottenham, widowed, after her husband, Captain Jack was “blasted in half at the Battle of Blenheim”. </p>
<p>Despite this horrifying set of circumstances, Nell (or Nelly as her family call her, much to her annoyance), is remarkably upbeat, her cockney wit as quick and cutting as her sword skills.</p>
<p>The series sets up a story world inhabited by characters that are smart, resourceful, camp, canny and highly amusing. While tragedy and greed take up space in the dark edges of the plot and the minds of the show’s villains, it is humour that occupies its centre. </p>
<p>This comes courtesy of both Wainwright’s sharp writing and the performances of Nell, played by Louisa Harland of Derry Girls fame, and Billy Blind, her magical, pint-sized spirit, played by comedian and actor Nick Mohammed. </p>
<p>Mohammed purposefully uses his most famous comedic creation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofVcaQQJlMc">Mr Swallow</a>, in his role as Billy Blind, drawing on both Mr Swallow’s squeaky voice, and his pattern of biting off more than he can chew. </p>
<p>Harland’s performance as Nell is equally magical, driving the narrative at breakneck speed. Her supernaturally powered fight sequences are something to behold, and she showcases a multitude of accents, from contemporary cockney to “posh” Scottish. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Renegade Nell.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Sally Wainwright’s safe hands</h2>
<p>Sally Wainright, the creator, executive producer and writer of the first five episodes of the series, is largely considered a safe – and extraordinarily capable – pair of hands. Wainwright is most well-known for Scott & Bailey (2011), Last Tango in Halifax (2012), Happy Valley (2014) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/gentleman-jack-a-gripping-19th-century-tale-of-one-womans-bravery-in-sex-and-politics-116868">Gentleman Jack</a> (2019). </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-valley-the-art-of-sally-wainwrights-perfect-tv-ending-199616">Happy Valley: the art of Sally Wainwright's perfect TV ending</a>
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<p>Renegade Nell sees Wainwright parry with and between genres, themes and styles for which she is less well known. The magic realism and playful spirit that frames Renegade Nell may feel worlds away from Happy Valley, but – as with Wainwright’s indomitable women characters and frequent focus on class inequalities – magic realism does have precedence in her back catalogue. </p>
<p>Wainwright’s reimagination of the three Brontë sisters in the BBC film <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04cf4wv">To Walk Invisible</a> (2016) included scenes of the siblings as children, their heads adorned with <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/uX6o4CDWUgYzdyaZ6">burning crowns of fire</a>. Renegade Nell has a similar interest in the magical relationship between three extraordinary but very different sisters.</p>
<p>The show is a magical mix of Wainwright’s previous creative expertise. Its adventure is drawn from Jane Hall (2006) and comedy from Bonkers (2007). It has period costume and a musical score reminiscent of Gentleman Jack and magic realism from To Walk Invisible. </p>
<p>Then there’s the determination and resilience from Happy Valley, and the focus on family, care, community and class that was inherent to Wainwright’s soap opera writing for Coronation Street.</p>
<h2>A class act</h2>
<p>Alongside its interest in women and the inequalities they experience and battle to overcome, a theme central to Renegade Nell is <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-55506-9">social class</a>. </p>
<p>With Nell as our guide, the structural inequalities between the wealthy and the poor are aligned directly to power and its abuses. The law, Nell tells us, “is made by the toffs, for the toffs”. Ending up on the wrong side of it, she talks to Billy Blind, joking and lamenting in equal measure: “How come I’ve ended up so far on the wrong side of the law?” </p>
<p>In response, Billy suggests, “Maybe when someone like you ends up on the wrong side of the law … there’s something wrong with the law … and maybe me and you was supposed to do some disruption to redress the balance.”</p>
<p>Their work to redress the balance, alongside an exceptional cast of supporting characters, explores the corruption of government, the control of the news and questions of truthful and objective reporting, poverty and gender-imbalanced opportunities. </p>
<p>Though the setting in 16th century England provides a sense of temporal distance, the contemporary relevance of the issues explored are unlikely to be lost on viewers, who may well be inspired to join Nell in kicking up a rumpus.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Johnson is affiliated with the Royal Television Society, as Vice Chair of the Yorkshire RTS branch. </span></em></p>The Disney series is a magical mega-mix of Sally Wainwright’s greatest hits.Beth Johnson, Professor of Television & Media Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224832024-02-05T13:31:44Z2024-02-05T13:31:44ZWhy Elon Musk’s ‘self-driving’ of Tesla’s board and its decision to pay him $56B collided with the law – and what happens next<p><em><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-02/elon-musk-meets-his-match-in-shakespeare-quoting-delaware-judge?sref=Hjm5biAW">Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick</a> has <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/02/01/tesla-musk-case-post-trial-opinion/">blocked Elon Musk’s US$55.8 billion pay package</a>, which <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/court-rejected-elon-musks-558b-pay-package-worth-106846409">Tesla’s board of directors approved in 2018</a> through a process she found to be “deeply flawed.”</em> </p>
<p><em>No CEO of a publicly traded U.S. company has ever been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musks-55-billion-tesla-pay-package-struck-down-by-judge-3e619f53?mod=hp_lead_pos9">paid this much</a> for one year’s work, according to Equilar, which tracks corporate leadership data. Pay for the 10 highest-paid executives, including Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, reportedly <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/05/heres-how-much-the-10-highest-paid-us-ceos-earn.html">maxed out at around $250 million</a> in 2022.</em> </p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://www.udel.edu/faculty-staff/experts/justin-p-klein/">Justin P. Klein</a>, the director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, to explain McCormick’s reasoning.</em></p>
<h2>Why did the judge block Musk’s pay package?</h2>
<p>McCormick’s opinion began with a good question: “Was the richest person in the world overpaid?”</p>
<p>She concluded, in this reference to Musk – whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/elon-r-musk/">fortune was estimated to be worth $205 billion</a> before the ruling and consists largely of his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/01/elon-musk-wealth-net-worth-companies/">Tesla shares and stock options, along with his SpaceX stake</a> – that he was. </p>
<p>This legal defeat may have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-ceo-pay-compensation-tesla-f5ad4ce659a73a1209dc99a583d7b883">knocked Musk out of his perch</a> atop the Forbes list of the world’s richest people, making him the second-wealthiest, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#1e2714563d78">media outlet calculated</a>. </p>
<p>McCormick ruled against Musk in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2024/jan/31/three-cheers-for-the-delaware-judge-who-stood-up-to-elon-musk">Tornetta v. Musk</a>, a lawsuit filed on behalf of an investor who owned only nine Tesla shares – and by extension virtually all of the company’s stockholders. Ultimately, she determined that Musk’s compensation plan was considered and approved by a board of directors that was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-ceo-pay-compensation-tesla-f5ad4ce659a73a1209dc99a583d7b883">not sufficiently independent or objective</a>.</p>
<p>The compensation plan was subject to a vote by the rest of Tesla’s shareholders. But the information they received left out key details and contained inaccurate statements.</p>
<p>This pay package deserved close scrutiny because of its enormity, McCormick observed. She called it the “largest potential opportunity ever observed in public markets by multiple orders of magnitude.”</p>
<h2>What was wrong with Tesla’s board?</h2>
<p>McCormick concluded that many of Tesla’s board members, including <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459018009339/tsla-def14a_20180606.htm">his brother Kimbal Musk</a>, had close financial and social relationships with Elon Musk and that they were beholden to him due to these ties.</p>
<p>The board approved this compensation plan without <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/03/19/compensation-committee-guide-2020/">following commonly accepted norms</a>, according to the ruling. Further, McCormick found that the directors allowed Musk to control the process for approving the compensation plan, dictating the terms, amount and timing.</p>
<p>Board members apparently made no efforts to benchmark the plan as compared to <a href="https://ceoworld.biz/2023/05/26/the-highest-paid-tech-ceos-in-the-united-states/">compensation paid to executives of comparable companies</a>, a critical and typical step in any situation like this.</p>
<p>Musk was in control of Tesla, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/07/executive_compensation.asp">a publicly traded company</a>, that should have standard protocols in place regarding its compensation practices.</p>
<p>There was no negotiation between Musk and the compensation committee or the board regarding the amount and terms of the plan, the chancellor found. This is both inconsistent with widely accepted <a href="https://www.huntonak.com/en/insights/six-key-considerations-executive-contract-negotiations.html">compensation setting practices</a> and striking due to the scale of the pay package. </p>
<p>“Musk launched a self-driving process, recalibrating the speed and direction along the way as he saw fit,” McCormick wrote. “The process arrived at an unfair price. And through this litigation, the plaintiff requests a recall.”</p>
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<span class="caption">Tesla corporate headquarters, in Travis County, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-an-aerial-view-the-tesla-corporate-headquarters-is-seen-news-photo/1454072958">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What factors are boards supposed to consider in setting CEO pay?</h2>
<p>In deciding what CEOs should earn, boards or compensation committees should consider the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/managing-wealth/guide-ceo-compensation">company’s performance under the leadership of the CEO</a> and the executive’s own personal performance. They should also review what comparable companies take into consideration when making decisions about their own CEO’s compensation.</p>
<p>Other metrics or considerations may be taken into account, too. These may include whether the company has made <a href="https://worldatwork.org/resources/publications/workspan-daily/how-dei-will-shape-executive-compensation-in-changing-legal-climate">progress in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11846-022-00538-4">employee retention</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2023/02/linking-executive-pay-to-sustainability-goals">sustainability and environmental performance</a>, worker safety practices, risk management and <a href="https://www.hrpolicy.org/insight-and-research/executive-compensation/executive-pay-legislation-and-regulation/">compliance with laws and regulations</a>.</p>
<p>Around the time of this compensation decision, Musk was the subject of a <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/elon-musk-says-420-price-tesla-buyout-tweet-not-joke-testimony">Securities and Exchange Commission probe</a> over alleged fraud stemming from what the SEC said were <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-219.pdf">misleading statements</a> regarding his plans to take Tesla private at $420 per share – a part of a tweet widely regarded as a cannabis joke.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226">settlement Musk reached with the SEC</a> forced him to pay a $20 million fine and step down as the company’s chairman for at least three years. It also required the appointment of two new independent Tesla board members and a requirement that he preclear certain public statements.</p>
<p>The company was not taken private.</p>
<p>In 2023, a <a href="https://electrek.co/2023/02/03/elon-musk-found-not-guilty-in-the-tesla-420-take-private-case/">jury found Musk not liable</a> for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit-jury/index.html">related losses by Tesla investors</a> who sued over the incident. Tesla shares closed at $187.91 on Feb. 2, 2024, far below that $420 price that unleashed litigation. The company’s share prices closed at <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202401297494/tesla-on-pace-for-worst-month-since-december-2022-data-talk">$409.97 in November 2021</a> – the highest point to date.</p>
<p>The board could have considered this incident a negative factor when making its decisions about Musk’s compensation.</p>
<h2>What process are boards supposed to follow in setting CEO pay?</h2>
<p>In setting CEO compensation, all members of boards or <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/governance-insights-center/library/compensation-committee.html">compensation committees</a> should be truly independent and objective, with no interest in the outcome.</p>
<p>They should consider engaging compensation experts and benchmark or seek information on executive compensation at comparable companies.</p>
<p>These decisions require careful consideration of all components of the CEO’s compensation and how the pay package should be structured. That includes how much of the pay should be provided as cash, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/restrictedstock.asp">restricted stock</a>, which may not be sold for a period of time, and <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stockoption.asp">stock options</a>, which provide the right to purchase stock at a predetermined price before a particular time in the future. </p>
<p>When stock prices rise a great deal, stock options soar in value. That’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/business/elon-musk-tesla-pay-package.html">what happened with Musk’s colossal pay package</a>.</p>
<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p>Musk may decide to appeal to the Supreme Court of Delaware. On the other hand, Musk could ask Tesla’s board, its compensation committee – or both of them – to revisit and revise his compensation plan, taking into account the objections spelled out in the ruling.</p>
<p>That would include both the amount – $55.8 billion – and the process by which it was set.</p>
<p>Musk, however, <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/delaware-elon-musk-wants-tesla-to-vote-on-switching-corporate-registration-to-texas/">appears to be seeking a third option</a>. “Tesla will move immediately to hold a shareholder vote to transfer (the) state of incorporation to Texas,” <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752922071229722990">he posted on X</a>, his social media platform previously known as Twitter.</p>
<p>Even if Musk were to prevail and change Tesla’s jurisdiction of incorporation, it would not be likely to affect this decision.</p>
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<h2>Is Delaware particularly tough on corporate leaders?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/13/why-more-than-60percent-of-fortune-500-companies-incorporated-in-delaware.html">Delaware is the corporate home</a> of more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies even though it’s the country’s second-smallest state.</p>
<p>One reason for its popularity with businesses of all kinds is that Delaware’s courts are quite experienced, with a great deal of expertise in considering business matters and cases of this kind. Musk’s court case was heard in its <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chancery">Court of Chancery</a>, a system that primarily decides <a href="https://courts.delaware.gov/chancery/jurisdiction.aspx">corporate legal matters</a>.</p>
<p>Although Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752455348106166598?s=20">suggested that standards in Delaware are overly strict</a> in another message he posted on X after the ruling, this kind of case is very rare.</p>
<p>One of few similar lawsuits was filed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/business/media/ruling-upholds-disneys-payment-in-firing-of-ovitz.html">against former Disney CEO Michael D. Eisner</a> over his $140 million severance package. In 2005, Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the Delaware Chancery Court let it go, while acknowledging the apparent impropriety of paying an executive so much.</p>
<p>“Despite all the legitimate criticisms that may be leveled at Eisner, especially at having enthroned himself as the omnipotent and infallible monarch of his personal Magic Kingdom,” <a href="https://casetext.com/case/in-re-walt-disney-co-derivative-litigation">Chandler wrote</a>, “I nonetheless conclude, after carefully considering and weighing all the evidence, that Eisner’s actions were taken in good faith.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin P. Klein directs the advisory board of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick is an ex officio member of that center's advisory board.</span></em></p>Musk can’t dodge this ruling by moving Tesla’s incorporation to Texas.Justin P. Klein, Director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206562024-01-14T19:05:41Z2024-01-14T19:05:41ZThe first Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. How can I use the Disney character?<p>The earliest versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse entered the public domain in the United States at the start of this year, 95 years since they were introduced to the public in the film Steamboat Willie. </p>
<p>Many characters come into the public domain on New Year’s Day (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain_Day">Public Domain Day</a>) every year. For works “made for hire”, including films, copyright in the United States lasts 95 years; for other works it is the life of an author plus 70 years. </p>
<p>Prior to 1998, copyright for works of corporate ownership lasted 75 years, but the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act">Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998</a>, often nicknamed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act due to the lobbying by Disney, expanded copyright protections to 95 years.</p>
<p>Only this first iteration of Mickey is in the public domain, but it didn’t take long for creators to seize the opportunity – limited though it might be.</p>
<p>Already <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mickey-mouse-at-least-2-horror-movies-disney-copyright-over/">two horror films</a> are on the horizon, albeit with the lawyers on hand to make sure there will be no cease and desist letters! </p>
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<h2>What can people do with Mickey?</h2>
<p>The earlier iterations of Mickey and other characters from Steamboat Willie can be used in any adaptation. </p>
<p>Before this they could only be used in a transformative way under the United States’ <a href="https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/fair-use">fair use exception</a>. Fair use in the US allows creators to transform other existing works as long as they create something new and different from them. </p>
<p>This feature of the US copyright system in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf">recent case</a> reiterated that it would only work where works were not in competition with each other. </p>
<p>From January 1, this factor is irrelevant for early Mickey. As long as creators are not misleading consumers as to Disney endorsement or connection, do not use Mickey’s later likeness, and don’t use the Mickey or characters of Steamboat Willie as a trademark, they are free to go nuts.</p>
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<h2>Can I use Mickey in Australia?</h2>
<p>Many jurisdictions have <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_copyright_terms.svg">different terms</a> for copyright, so it may be that early Mickey is still not free in some places.</p>
<p>In Australia, films made in Australia get <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s93.html">70 years</a> of copyright protection once made public, so all Australian films made public before 1955 are now in the public domain.</p>
<p>Australia’s protection for cinematography works is shorter than the US, but due to a number of <a href="https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/">treaty obligations</a>, member states give the same treatment to foreign works that they do national ones. This means the law that applies will depend on where you are sued, and if an Australian was sued in the US for their usage of early Mickey Mouse before this year you could be liable under US copyright laws. </p>
<p>As of 2024, if Disney sued you in Australia or the US you are likely to win but other jurisdictions may still have some protection, so it will depend on where you publish or show the work. Online, where a work can be “shown” anywhere, the suing company can not just choose any country: there must be some connection for the parties to the country they are being sued in.</p>
<p>Additionally, while Australia does not have a broad fair use exception to copyright, our creators could always use Mickey in a parody or satire or for review or criticism. I may even have used a likeness or two in a law exam question (<a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s200.html">exams have a special exception under the act</a>). </p>
<p>With the early Mickey in the public domain, you no longer need to be satisfied that one of those categories applies. A movie, artwork or literary work that shows the early version of Mickey can be whatever you want. </p>
<p>The issue will then be making sure your creative work is restricted to the early Mickey. For example, when Winnie the Pooh came into the public domain in 2022 only the A.A Milne version was free to use so the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3E74j_xFtg">horror movie</a> made shortly after did not include the famous red t-shirt used in the Disney version. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/life-plus-70-who-really-benefits-from-copyrights-long-life-48971">Life plus 70: who really benefits from copyright's long life?</a>
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<p>A trademark is very different to copyright. Trademarks can last forever as long as registration is renewed, but there is no restriction on using logos and names that are trademarked as long as you are not using it as your own brand identity or mark, and not misleading or confusing consumers as to the origin of products. That means you can’t call your business “Mickey Mouse” or “Steamboat Willie” but you can use the likeness of those early characters in your marketing (as long as it’s not being used as <em>your</em> logo or brand recognition). </p>
<p>A number of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/search?work_search%5Bquery%5D=Mickey+Mouse">fan fiction</a> and perhaps even some more risqué adaptations using Mickey Mouse already exist online. Fan fiction will often also be a copyright infringement but the risk of being sued is slightly smaller. Companies tend to go after those who are making commercial dealings and those that they see as hurting their brand image. Even Banksy has incorporated <a href="https://hexagongallery.com/catalog/artist/banksy/napalm-cant-beat-that-feeling/">Mickey in a work</a> (likely being seen as a parody and as such non-infringing). </p>
<p>On the other hand, commercial publishers are incredibly risk averse and so if you do want to use Mickey be warned there may be an issue getting a publisher to bite. Additionally, merchandising of your creative work may be an issue depending on trademarks in different categories and where you market these. You also will only get copyright protection on original elements you add to the work.</p>
<p>So yes, upload and share the original movie, paint those early Mickeys, sing a song about Steamboat Willie, and enjoy the horror comedies coming out. Next year Popeye will become public domain so don’t be surprised if a slasher horror remake of him is coming soon!</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tiktokkers-are-writing-ratatouille-the-musical-but-who-owns-the-copyright-151294">TikTokkers are writing Ratatouille, the musical. But who owns the copyright?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Hook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The earliest versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse entered the public domain in the United States at the start of this year, 95 years since they were introduced to the public.Sarah Hook, Senior Lecturer in Law, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2033642024-01-11T17:16:09Z2024-01-11T17:16:09ZRedundancies have unintended consequences for all employees, even those who keep their jobs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519774/original/file-20230406-16-wkkmb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=226%2C197%2C6248%2C3420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-shot-asian-sad-jobless-businesswoman-2179277135">Bangkok Click Studio/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tech giants including X (then known as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/02/twitter-reportedly-ready-to-cut-about-3700-employees.html">Twitter</a>) and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/14/tech/meta-layoffs">Facebook owner Meta</a> announced thousands of job cuts globally in 2022 and 2023, as did other firms like entertainment company <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/27/media/disney-layoffs/index.html">Disney</a>, consultancy firm <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/kpmg-lay-off-about-6-deal-advisory-staff-uk-source-2023-10-17/">KPMG</a> and phone company <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/vodafone-plans-11-000-job-cuts-as-new-boss-rues-performance-12881966">Vodafone</a>. And let’s not forget those making redundancies as a result of company collapses such as UK retailer <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/further-9-100-wilko-employees-to-be-made-redundant-after-rescue-deal-collapses-administrators-say-12959338#:%7E:text=News%20%7C%20Sky%20News-,Further%209%2C100%20Wilko%20employees%20to%20be%20made%20redundant%20after%20rescue,find%20a%20buyer%20for%20them.">Wilko</a>. In the UK alone, the number of <a href="https://www.gqlittler.com/resources/news-and-views/spike-in-redundancies-for-uk-businesses.htm">planned redundancies</a> by companies increased by 54% over the last year, from 153,635 to 237,017.</p>
<p>This is likely to continue. Businesses are dealing with <a href="https://ifamagazine.com/number-of-planned-redundancies-in-the-uk-increases-54-in-the-past-year-amid-economic-instability/#:%7E:text=Sharp%20rises%20in%20borrowing%20costs,the%20specialist%20employment%20law%20firm.">sharp rises in borrowing costs</a> and <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours#:%7E:text=Annual%20growth%20in%20regular%20earnings,in%20August%20to%20October%202023.">continued wage growth</a>, at the same as consumer spending is falling, affecting industries like <a href="https://www.adnews.com.au/news/a-redundancy-rush-as-the-industry-prepares-for-a-slow-start-to-2024">advertising</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/29/britons-cut-back-on-dining-out-and-buying-clothes-barclays-reveals">retail</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, such news has a very direct impact on those that lose their jobs. But all employees are impacted by reductions in a workforce. The employees made redundant are undoubtedly the victims, but those at risk are semi-victims, even if they are redeployed into another role. </p>
<p>Even the survivors – employees that don’t get laid off – are affected by stress and increased workloads in some cases. And let’s not forget the “bringers of bad news”: the management and HR teams that have to execute the layoff process may also feel stress or guilt.</p>
<p>Each group experiences job cuts in a very different way, of course. But there are some consistencies in how all are affected – and in how to help.</p>
<h2>1. Decreased trust leading to a toxic work environment</h2>
<p>As soon as redundancies are announced, the <a href="https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/psychological-factsheet/">“psychological contract”</a> that outlines the relationship between employees and employer is damaged. Essentially, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003030416/strategic-redundancy-implementation-madeleine-stevens">trust is breached</a> as the worker’s expectations and beliefs about their employer are challenged. The idea that everyone is working towards a common goal can be shattered by a redundancy announcement.</p>
<p>When trust is broken in this way, employees might start making decisions about their loyalty and commitment. Experiencing <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/double-jeopardy-surreptitious-consequences-redundancy">an “unsafe” environment psychologically</a>, or low levels of job insecurity, can encourage people to look for new work opportunities – sometimes before redundancies are even announced. Consequently, organisations might <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003030416/strategic-redundancy-implementation-madeleine-stevens">lose talented and skilled staff</a> that they would have saved from redundancy. </p>
<h2>2. Psychological stress leading to increased absenteeism</h2>
<p>All employees can experience significant levels of stress <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003030416/strategic-redundancy-implementation-madeleine-stevens">during a layoff process</a>. For those made redundant, this stress is exacerbated by financial concerns about how they will pay their bills. The feelings of helplessness and anxiety over a job loss could lead to ill mental and physical health.</p>
<p>Semi-survivors (those whose jobs were at risk but ultimately weren’t made redundant) and survivors often also experience stress due to an increased workload. They may have to pick up additional duties previously carried out by employees who have been made redundant. Leaders can also <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2021.1976246">experience stress</a>. They deal with disgruntled employees, but they also usually have to deliver the unpleasant news of job losses in the first place. </p>
<h2>3. Job insecurity leading to loss of talent</h2>
<p>Once people experience the kind of breach of trust that can come with mass lay-offs, it can lead to feelings of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2021.1976246">job insecurity and low morale</a>. You might think to yourself: “I may as well get ahead of the game and find another job now.” Or: “Why would I stay with this organisation? Do my bosses even know what they are doing?”</p>
<p>So, whether other workers are due to lose their jobs or not, they may start to apply for alternative roles. And in most situations, it’s unsurprising that the most talented employees, and those that are highly skilled, can often easily find new employment. A voluntary exit of workers at the same time as or after a redundancy programme can cause significant damage to the business if skilled and talented employees that are imperative to operational success leave at a time of organisational vulnerability. </p>
<p>Social media platform X (then known as Twitter) found this to be the case after making redundancies in November 2022. Around 1,000 employees <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/21/23472025/elon-musk-twitter-hiring-again-ending-layoffs">resigned voluntarily</a> after redundancy announcements were made following the sale of the business to Elon Musk. The employer/employee power shifted and the company had to start rehiring or replacing valuable, highly skilled employees, having only just made redundancies.</p>
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<img alt="Young professionals company employees diverse staff members gather together sit on chairs brainstorming solving working moments having dispute express opinion point of view." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519775/original/file-20230406-26-mbj9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Communication should be an important part of a layoffs plan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-professionals-company-employees-diverse-staff-1770506714">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Tackling the hidden consequences of redundancies</h2>
<p>What can employers do to limit the unforeseen consequences of workforce stress during redundancies?</p>
<p>First of all, communicating redundancies with compassion can help keep employees on board. Communication should come from the top, with the leadership team owning the message. But it also needs to be a two-way process, allowing all employees to have their questions answered. My research with Claire Hannibal into so-called <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2021.1976246">“redundancy envoys”</a> (those who deliver the redundancy message) shows that the rationale for job cuts needs to be transparent, clearly communicated and fully understood by employees.</p>
<p>Second, each impacted group needs support that is tailored to their needs. Providing more generous compensation packages for victims of redundancy can help to alleviate immediate financial concerns. Employers can also help them network with companies that are hiring, or connect them with organisations providing training and skills for new roles, or that educate people about self-employment or retirement.</p>
<p>Employers should also offer career and trauma counselling support to all employees. This will help them understand and manage the range of emotions they may feel – from guilt, anger and resentment, to stress and sadness.</p>
<p>Finally, employers need to think carefully about job design for the remaining roles. Due to increased workloads and survivors often having to pick up new sills, every role must be realigned with the organisation’s revised vision. Employees should be supported to understand any new tasks they need to prioritise – and which tasks they no longer have to fulfil. Providing training and development will also help to rebuild employee’s confidence in the organisation.</p>
<p>Although making redundancies is very unpleasant for the whole workforce, there are ways for employers to undertake the process with compassion, treating all employees – whether they’re leaving or staying – with dignity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Company layoffs can have unintended consequences, even for those spared from redundancy.Madeleine Stevens, Reader in Organisational Transformation and Teaching Innovation, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207662024-01-09T19:17:04Z2024-01-09T19:17:04ZVale ‘sister suffragette’: how Glynis Johns became a pop-culture icon in the story of votes for women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568340/original/file-20240108-23-ok22xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C1173%2C658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Glynis Johns, most famous for her role as the suffragette mother Mrs Winifred Banks in Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964), passed away last week at the age of 100. </p>
<p>A fourth-generation performer who made her <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-17-ca-126-story.html">stage debut</a> in London when she was only three weeks old, Johns inherited her Welsh father’s love of acting. She appeared with him in The Halfway House (1944) and The Sundowners (1960) and argued for the establishment of a Welsh National Theatre <a href="https://twitter.com/huwthomas/status/791367871242862592">as early as 1971</a>. </p>
<p>Johns’s career spanned eight decades in Hollywood, Broadway and the British stage and screen. As Palm Springs’s Desert Sun <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19630426.2.50">reported</a> in 1962, her “husky voice and big blue eyes” were her hallmarks. But it was her portrayal of Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins which would make her a pop culture icon.</p>
<h2>A childhood inspiration</h2>
<p>Feminist activists and scholars often describe the Mrs Banks character as a childhood inspiration. </p>
<p>As feminist communications scholar Amanda Firestone <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Resist_and_Persist/s5HiDwAAQBAJ">reflects</a> on the film: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I especially loved […] Mrs Banks (Glynis Johns), who marches around the family home, putting Votes for Women sashes onto the housekeeper, cook, and the (departing) nanny. Of course, as a kid, I had no idea that the people and events embedded in the song’s lyrics were actual parts of history, but I did find a kind of joy in a vague notion of women’s empowerment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Set in 1910, the symbolism associated with Mrs Banks references the history of the British suffragettes. Johns’ musical showstopper, Sister Suffragette, directly refers to <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-pankhursts-politics-protest-and-passion/">Emmeline Pankhurst</a>, who founded the militant Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903. In 1906 British newspapers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859007003239">coined</a> the moniker “suffragette” to mock the union. </p>
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<p>This ambivalence continued into the 1960s. Historian Laura E. Nym Mayhall <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316653">argues</a> that American concern over the impact of women’s public roles on their domestic responsibilities influenced the film’s depiction of Mrs Banks, especially her movement from a public suffragette back into an involved mother at the film’s end.</p>
<p>For Mayhall, the figure of the suffragette emerges in popular culture as “a symbol of modernity”: a harbinger of democracy and political progress whose characterisation would elide ongoing struggles such as the civil rights movement. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568335/original/file-20240108-23-tf6kwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">This 1909 Dunston Weiler Lithograph Co. anti-suffrage postcard offers resonances of Mrs Banks and her household staff in Mary Poppins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://thesuffragepostcardproject.omeka.net/items/show/44">Catherine H. Palczewski Postcard Archive/The Suffrage Postcard Project</a></span>
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<p>While some see the character of the suffragette mother as <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Mary_Poppins/BLujEAAAQBAJ">supporting</a> women’s votes during the 1910s and women’s liberation during the 1960s, other readings of the film suggest a more satirical representation of the suffrage movement. Some historians even find <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-6923118">resonances</a> of anti-suffrage propaganda in Mrs Banks, including in her usage of her Votes for Women sash as the tail of a kite in the film’s final scene. </p>
<p>Looking back at film reviews offers insight into how audiences received this character – and, by extension, Johns as an actor. American studies scholar Lori Kenschaft <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Girls_Boys_Books_Toys.html?id=Or13vhnA_W4C">suggests</a> that film critics who saw Mrs Banks as a “nutty suffragette mother” reiterated popular stereotypes about suffragettes and feminists being “mentally unbalanced”.</p>
<p>Such stereotypes may have been reinforced by the film’s depiction of motherhood and the nuclear family. Involved parenting emerged as the bedrock of the 1960s nuclear family, an idea both supported and actively promoted by Walt Disney in both his films and his theme parks, as <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Children_Childhood_and_Musical_Theater/XHrRDwAAQBAJ">argued</a> by American musicologist William A. Everett.</p>
<p>As Mrs Banks, Johns embodied the transition from the distant, uninvolved parenting of the British middle-class in the earlier 20th century to the involved mother who facilitated the stable nuclear family. As women’s studies scholar Anne McLeer <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316893">argues</a>, Mary Poppins, through Johns’ portrayal of Mrs Banks, demonstrated the liberated woman of the 1960s could be contained within the nuclear family: the bedrock for a Western capitalist economy. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-new-mary-poppins-film-acknowledge-the-suffragettes-success-106771">Will the new Mary Poppins film acknowledge the suffragettes' success?</a>
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<h2>A long career</h2>
<p>Beyond Mary Poppins, her most prominent role was in Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical A Little Night Music (1973).</p>
<p>Johns originated the character of ageing actress Desiree Armfeldt, becoming the first to sing Send in the Clowns. As she <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-17-ca-126-story.html">reflected</a> of the classic in 1991: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s still part of me. And when you’ve got a song like Send in the Clowns, it’s timeless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sondheim composed this song with Johns’s famously husky voice in mind. Yet some were less enamoured with her performance. One 1973 theatre critic <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3850619">described</a> Johns as “a now somewhat overage tomboy, kittenish and raspy-voiced, precise and amusing in her delivery of lines but utterly, utterly unseductive.” </p>
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<p>A veteran of stage and screen, Johns appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. In 1998, she was honoured with a Disney Legends Award for her role as Mrs Banks. Johns also received critical acclaim throughout her career, including a Laurel Award for Mary Poppins and a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for A Little Night Music. </p>
<p>Regardless of how incongruous her status as a “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-05/glynis-johns-mary-poppins-send-in-the-clowns/103287036">Disney feminist icon</a>” may be, Johns’s extraordinary influence upon the 20th century’s cultural memory is a remarkable legacy. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-to-the-ladies-who-lunch-one-of-sondheims-greatest-achievements-was-writing-complex-women-172765">Here's to the ladies who lunch: one of Sondheim's greatest achievements was writing complex women</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ana Stevenson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Helwig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Glynis Johns, most famous for her role as the suffragette mother Mrs Winifred Banks in Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964), passed away last week at the age of 100.Ana Stevenson, Senior Lecturer, University of Southern QueenslandLindsay Helwig, Lecturer in Pathways, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177742023-12-08T13:34:52Z2023-12-08T13:34:52ZConservatives’ ‘anti-woke’ alternative to Disney has finally arrived<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564036/original/file-20231206-15-bo3nqp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C5%2C3918%2C2618&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Daily Wire co-CEO Caleb Robinson, co-CEO Jeremy Boreing and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro attend the red carpet premiere of 'Lady Ballers' on Nov. 29, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/caleb-robinson-jeremy-boreing-and-ben-shapiro-attend-the-news-photo/1822502280?adppopup=true">Jason Davis/Getty Images for Bentkey Ventures</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As fanfare blares, female sprinters at the starting line suspiciously eye a man in a wig. A hulking, goateed wrestler slams a woman half his size to the mat. An ominous voice-over intones that women’s sports are being “trans-formed.”</p>
<p>No, this isn’t the beginning of a classic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls026509984/">cross-dressing comedy</a>. It’s the trailer for “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30216176/">Lady Ballers</a>,” a new right-wing movie that farcically depicts cisgendered men claiming to be women in order to dominate women’s sports.</p>
<p>At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the movie as yet another example of the meme that <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/conservatives-have-one-joke">conservatives only have one joke</a>, repeated ad nauseam, mocking liberal views on gender identity. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520402966/thats-not-funny">my own research</a> has explored the vast network of conservative comedy that bolsters right-wing political efforts.</p>
<p>Now, in addition to comedy, U.S. conservatives are using action films, dramas and even kids’ cartoons to build their own alternative entertainment industry, one shielded from the alleged liberal biases of Hollywood.</p>
<p>The most prominent recent efforts are two streaming entertainment platforms from right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro and “Lady Ballers” star <a href="https://www.politicon.com/speaker/jeremy-boreing/">Jeremy Boreing</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/style/daily-wire-nashville-conservative-media.html">DailyWire+</a> offers documentaries, Westerns and faith-based fantasy series. Its companion streaming platform, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/16/daily-wire-streaming-kids-bentkey-disney">Bentkey</a>, which launched in October 2023, specializes in children’s programming.</p>
<p>To be sure, these streamers have miles to go before challenging Netflix and Disney+. But by strategically targeting their politically engaged audiences, the platforms have been successful – and could have more staying power than prior attempts at making music and movies for conservatives.</p>
<h2>Swings, misses – and a few hits</h2>
<p>U.S. conservatives have successfully launched and steered a number of news outlets. They have a spottier record when it comes to entertainment, whether it’s feature films, pop songs or kids’ shows.</p>
<p>In 2013, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum became the CEO of EchoLight Studios, which <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/rick-santorum-becomes-ceo-faith-574199/">produced several faith-based films in the 2010s</a>. Similarly, the pundit and documentary filmmaker <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/dinesh-dsouza-facts-history.html">Dinesh D'Souza</a> has had a few modest box office hits centered on right-wing conspiracy theories. These efforts saw limited success because their niche political appeal was mismatched with theatrical movies’ wide distribution.</p>
<p>Other forms of conservative entertainment have briefly gone viral, before all but disappearing – perhaps because they’re too closely aligned with current events to have staying power. Kid Rock’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=kyFnLqJx-uU">We the People</a>” bemoaned COVID-19 restrictions and “Bidenomics,” while Jason Aldean’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_RKu-ESCY">Try That In a Small Town</a>” tried to harness conservative resentment toward Black Lives Matter protests a few years too late.</p>
<p>One notable conservative entertainment hit is the 2023 thriller “The Sound of Freedom.” The movie’s surprise success had as much to do with its subject matter – child trafficking, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/sound-of-freedom-movie/">which is catnip for right-wing conspiracists</a> – as it did with its unique financing. The film’s producer, Angel Studios, used an <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/sound-of-freedom-box-office-analysis-crowdfunding-pay-it-forward-1234881363/">equity crowdfunding model</a> that gave 100,000 individual investors a say in creative and marketing decisions.</p>
<p>Then “The Sound of Freedom” used a “pay it forward” marketing scheme that encouraged the film’s fans to buy tickets for like-minded friends and family. Although Angel Studios <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sound-of-freedom-angel-studios-pay-it-forward-1235550898/">won’t disclose how much revenue “pay it forward” generated</a>, the movie <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/11/sound-of-freedom-amazon-prime-video.html">has an overall gross</a> of nearly US$250 million against a $14.5 million budget.</p>
<p>“The Sound of Freedom” allowed audiences literally to buy into the film’s success, which its marketing campaign equated with actively rejecting Hollywood’s liberal agenda. A similar dynamic informed the launch – and will likely determine the future – of DailyWire+ and Bentkey.</p>
<h2>Packaging conservatism for kids</h2>
<p>Shapiro is among the <a href="https://voz.us/ben-shapiro-endorses-ron-desantis-as-republican-presidential-nominee/?lang=en">most vocal backers</a> of Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. Both are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/desantis-signs-dont-say-gay-expansion-gender-affirming-care-ban-rcna84698">deeply hostile to LGBTQ+ rights</a>. They’ve also routinely claimed that supporters of “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/gov-ron-desantis-addresses-woke-gender-ideology-dont-say-gay-law/">woke gender ideology</a>” like Disney are “<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1600858728856965121">grooming</a>” children.</p>
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<p>In late 2022, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/17/daily-wire-1m-subscribers">DailyWire+ surpassed 1 million subscribers</a> by releasing programming that stoked these culture war concerns. Among the platform’s hits were right-wing commentator Matt Walsh’s anti-trans documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20256528/">What Is A Woman?</a>” and PragerU’s video shorts that advocate for conservative pet issues through sober, educational-sounding explainers. Then, of course, there are comedies like “Lady Ballers.”</p>
<p>Boreing has explicitly highlighted the disconnect between viewers’ politics and their entertainment options. </p>
<p>“[Americans are] tired of giving their money to woke media companies who want to indoctrinate their children with radical race and gender theory,” he told The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/31/daily-wire-kids/">ahead of Bentkey’s recent launch</a>.</p>
<p>Bentkey strives to directly counterprogram Disney with its own conservative family programming. “Chip Chilla,” for instance, is a fairly transparent rip-off of the Disney+-distributed hit “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/31/1191155197/bluey-tv-show-new-series-disney">Bluey</a>,” a cartoon about the hijinks of a family of Australian dogs.</p>
<p>The creators of “Chip Chilla” include <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/rob-schneider-politics-conservative-anti-vaxxer-1234779419/">“Saturday Night Live” alumnus-turned-anti-vaxxer</a> Rob Schneider and Ethan Nicolle, the former creative director of the right-wing satire website <a href="https://babylonbee.com/">The Babylon Bee</a>.</p>
<p>The platform also aims to challenge Disney’s dominance in the princess realm. Bentkey’s forthcoming fantasy film “Snow White and The Evil Queen” stars the popular conservative YouTuber Brett Cooper and purports <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/10/daily-wire-snow-white-movie-youtuber-brett-cooper-watch-1235574937/">to emphasize the fairy tale’s traditional social values</a>.</p>
<h2>If politics is downstream from culture …</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/06/13/media-job-cuts-record">As media grapple with declining advertising revenue</a>, DailyWire+ and Bentkey are betting that loyal, politically engaged subscribers will drive their growth. </p>
<p>Shapiro’s strategy aligns with that of X, which is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/musk-says-twitter-now-x-is-moving-to-monthly-subscriptions.html">backing into a subscription model</a> as chairman Elon Musk’s impulsive tweets alienate advertisers. </p>
<p>In a move away from the ad-supported YouTube, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/daily-wire-bringing-podcasts-twitter">Shapiro struck a deal with Musk</a> for X to host The Daily Wire’s podcasts. Like Shapiro, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/politics/elon-musk-ron-desantis/index.html">Musk is a supporter of DeSantis</a>, with X – then known as Twitter – infamously hosting the candidate’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/politics/ron-desantis-campaign-announcement-twitter.html">disastrous campaign launch</a> in May 2023.</p>
<p>Backed by this confluence of powerful right-wing voices, conservative entertainment can engage the Republican electorate in new ways. Liberals would do well <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/13/liberals-should-worry-conservative-comedy-00031907">not to dismiss</a> its potentially galvanizing effects before the 2024 election.</p>
<p>The late right-wing muckraker Andrew Breitbart – a mentor of Shapiro – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/progressives-republican-censorship.html">famously asserted</a> that politics is downstream from culture.</p>
<p>If this is, in fact, the case, slapstick comedy and children’s animation just might buoy the next wave of conservative activism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217774/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Marx does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through action films, dramas and kids’ cartoons, right-wing activists are working to build their own alternative entertainment universe insulated from Hollywood’s purported liberal biases.Nick Marx, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186152023-11-30T15:50:10Z2023-11-30T15:50:10ZHow Frozen became the catalyst for Disney’s shift from male-centric tales<p>The landscape of animated musical films has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. Male storylines, once the hallmark of the genre, have taken a back seat, thanks to the revolutionary success of a film that centres around the relationship between two sisters: Disney’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-frozen-took-over-the-world">Frozen</a>. Released in 2013, it marks an important turning point in the history of animated musicals. </p>
<p>Frozen not only provided a song every five-year-old can sing, it was also the catalyst for the shift away from Disney tales that centred around the experience of a young male protagonist.</p>
<p>It set the stage for the rise of empowering culturally rich narratives in the decade that followed. Subsequent hits included the strongly female-centric <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/04/moana-review-disney">Moana</a> (2016), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/15/encanto-review-disney-lin-manuel-miranda-blandly-frictionless-fairy-tale">Encanto</a> (2021), and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/13/turning-red-review-pixar-fizzing-journey-through-female-adolescence">Turning Red</a> (2022), marking a new era in animated storytelling celebrating different kinds of voices and perspectives.</p>
<h2>Frozen: sisterly bonds and resilience</h2>
<p>Breaking away from the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/fairy-tales-children-stop-reading-parents-body-image-gender-roles-women-girls-sexism-a8067641.html">conventional princess-rescued-by-prince formula</a>, the film instead thrusts two sisters, Elsa and Anna, into the limelight.</p>
<p>Elsa, grappling with her magical ice powers, becomes a symbol of empowerment, challenging the age-old notion that a princess’s narrative must revolve around romance. This departure from tradition allows for a nuanced exploration of themes including self-discovery, sisterhood and more complex nuanced female characters.</p>
<p>Instead of focusing on romantic entanglements, the film prioritises the bond between the two sisters. Elsa’s struggle with her inner demons and Anna’s unwavering support forges a narrative centred on familial love and resilience. This thematic shift lays the foundation for future films, exploring the richness of relationships beyond romantic love.</p>
<p>The success of Frozen extends beyond the box office, leaving a permanent mark on popular culture. The film’s anthem, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk">Let it Go</a>, became a global phenomenon, symbolising empowerment and self-acceptance with an outstanding performance by self-proclaimed feminist <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/krystal-clear/frozens-idina-menzel-feminist-too-msna488146">Idina Menzel</a>.</p>
<p>Elsa’s journey resonated with international audiences, fostering a social evolution that demanded more diverse and inclusive narratives. Filmmakers took note, acknowledging the enthusiasm for stories that resisted gender norms while celebrating the strength of female characters.</p>
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<h2>Moana: strength and cultural authenticity</h2>
<p>Following in the snowshoes of Frozen, Disney’s Moana (2016) continues to push the boundaries of animated storytelling. The film’s eponymous protagonist embarks on a daring oceanic adventure, challenging the notion that only male characters can be the heroes of epic quests.</p>
<p>Moana’s journey is not defined by a romantic interest but by courage, leadership, and connection to her Polynesian heritage. The film celebrates cultural diversity, introducing audiences to a world beyond traditional Disney settings. Moana goes a step further, embracing cultural authenticity in its storyline. The film draws inspiration from Polynesian mythology featuring an inclusive cast that reflects the <a href="https://variety.com/2016/film/news/moana-box-office-feminist-disney-1201927383/">diversity of the Pacific Islands</a>.</p>
<p>By weaving cultural elements seamlessly into the narrative, Moana not only entertains but educates audiences about traditions and values, adopting a greater appreciation for diverse perspectives. The soundtrack, featuring songs by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gYhu7vMFk4">Lin-Manuel Miranda</a>, seamlessly blends a Pacific ambience with a classic Disney sensibility. This fusion enriches the narrative even further than the enchanting but Disney-safe melodies of Frozen.</p>
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<h2>Encanto: familial love and struggles</h2>
<p>The success of Frozen and Moana set the stage for Disney’s Encanto (2021), another milestone. It continues the trend of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/27/opinions/disney-encanto-female-representation-hope/index.html">empowering female characters</a>, placing the spotlight on Mirabel, a young Colombian girl with no magical powers in a family full of gifted individuals.</p>
<p>The film breaks from a convention of singular heroines, embracing a narrative that stresses the collective strength of family. Encanto not only showcases the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIj6RE5mC8A">diversity of Latin American cultures</a> through its story, music and lyrics, it celebrates different strengths and struggles within a community.</p>
<p>By portraying a range of characters with distinct personalities and challenges, the film offers a more inclusive representation of life experiences. This departure from one-dimensional characterisations marks a retreat from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/">male-dominated stories of the past</a>, reflecting a commitment to multidimensional storytelling.</p>
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<h2>Turning Red: embracing diversity and reality</h2>
<p>This 2022 Disney animation follows Mei Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl, who transforms into a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited (which is practically always). Mei’s story is a coming-of-age tale about dealing with puberty, family expectations and finding one’s own voice. It is innovative in several ways.</p>
<p>First, it is the first Disney Pixar film directed solely by a woman, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7626019/">Domee Shi</a>. Second, it is one of the few animated films that centres on an Asian-American protagonist. And third, it frankly and honestly explores the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/10/entertainment/turning-red-puberty-periods-wellness-cec/index.html">challenges of puberty, particularly for girls</a>.</p>
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<p>Turning Red challenges traditional gender roles through its portrayal of Mei’s relationship with her protective, overbearing and controlling mother, Ming. Mei’s transformation into a red panda symbolises her growing independence and a desire to break free from her mother’s expectations.</p>
<p>Mei’s best friends Miriam, Priya and Abby are strong independent girls who support each other through thick and thin. They also help Mei to embrace her red panda side. This refreshing animation challenges traditional gender roles and celebrates female bonds and friendship.</p>
<h2>Seismic shift</h2>
<p>The evolution of Disney’s animated musicals represents a seismic shift in the industry. These films have broken away from men’s stories, creating space for refreshing and culturally rich tales that resonate with audiences of all ages. The legacy of these trailblazing productions is testament to the power of inclusive storytelling, proving that there is immense value in narratives that look beyond traditional norms and celebrate the diversity of the human experience.</p>
<p>Exciting developments are on the horizon for Disney enthusiasts, with Frozen 3 currently in production, and the live-action adaptation of Moana under way. </p>
<p>Now ten years old, Frozen has helped give rise to a new era in animated musicals, one that embraces the richness of storytelling beyond the confines of gender stereotypes. We can all look forward to more enchanting destinations as Disney continues to weave a magical narrative around the themes of difference, empowerment and cultural authenticity.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Langston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The success of Frozen extends beyond the box office, leaving a permanent mark on popular culture.Stephen Langston, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Performance, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183812023-11-24T14:14:57Z2023-11-24T14:14:57ZFrozen’s 10th anniversary: how the musical reignited our love for sing-along cinema<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561369/original/file-20231123-21-bib777.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney Media</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten years ago a musical phenomenon hit our screens, one which captured the hearts of a large and diverse audience and whose songs have already become classics. The 2013 film Frozen is now widely recognised as one of the most memorable and loved Disney animated films, whether measured <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?area=XWW&ref_=bo_cso_ac">economically</a> or by <a href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/all-disney-animated-theatrical-movies-ranked-by-tomatometer/">popular critical reception</a>. </p>
<p>Frozen’s revision of the Disney Princess <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-contemporary-disney-animation.html">genre</a> clearly resonated with audiences of all ages. Its message of empowerment and self-determination spoke to present day concerns about gender, sexuality and identity. Music was central to communicating these ideas, especially the showstopping song Let It Go. </p>
<p>A large part of that musical appeal has been singalongs, inviting audiences to go beyond watching and listening to interactively participating. The popularity of Frozen singalongs might be assumed to be a new phenomenon in cinema spectatorship and consumption. However, they continue a century-long tradition of cinema singing that has been forgotten. </p>
<h2>Singalongs in cinema history</h2>
<p>In the 1910s and 1920s, <a href="https://archive.org/details/communitymusicsu00comm">community singing movements</a> became a popular shared musical activity in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/2937/chapter-abstract/143604751?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Britain</a>, Australia, the US and beyond. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt6dg">Community singing</a> was seen to foster musical appreciation, patriotic ideals and individual mental health. It often took place in cinemas. While songbooks or illustrated song slides were commonly used, many <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315276274-4/sing-malcolm-cook">singalong films</a> were also made, providing onscreen lyrics to support the collective singing.</p>
<p>The Fleischer animation studio innovated the “bouncing ball” lyric presentation in its <a href="https://archive.org/details/filmdaily3940newy/page/548/mode/1up?view=theater">Song Cartune singalong cartoon series</a> between 1924 and 1927. It continued as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnovy1yH40g&ab_channel=EstherMorgan-Ellis">Screen Songs</a> series until the 1950s. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">An example of the Fleischer Screen Song series, The Peanut Vendor from 1933.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In the 1930s, Mickey Mouse clubs and other children’s cinema screenings routinely included <a href="https://archive.org/details/photo42chic/page/n697/mode/2up?view=theater">communal singing</a> to bond the audience with each other and fostering brand loyalty.</p>
<p>The rise of radio and television broadcasting in the mid-20th century meant singalongs migrated to these new media. Now, the audience was increasingly expected to imagine their shared participation with a dispersed audience, mediated through these new technologies. </p>
<p>The 1930s <a href="https://archive.org/details/radiom00macf/page/n253/mode/2up?view=theater">Gillette and Palmolive Community Sing</a> radio shows, broadcast by the American CBS network, indicate the way singalongs were increasingly used as a vehicle for sponsorship and advertising. Similarly, in Australia, the local <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZ2w6Q_Uww&ab_channel=balancedaustralia">Aeroplane Jelly</a> brand used singalongs to promote their products in cinemas. </p>
<p>The British Ovaltine malted milk drink likewise used singalongs to connect with consumers, both in radio broadcasts on <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/de2b7fn3">Radio Luxembourg</a> and tie-in events with cinema clubs. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMxGmjFhHG0&ab_channel=IainLucey19">Retro reuse</a> of these examples in more recent years indicate how singalongs had become a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwk76kwuTsQ&ab_channel=AeroplaneJellyAus">nostalgic</a> relic of the past. </p>
<h2>Singing along with Frozen</h2>
<p>Frozen has tapped into this history. In January 2014, two months after Frozen’s initial box office success, Disney re-released the film in a <a href="https://www.awn.com/news/disney-announces-all-new-sing-along-frozen">singalong version</a>. This included on-screen lyrics and a bouncing snowflake to guide audiences – the bouncing ball of the Fleischer animation studio Frozen-ified.</p>
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<p>This version was subsequently released as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1igFKuzTYc&ab_channel=WaltDisneyAnimationStudios">special edition DVD</a> in November 2014. Singing along was so popular that Disney released a singalong version of the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/7560462-Unknown-Artist-Disney-SingAlong-Frozen">soundtrack</a>. The CD featured instrumental versions of the songs and came with a lyric book. </p>
<p>Typical of Disney’s cross-promotional synergy, the corporation’s theme parks started hosting singalong events in 2014. <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/7560462-Unknown-Artist-Disney-SingAlong-Frozen">For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration</a> opened at the Florida Walt Disney World resort in July 2014 and went on to feature at Disney parks around the world, including multiple <a href="https://www.dlpguide.com/news/2015/03/frozen-summer-fun-is-coming-to-disneyland-paris-everything-you-need-to-know/">localised language versions</a>. </p>
<p>The Disney-sanctioned singalongs have stimulated widespread fan activity and social media singalongs. In 2015, a family screening of the singalong version of Frozen in London’s Hyde Park was awarded a <a href="https://www.funkidslive.com/news/we-set-a-guinness-world-record-at-barclaycard-presents-british-summer-time-hyde-park/">Guinness World Record</a> for the most people singing live in a radio broadcast. </p>
<p>Frozen songs have become a staple for school and community choirs, with countless examples uploaded to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=school+choir+frozen">YouTube</a>. During the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cipbsHbZZI&ab_channel=TaleofFantasy">virtual choirs</a> singing Frozen songs provided an opportunity for human contact during months of isolation and lockdown.</p>
<p>YouTube and TikTok are also filled with innumerable videos of fans singing along with Frozen songs. The Disney Junior UK TV channel ran a Facebook competition inviting viewers to submit their own rendition of Let It Go, and the compilation has been viewed more that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XswVjjMmHAY&ab_channel=DisneyJuniorUK">250 million times</a>.</p>
<p>In the present day, with cinema attendance needing to compete with the convenience of streaming services, <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526140173/">special events and interactive audience participation</a> are becoming increasingly popular. </p>
<p>The renewed interest and popularity of singalongs, thanks in part to the success of Frozen, provides one way to attract audiences back. With two further Frozen <a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/frozen-4-in-the-works/">sequels</a> in the works, it seems like audiences will be singing along with Anna and Elsa for the next ten years. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The musical has become a singalong sensation harking back to a day when cinema was more of a communal experience.Malcolm Cook, Associate Professor in Film Studies, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127832023-10-16T04:05:32Z2023-10-16T04:05:32Z100 years of Disney: from a cartoon mouse to a global giant, how Walt Disney conquered the world<p>On October 16 1923, brothers Walt and Roy <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/walt-disney-company-founded">set up a modest cartoon studio</a>. Their goal was to produce short animated films. They created a new character: a mouse, with large ears. </p>
<p>Named “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mickey-Mouse">Mickey</a>”, he soon became one of the world’s most recognisable images. </p>
<p>Walt Disney was an innovator in terms of space, colour and movement. He had an uncanny ability to provide pleasure for millions of viewers struggling through the Great Depression. </p>
<p>A century later, Disney is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/06/08/the-worlds-largest-media-companies-in-2023-comcast-and-disney-stay-on-top/?sh=394eccd354c6">one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates</a>. </p>
<p>Disney has <a href="https://cartoonvibe.medium.com/disneys-influence-on-the-animation-industry-through-its-pioneering-works-bb385c6ceb5f">influenced countless other animation studios and artists</a>. It has received Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature for the likes of The Incredibles, Up and Frozen. Walt himself <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/walt-disney-still-holds-these-5-oscar-records-nearly-60-years-after-his-death/individual-with-the-most-competitive-oscars/">holds the record</a> for most nominations (59) and Oscar wins (22 competitive awards, plus four honorary awards) for a single individual.</p>
<p>Just how did Disney manage to do it? </p>
<h2>Steamboat Willie and technological wonders</h2>
<p>Based in Los Angeles, Disney set about innovating. He created <a href="http://www.thisdayindisneyhistory.com/AliceComedies.html">The Alice Comedies</a>, a series of short films featuring a live-action child actress in a cartoon world. Then came <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19910825">Oswald the Lucky Rabbit</a>, a precursor to Mickey Mouse. </p>
<p>Steamboat Willie, released in 1928, was the world’s first fully synchronised sound cartoon. His <a href="https://www.moma.org/collection/works/302797">pioneering</a> use of sound quickly became an industry norm. </p>
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<p>A simple story featuring Mickey as a steamboat captain trying to navigate the boat while dealing with various comical situations, Steamboat Willie was <a href="https://filmschoolrejects.com/mickey-mouse-steamboat-willie/">universally praised</a>. After a short theatrical run in New York, the film was exhibited nationwide and set Disney on its way. </p>
<p>The clip of Mickey holding the ship’s wheel and whistling became <a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/disney-bw-mickey-mouse-r1jbtDXIAjq92">the company’s logo</a> in 2007, reminding audiences of Steamboat’s enduring importance.</p>
<p>New characters emerged post-Steamboat, such as Donald Duck and Mickey’s love interest, Minnie, which still endure today.</p>
<p>Flowers and Trees, made in 1932, was the first animated short film to win an Academy Award – it was also Disney’s (and the industry’s) first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor">full-colour three-strip Technicolor</a> film.</p>
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<p>By the end of the 1930s, Disney had pivoted to feature-length animated films, releasing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-birthday-mickey-mouse-animations-greatest-showman-is-90-106563">Happy birthday Mickey Mouse – animation's greatest showman is 90</a>
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<h2>The golden age and feature films</h2>
<p>What followed Snow White is often referred to as Disney’s “golden age”, with the release of Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942). </p>
<p>Those early films still dazzle today – think of the Sorcerers’ Apprentice scene in Fantasia (1940) or the Pink Elephants hallucinogenic number in Dumbo. And is there any scene, in any film, more heart-wrenching than <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sCqMEkgLIw">the death of Bambi’s mother</a>?</p>
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<p>But the golden age never really stopped. The hits just kept on coming - Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Mary Poppins (1964) remain enduring classics. In the 1990s, a new generation fell in love with Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994) – and these films were then remade as live-action versions in the 2010s. </p>
<p>Even a minor Disney film like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zootopia">Zootopia</a> (2016) could make a billion dollars at the box-office. </p>
<h2>Disneyland and diversification</h2>
<p>In 1955, Walt Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California. He wanted to build an inclusive theme park where all the family could have fun.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/07/opening-day-disneyland-photos-1955/594655/">set the standard for theme park design</a> and showed the way forward for the company: diversification. </p>
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<p>After Disneyland came Walt Disney World in Florida in 1971, then versions of Disneyland in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/1957-drawing-walt-disney-brilliant-strategy-2015-7">A famous diagram</a>, sketched by Walt himself in 1957, foreshadowed the direction Disney would ultimately take: a huge business empire of synergies, merchandising and cross-promotion.</p>
<h2>Buyouts and a cultural behemoth</h2>
<p>In 2006 Disney bought Pixar, in 2009 it bought Marvel and in 2012 it bought Lucasfilm. These acquisitions solidified Disney’s position as the brand leader in the entertainment industry. </p>
<p>Pixar was known for films like Toy Story (1995) and Finding Nemo (2003) and the purchase would lead to <a href="https://pixune.com/blog/disney-pixar-merger-in-details/">multiple collaborations</a> between the two. </p>
<p>Most recently, in 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox for a staggering US$71 billion. <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/20/18273477/disney-fox-merger-deal-details-marvel-x-men">The deal gave them</a> instant access to Fox’s vast back catalogues. </p>
<p>The deal made <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/12/disney-fox-merger-2019-impact-on-box-office-theaters-major-hollywood-studios-1202525476/">some industry insiders uneasy</a>: Disney had become a cultural behemoth, strangling competition, homogenising content and swallowing up entire franchises.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-disney-turns-100-the-brands-real-legacy-is-its-business-acumen-211372">As Disney turns 100, the brand’s real legacy is its business acumen</a>
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<h2>Not all plain sailing</h2>
<p>Disney films proudly prioritise family values, stress teamwork and empathy and promote gender equality. Yet until relatively recently, its heroes and heroines were very visibly white, and the studio was criticised for <a href="https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1769&context=student_scholarship">invoking</a> messages of privilege, racial hierarchy and standards of beauty. </p>
<p>Its 1946 film Song of the South has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/19/song-of-the-south-the-difficult-legacy-of-disneys-most-shocking-movie">long been criticised</a> for its racist portrayal of African Americans and its romanticisation of the plantation era. Since 1986, Disney have tried to keep it out of circulation, although clips can be found online. </p>
<p>Many old films streaming on Disney+ now feature a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disney-disclaimer-racist-stereotypes-old-movies/">disclaimer</a> telling viewers some scenes will include “negative depictions” and “mistreatment of people or cultures”. </p>
<p>LGBTQ+ representation has become more visible since LeFou became Disney’s first openly gay character in its 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast. But the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/03/04/russia-beauty-and-beast-ban-due-over-gay-character-lefoux/98743116/">backlash was troubling</a>, and Disney also ran into trouble with conservative critics with <a href="https://theconversation.com/lightyears-same-sex-kiss-the-controversy-that-led-to-disneys-first-real-lgbtq-representation-185177">its same-sex kiss</a> in Lightyear (2022), and would later be mocked as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/disney-florida-desantis.html">woke Disney</a>” by conservative politicians and media personalities. </p>
<p>CEO Bob Iger – who stepped down in 2021 but was then brought back in 2022 on a <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/11/21/disney-bob-iger-ceo-pay-stock-awards-bonus/">huge salary</a> – has not fared well during the recent SAG-AFTRA disputes, with comments deemed out of touch and tone-deaf <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/fran-drescher-s-very-public-takedown-of-disney-s-40-million-man-20230721-p5dq49.html">by many</a>.</p>
<p>Still, despite these tricky issues, Disney’s corporate stranglehold shows <a href="https://www.insider.com/disney-pixar-marvel-star-wars-fox-movies-through-2027-2019-5">no sign of abating</a>. Its reach is gigantic. From cartoons to comics to CGI, Disney controls much of our popular culture.</p>
<p>“If you can dream it, you can do it,” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lewishowes/2012/07/17/20-business-quotes-and-lessons-from-walt-disney/?sh=73cb99984ba9">Walt once said</a>. As Disney turns 100, with a market capitalisation today of more than US$150 billion, that’s some dream come true.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/disney-hasnt-found-itself-in-this-much-trouble-since-1941-182206">Disney hasn't found itself in this much trouble since 1941</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben McCann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A hundred years ago, a small animation studio was born. Today, its cultural reach is enormous.Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113722023-10-13T10:50:50Z2023-10-13T10:50:50ZAs Disney turns 100, the brand’s real legacy is its business acumen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542145/original/file-20230810-15-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C59%2C5640%2C2927&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/disney">Pan Xiaozhen/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“100 Years of Wonder” is the theme for Disney’s year-long promotion of the company’s centenary. From special <a href="https://www.disneytickets.co.uk/disney-on-ice-100-years-of-wonder-tickets">Disney on Ice</a> events to a <a href="https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=disneymakingmagic">retrospective</a> at the British Film Institute and limited edition Disney100 merchandise, Disney’s celebration is big business. </p>
<p>The wonder and magic of Disney is consistently promoted. And yet I would argue that Disney’s greatest legacy is not its animated stories or characters, but the more mundane history of its mergers, acquisitions and intellectual property rights.</p>
<p>The business acumen of those behind the scenes at Disney have been central to the peaks and troughs of the company’s enduring presence in the film industry and popular culture at large.</p>
<h2>Early Disney</h2>
<p>The Walt Disney Company was founded in Hollywood by brothers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walt-Disney">Walt</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roy-Disney">Roy Disney</a> in 1923.</p>
<p>Before this, along with friend and animator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ub-Iwerks">Ub Iwerks</a>, the brothers had founded <a href="https://www.visitkc.com/filmtourism/self-guided-tour/laugh-o-gram">Laugh-O-Gram Studio</a> in Kansas City. They then moved west with their successful silent <a href="https://d23.com/a-to-z/alice-comedies/">Alice Comedies series</a>, which featured both animation and live action.</p>
<p>Animation is what the Disney studio became known for. First with their shorts which included Mickey Mouse’s third outing in the studio’s first sound film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4">Steamboat Willie</a>, and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dihJ1w48Jh0">Silly Symphony series</a>. And then in their feature length films, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. </p>
<p>The first two decades of the studio established Disney’s desire for innovation and profit. This was illustrated through their early adoption of merchandising (Mickey Mouse merchandise was profitable <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZnZDcL0Ero">in the mid 1930s</a>) and various technologies, such as Technicolor and sound.</p>
<p>Sinking most of their profits back into their expensive animated ventures led Disney to find ways to cut costs. This included making live action nature series, television shows and opening Disneyland, their first amusement park, in Los Angeles in 1955.</p>
<p>While their animated products were no longer as groundbreaking as they once were, their adoption of television in the 1950s was lucrative and popular, especially <a href="https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_Club">The Mickey Mouse Club</a> (1955) and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/18009-davy-crockett">Davy Crockett</a> (1954).</p>
<p>Furthermore, television afforded the company the opportunity to promote their products and authenticate Disney’s position at the forefront of animation. However, live action films – quicker to make and less expensive than animation – dominated their releases in the 1960s, with stars <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hayley-Mills#:%7E:text=Gandhi%20(1982).-,Mills%20married%20novelist%20and%20playwright%20Mary%20Hayley%20Bell%20in%201941,%2C%20Gentlemen%20Please%2C%20in%201980.">Haley Mills</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fred-MacMurray">Fred MacMurray</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/04/dean-jones">Dean Jones</a> appearing in multiple Disney films. </p>
<p>In 1966, Walt died. Roy then passed in 1971 and Walt Disney World opened in Florida the same year. In many ways, the Disney Company was never the same after the loss of the founding brothers.</p>
<h2>Disney without Walt</h2>
<p>The template was established for how the company would function for the next 50 years. Disney animation innovated again in the late 1980s and early 1990s through computer animation. A renaissance took place with the releases of The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994).</p>
<p>They also expanded into cable television with The Disney Channel and founded a distribution label, <a href="https://medium.com/framerated/disney-for-adults-the-story-behind-touchstone-pictures-9367283b8a5a">Touchstone Pictures</a>, that focused on films for adults. </p>
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<span class="caption">Screen Cartoonist’s Guild on strike at Walt Disney Productions in 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0002v3j3">UCLA Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>There was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/20/archives/11-animators-quit-disney-form-studio-loyalty-is-cited.html">unhappiness among animators</a> at the studio towards the company’s bureaucracy and the perception that profits always went back into the films and not to improving working conditions or salaries (one <a href="https://animationguild.org/about-the-guild/disney-strike-1941/">major strike</a> against Disney took place in 1941). </p>
<p>The list of former Disney animators that went on to work elsewhere or open their own animated studios is <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-08-21/don-bluth-career-secret-of-nimh-anastasia-disney">long and diverse</a>.</p>
<p>Walt had learned the importance of owning rights early in his career, after he lost the intellectual property to his first successful animated character, <a href="https://collider.com/disney-oswald-the-lucky-rabbit-history-explained/">Oswald the Lucky Rabbit</a>. The imperative to retain proprietorship and diversify the corporation can be witnessed in many of Disney’s deals and mergers. </p>
<p>In 1991, Disney agreed to make films with Pixar, which has gone on to be regarded as an innovative animated studio. They later acquired Pixar in 2006.</p>
<h2>Disney Today</h2>
<p>In 1995, Disney acquired the ABC television network, which also owned the cable sports network, ESPN. In April 2004, Disney purchased the Muppets franchise. In 2009, Marvel Entertainment was acquired and Lucasfilm was bought in 2012. </p>
<p>Through these purchases, Disney has become one of the most significant entertainment companies in the world and one of the few early Hollywood studios that still maintains name recognition (Disney bought out 20th Century Fox in 2019).</p>
<p>Whereas for earlier generations Disney stood for Mickey Mouse, animated fairy-tale features and family entertainment, for younger generations, Disney is a streaming service, amusement park brand and the creator of the Star Wars universe television programming. </p>
<p>Traces of Walt, Roy and the pioneering animation established in the early days of the studio can be seen in their animated releases, such as Encanto (2021), and company legacy through the “reimagining” of their animated films, such as the recently released live action <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpGo2_d3oYE">The Little Mermaid</a>.</p>
<p>The commercial landscape of the entertainment business is always in flux. While many companies are operating their own streaming services, the long term success of these services are questionable. This is most evident in the recent writers and actors strike in Hollywood that was mainly focused on outdated royalty models that do not account for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/07/15/actors-strike-what-are-residuals/">streaming media content</a>. </p>
<p>Disney’s last few releases were not as successful as they had anticipated at the box office and they have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2023/08/09/new-record-for-disney-sheds-117-million-subscribers-password-crackdown-coming/">lost a significant amount of Disney+ subscribers</a> this year. However, this is a trend taking place throughout Hollywood and, while Disney is struggling, they remain <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/07/disney-2023-box-office-summer-marvel-indiana-jones-1235431049/">a significant brand</a> in the global media market. </p>
<p>And there is no question that their theme parks continue to be popular with families who want to immerse themselves in all things Disney.</p>
<p>The magic of Disney’s animation and the memories created at their theme parks is part of their “100 years of wonder”. But so is their successful business model that has continually adapted to changes in the entertainment business and its persistent cultural relevance.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Lobalzo Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The business acumen of those behind the scenes at Disney have been central to the peaks and troughs of the company.Julie Lobalzo Wright, Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149362023-10-13T10:50:18Z2023-10-13T10:50:18ZDisney films have always been musical – even in the silent era<p>Disney is <a href="https://press.disney.co.uk/news/disney-100-years-of-wonder-stars-line-up-to-celebrate-disneys-100th-anniversary">celebrating its 100th birthday</a> this month. It’s hard to imagine the studio enjoying such longevity without its strong musical legacy. Songs from recent Disney films, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWRMAU6V-c">We Don’t Talk About Bruno</a> from Encanto (2021) or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC83NA5tAGE&ab_channel=WaltDisneyAnimationStudios">Let It Go</a> from Frozen (2013), have met with great success. But this has been a strength of the studio for much of the past 100 years. </p>
<p>Every decade since the 1930s, Disney has released landmark films featuring musical numbers that remain household favourites today. And the Disney “<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/demystifying-disney-9781623567446/">renaissance</a>” in the 1990s was underpinned by musical stories and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/15/obituaries/howard-ashman-is-dead-at-40-writer-of-little-shop-of-horrors.html">huge Broadway talent</a>. Many of these films were subsequently adapted into <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Disney-Theatrical-Productions-Producing-Broadway-Musicals-the-Disney-Way/Osatinski/p/book/9780367086121">long-running West End and Broadway musicals</a>.</p>
<p>This musical legacy extends right back to the studio’s first sound film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4&ab_channel=WaltDisneyAnimationStudios">Steamboat Willie</a> (1928). Before this, Disney was just one of <a href="https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/margaret-j-winkler/">many competing animation studios</a>. Utilising the new technology of synchronised sound to make Mickey Mouse talk and sing made a huge star of the character – and <a href="https://archive.org/details/filmdaily4950newy/page/600/mode/2up?view=theater">established Disney</a> as the leading animation studio. </p>
<h2>Music in the silent era</h2>
<p>But what about the first five years of the studio between 1923 and 1928? This was the “silent” era of cinema, when films didn’t have soundtracks, but were usually accompanied by a local organist or pianist <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/silent-film-sound/9780231116626">beyond the control of the studio</a>. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, these earliest Disney films didn’t avoid references to sound. The <a href="https://d23.com/a-to-z/alice-comedies/">Alice Comedies</a> (1923-1927) and <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/oswald-the-lucky-rabbit-anniversary-disney/">Oswald the Lucky Rabbit</a> series (1927-1928) the studio made in this period were deeply musical.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white advert for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552062/original/file-20231004-25-iyzlu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Old Oswald advertisement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/universalweekly100movi_4_0215">Media History Digital Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This early launch advertisement for the new Oswald series from 1927 highlights this musicality. Oswald is shown whistling, with musical notes rising from his mouth. </p>
<p>This was a consistent way sound and music were evoked in these early cartoons, often alongside the characters singing or playing music. The first Alice Comedy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFEIVkYSnw">Alice’s Wonderland</a> (1923), features a three-piece cat band playing for Alice. Musical notes rise from their instruments while two other cats dance to the music. </p>
<p>The first Oswald cartoon produced, although only released later, was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcnw6SwcL0g">Poor Papa</a> (1927). It similarly features several musical sequences, where graphical notes signified the presence of music. </p>
<p>Onomatopoeic musical words were commonly used, such as a “zzz” indicating the snoring of sleeping characters, a “kiss” or “smack” directed between amorous lovers or the “ouch”, “yow”, or “eee” of characters being hit. </p>
<p>These are complemented by similar graphic-word phrases emitted by inanimate objects where the source has no capacity for language and the word is clearly intended as an evocation of a pure sound. Repeated examples of this include the “clang clang” or “toot toot” of a train, the “honk honk” of a car horn, the “ding dong” of bells ringing or the “pop” or “bang” of guns.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QPquaJILU9w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Alice the Whaler (1927).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Animated cartoons in the silent period were very self-reflexive and brought attention to themselves as drawn constructions. As a result, their onscreen musical notation often became integral to gags. </p>
<p>In Alice the Whaler (1927) a parrot eats rising musical notes as if they were grapes. Meanwhile in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JnJT9VOg8A">Alice the Fire Fighter</a> (1926), a pianist saves a group of mice from a burning building as the rising music notes form a stairway for the victims to escape. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaenczorzGk">Rival Romeos</a> (1928) Oswald attempts to serenade his love, but is thwarted in a series of music-related gags. This includes rising musical notes turning into stick people who begin to fight and a goat eating his sheet music. That gag is repeated almost identically in Steamboat Willie, indicating the continuity between silent and sound eras.</p>
<h2>Pop songs and pop stars</h2>
<p>In addition to these general musical elements, many of the silent Disney cartoons directly reference popular hits of the time. Poor Papa, for example, is <a href="https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/f3e0cb45-d709-4804-8ad9-4fea728bfa3d">an unofficial adaptation</a> of a 1926 hit song of the same name. Both the cartoon plot and song lyrics feature a father comically overburdened with children.</p>
<p>Pop songs and stars have featured in recent Disney films, such as Shakira’s number in Zootropolis (2016) or the David Bowie-esque <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuObpUUOdlo&ab_channel=DisneyUK">Shiny</a> in Moana (2016). But this happened much further back in the studio’s history, too. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dmQaT6IY9vc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Shakira’s song in Zootropolis.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Popular music references in silent Disney films served as cues for the live musical accompaniment that would have been featured in cinemas in this period. Musicians would use dedicated <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815249">special effects devices</a> or “traps” to recreate the onscreen “bangs” and “crashes”, while organs came with built in “stops” for amusing music and sounds. </p>
<p>Skilled musicians could enhance the comedic effect by playing recognisable songs whose lyrics and title might produce an <a href="https://archive.org/details/exhibitorsherald22unse/page/n959/mode/1up?view=theater">ironic commentary</a>, a technique known as “kidding”, “funning”, or “burlesquing”.</p>
<p>There is even evidence that audiences would have been invited to singalong with popular songs – a far cry from our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke1uinJYzn8&ab_channel=SlickShowreels">modern expectations</a> of silence in the cinema. This is, however, in keeping with Disney singalong versions of their hit films <a href="https://www.disneyworld.co.uk/entertainment/hollywood-studios/frozen-sing-along-celebration/">at theme parks</a> and <a href="https://press.disneyplus.com/news/disney-plus-announces-sing-along-versions-of-seven-disney-classics-launching-july-22">on Disney+</a>.</p>
<p>The next major Disney animation film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyRxxpD3yNw&ab_channel=WaltDisneyAnimationStudios">Wish</a> (due to be released in November 2023) looks likely continue this tradition and have audiences singing well into the company’s second century.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Surprisingly, the earliest silent Disney films didn’t avoid references to sound.Malcolm Cook, Associate Professor in Film Studies, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2118822023-08-21T21:52:21Z2023-08-21T21:52:21ZRon DeSantis shows how ‘ugly freedoms’ are being used to fuel authoritarianism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543728/original/file-20230821-23-xfr6rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers a speech in Iowa City, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/ron-desantis-shows-how-ugly-freedoms-are-being-used-to-fuel-authoritarianism" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>At a time when conspiracy theories and far-right nationalist groups are gaining strength, it’s crucial to understand how authoritarians are using the rhetoric of freedom to undermine crucial notions of justice and liberty. </p>
<p>In the United States, under the banner of right-wing demagoguery, “freedom” is being touted as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/banned-books-list-increased-schools-ban-critical-race-theory-sexuality-pen-america-report/">an excuse to ban books</a> by people of colour, Indigenous people and members of the LGBTQ community. </p>
<p>For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed into law the <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/education/floridas-governor-to-sign-critical-race-theory-education-bill-into-law">Individual Freedom bill, which bans educators from teaching topics relating mostly to race</a>. </p>
<p>This regressive notion of freedom is used to advance a right-wing education agenda in the name of what DeSantis calls the “war on woke,” which is code for attacking educators and others who refuse to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/03/28/desantis-wokeism-racism-marginalized/">whitewash history and address a range of systemic injustices</a>.</p>
<p>In Canada, the “universal” concept of freedom has failed to include the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples and has often served as a cloak for <a href="https://www.ubcic.bc.ca/canadafailingindigenouspeoples">maintaining illegitimate relations of power</a>.</p>
<p>In Canada as well as in the U.S., freedom has historically been shaped by what American historian <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/opinion/freedom-liberty-racial-hierarchies.html">Tyler Stovall has called “white freedom”</a> — the belief and practice “that freedom is central to white identity, and that only white people can or should be free.”</p>
<p>Freedom in this context has given Canada and the U.S. the right to dominate, colonize and exploit.</p>
<h2>‘Ugly’ freedoms</h2>
<p>The presence of what U.S. academic Elisabeth Anker calls <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/ugly-freedom-discrimination-racism-sexism.html">“ugly freedoms”</a> is not new. Its history is repeating itself with a politics that is as cruel as it is dangerous and widespread.</p>
<p>Central to this history has been a struggle over the meaning of freedom and which vision of freedom society should adopt. Those holding up the importance of freedom are no longer just advocates of social justice but also emerging authoritarians.</p>
<p>The appeal to these “ugly” freedoms is being used to legitimize and promote censorship, systemic racism and naked forms of political opportunism. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the state of Florida.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dark-haired man speaks at a podium with American flags behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543729/original/file-20230821-14265-g9dtmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference at the Celebrate Freedom Foundation Hangar in West Columbia, S.C., in July 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sean Rayford)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>DeSantis’s ‘freedom’ fixation</h2>
<p>DeSantis has hijacked the notion of freedom.</p>
<p>His political career is marked by an obsessive appropriation and relentless defence of freedoms that are false and illusory. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/desantis-disney-lawsuit-free-speech-florida/673903/">He defines himself as “governor of the free state of Florida”</a> and fills his public appearances with self-congratulatory references to freedom.</p>
<p>As a member of U.S. Congress before he became governor, <a href="https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/05/23/ron-desantis-time-in-congress-represented-volusia-flagler/70169117007/">he was one of the founders of the far-right Freedom Caucus</a>. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/02/27/heres-what-we-know-about-ron-desantis-book-as-it-hits-the-shelves/?sh=4fc52c012328">launched his presidential campaign with a tour promoting his book titled <em>Courage to Be Free</em></a>. In naming Florida as the freest state in the nation, DeSantis claims he is engaged in a movement for freedom.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1630730107957518338"}"></div></p>
<p>In doing so, <a href="https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2023/04/13/summit-county-republicans-hear-florida-gov--ron-desantis-talk-successes-in-education--immigration--the-economy">he states repeatedly</a> that in Florida: “We’re No. 1 in economic freedom, No. 1 in education freedom, No. 1 for parental involvement in education … and we’re No. 1 for public higher education. So we lead in Florida, not merely with words.” </p>
<p>Ironically, DeSantis has become the sneering face <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/ron-desantis-war-on-freedom/">for the suppression of freedom</a> while proclaiming to be its foremost advocate. </p>
<h2>Authoritarian values</h2>
<p>Freedom for DeSantis is divorced from civic culture and isolated in the regressive discourse of authoritarian values, manufactured ignorance and nefarious power relations. </p>
<p>In the name of individual freedom, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/16/florida-ron-desantis-academic-freedom">he bans books from classrooms and libraries. He also passes legislation forbidding teachers from teaching about slavery and racial injustice</a> while <a href="https://apnews.com/article/desantis-slavery-election-2024-1fb51d663e6051051aa23b71421b9479">defending his attacks</a> on diverse and inclusive forms of education with the spurious notion of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/us/florida-education-critical-race-theory-bill/index.html">protecting young people from feeling uncomfortable</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1692114810807243064"}"></div></p>
<p>Echoing the rise of past and emerging forms of authoritarianism, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/us-education-state-school-laws.html">he bans teachers</a> from addressing Black history, critical ideas and issues related to gender, sexuality and systemic racism. </p>
<p>Amid the wave of repressive policies that make up <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/new-poll-ron-desantis-anti-woke-backfire-rcna74350">DeSantis’s so-called anti-woke agenda</a>, his anti-democratic model of governance is in direct contradiction of his claim that Florida is the freest state in the union.</p>
<p>He has used state power to punish both his critics and individuals and groups he suggests are unworthy of citizenship. He has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/13/ron-desantis-transgender-education-laws-florida-woke-act">waged a vicious attack against the civil rights of women, gay, transgender and queer youth.</a> </p>
<p>He’s also signed <a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/07/ron-desantis-freedom-branding-rights-education-abortion">a six-week abortion ban</a>, restricted transgender bathroom access, banned gender-affirming care for minors, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/desantis-florida-lgbtq-education-health-c68a7e5fe5cf22ab8cca324b00644119">signed bills that target drag shows</a> and attacked businesses like Disney that disagree with his policies. </p>
<p>He’s also <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/6/2/23742508/ron-desantis-florida-higher-education-ideological-war">waged a vicious assault on public and higher education</a>, creating a culture that requires teachers to function as agents of state indoctrination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/florida-republicans-row-with-mickey-mouse-highlights-widening-gap-between-historical-bffs-gop-and-corporate-america-182401">Florida Republicans' row with Mickey Mouse highlights widening gap between historical BFFs GOP and corporate America</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Remembering what freedom really is</h2>
<p>What can be done to preserve freedom as a crucial element in the struggle for democracy in Florida and around the world? </p>
<p>Educators, parents, young people and other stakeholders need to rediscover freedom as an emancipatory force. This requires language that enables people to fight against the ideological and economic conditions that strip them of their liberties and rights.</p>
<p>It’s also essential for the public to develop strategies capable of organizing a mass multicultural struggle in support of a fundamentally democratic conception of freedom — one that enables people to reject “ugly” freedoms that reinforce the scourge of domination and prevents them from living meaningful and just lives.</p>
<p>Genuine freedom must be used in the fight for justice and equality. It should address staggering, ongoing levels of inequality in wealth and power, the poisonous legacy of systemic racism and an anti-intellectual culture that rejects reason.</p>
<p>The hijacking of freedom by far-right politicians like DeSantis not only raises crucial questions about whose freedom is at stake in a time of tyranny, but also how to fight for a version of freedom that is expansive and just. </p>
<p>True freedom furthers rather than destroys the promise of democracy. In an era of rising authoritarianism, a return to a concept of truly democratic freedom is urgently needed, as is collective resistance that makes it possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Giroux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The hijacking of freedom by far-right politicians like Florida’s Ron DeSantis raises crucial questions about whose freedom is truly at stake in a time of tyranny.Henry Giroux, Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074652023-07-27T12:25:41Z2023-07-27T12:25:41ZProgressives’ embrace of Disney in battle with DeSantis over LGBTQ rights comes with risks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537918/original/file-20230717-248134-k6gf9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=198%2C34%2C5550%2C3792&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is Disney really a 'woke' corporation? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The battle between The Walt Disney Co. and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over LGBTQ rights and whether those rights should be acknowledged – let alone taught – in schools has spurred an unlikely alliance between progressives and one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies.</p>
<p>Progressive groups such as <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-responds-to-governor-desantis-revoking-disneys-tax-exempt-status">The Human Rights Campaign</a> have welcomed Disney to their cause, while progressive columnists at <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/disneys-going-to-school-ron-desantis-about-free-speech">The Daily Beast</a> and <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/desantis-disney-first-amendment-rights-unconstitutional-rcna81974">MSNBC</a> have cheered Disney’s recent lawsuit against DeSantis. The suit, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/desantis-disney-president-theme-park-takeover-99615be881a55d559f7543b2dc2e9dea">filed in April 2023</a>, alleges that DeSantis <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/26/desantis-disney-lawsuit/">violated the company’s free speech rights</a> by retaliating against Disney for <a href="https://apnews.com/article/bob-chapek-ron-desantis-china-florida-arts-and-entertainment-26579ee78b3d48fb997ddfba025cf822">opposing a Florida education law</a> that would prevent teachers from instructing early grades on LGBTQ issues.</p>
<p>DeSantis <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/05/05/desantis-disney-fight-woke-corporations-political-pr-stunt/70178803007/">has decried Disney</a> as a “woke” company and sought to punish the media conglomerate by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/22/desantis-disney-special-status-dont-say-gay-00027302">stripping the company of its powers</a> to control development in and around Disney World in Orlando.</p>
<p>While joining forces with corporations to achieve political ends can be advantageous, given their tremendous resources, it also poses risks for progressives, who may suffer setbacks when their principles no longer align with corporate profits. Just look at how quickly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/business/bud-light-dylan-mulvaney.html">Bud Light backed away</a> from a transgender social media influencer promoting the beer when conservatives threatened boycotts and sales slipped. Before the backlash, a top marketing executive had said the brand <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/bud-light-boycott.html">needed to become more inclusive</a>; afterward Bud Light said it would focus marketing on sports and music.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://clas.iusb.edu/political-science/faculty/steven.html">professor of political science</a> who studies corporate political rights and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=0RflZR8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">the role corporations play in the public square</a>. Disney v. DeSantis raises questions of how advocates of free speech and democracy should approach a situation when a corporation joins their side.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1659264971774259205"}"></div></p>
<h2>Power to persuade</h2>
<p>Business interests have long tried to influence public policy, even before the landmark Supreme Court decision <a href="https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/citizens-united-v-fec/">Citizens United v. FEC</a> lifted restrictions on corporate spending on elections. Corporations spend <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/01/federal-lobbying-spending-reaches-4-1-billion-in-2022-the-highest-since-2010/#:%7E:text=Federal%20lobbying%20spending%20reaches%20%244.1%20billion%20in%202022%20%E2%80%94%20the%20highest%20since%202010,-By%20Taylor%20Giorno">billions of dollars each year</a> to lobby Congress and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/layers-of-lobbying">billions more lobbying state legislators</a>. They <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html">finance think tanks and foundations</a> that promote their views and interests. They place “advertorials” in local newspapers’ op-ed pages.</p>
<p>Citizens United, decided in 2010, cemented corporations’ right to participate in politics. The high court ruled that <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/">political spending amounts to protected speech</a>, and governments cannot infringe on corporations’ right to free speech by limiting the money companies can spend to influence voters through advertising and other means.</p>
<p>Progressives have <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics/campaign-finance-courts/citizens-united">blasted the decision</a> for unleashing torrents of corporate cash that they say is corrupting the political system.</p>
<p>Ironically – at least for progressives – Disney’s lawsuit against DeSantis is based in part on the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained">Citizens United Supreme Court ruling</a> and the free speech rights it established for corporations. In the statement that caused trouble with DeSantis, Disney <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/disney-vows-to-help-repeal-dont-say-gay-law.html">showed itself a reasonable partner</a> for advocates of LGBTQ rights.</p>
<p>The statement went beyond just criticizing the legislation. Disney vowed to help overturn the law, which critics derided as “Don’t say gay.”</p>
<p>“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts,” the company <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/statement-from-the-walt-disney-company-on-signing-of-florida-legislation/">said in the statement</a>. “We remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”</p>
<p>Disney has since demonstrated its willingness to use its resources and power to take on DeSantis over the issue of LGBTQ rights, including filing the lawsuit, which centers on Disney’s advocacy against the Florida law. In May, Disney <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/business/disney-ron-desantis-florida.html">canceled a US$1 billion office project</a> in Orlando that would have brought an estimated 2,000 jobs to Florida.</p>
<p>These actions show the extraordinary resources that corporations can bring to bear in support of political causes, and progressives have welcomed these resources in advancing their issues. For example, many progressives supported Major League Baseball when it moved <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-georgia-voting-companies-idUSKBN2BN1M9">its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta</a> to protest Georgia’s restrictive voting laws and lauded two Atlanta-based companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, for their support of MLB.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a man wearing a rainbow flag cape holds a pro-trans sign in front of a mickey logo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537914/original/file-20230717-27-6cqk0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Before coming out against DeSantis’ bill, Disney stayed quiet, which prompted some employees to stage a protest in early 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXDisneyWalkout/3ca1bc6c33c243f5aca44e293bd324c4/photo?Query=disney%20lgbtq&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=16&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Politics and profits</h2>
<p>But progressives’ efforts to harness the powers of global companies come with risks. </p>
<p>Corporations’ loyalties tend to <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/04/25/how-shareholders-jumped-to-first-in-line-for-profits-rerun/">lie with profits and shareholders</a>, and the political principles that companies embrace may get quickly discarded when profits are threatened. The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/vanguard-quits-net-zero-climate-alliance-2022-12-07/">Vanguard Group’s retreat from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative</a> to reduce carbon emissions when it felt pressure from investors reveals this vulnerability.</p>
<p>Political alliances, of course, can shift as circumstances change. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, branded candidate Donald Trump as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bkDykGhM8c">“race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”</a> in 2015 but became one of the former president’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/magazine/lindsey-graham-what-happened-trump.html">staunchest supporters following Trump’s election</a> in 2016.</p>
<p>Corporations are not unlike other players in the political sphere. As the previous examples show, most groups or people – whether businesses, advocates or political leaders – will pursue their own interests and adjust their positions to achieve them.</p>
<p>But because corporations are market-oriented, they can be even more inconsistent allies than is usually the case with politicians, parties and interest groups. </p>
<p>Target Corp., for example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/business/target-pride-lgbtq-companies-backlash.html">altered some displays and merchandise</a> promoting Pride month – the annual celebration of the LGBTQ community – after a backlash from some customers. </p>
<p>The graver danger comes if corporations take actions or positions inimical to those of their allies and turn corporate power and resources to positions contrary to the groups with which they are momentarily aligned. Thus, conservatives were staggered to learn that Chick-fil-A, a reliable supporter of conservative causes, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4026001-chick-fil-a-dei-hire-sparks-calls-for-boycott/">hired a vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion</a>. They even threatened to boycott the fast-food restaurant chain. </p>
<p>Progressives would be naive to reject the power and influence of corporations when their interests intersect, as they have in Disney v. DeSantis. They would be just as naive to assume that corporations would consistently support a cause or treat employees, customers or the communities in which they operate with fairness because of laudable positions on public policies.</p>
<p>Corporate interests – including profits, share prices, customer bases and employee relations – are the primary drivers of business decisions, not a commitment to the range of progressive issues from racial diversity to LGBTQ rights to climate change that critics deride as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/upshot/woke-meaning-democrats-republicans.html">wokeness</a>.” So, while DeSantis and other conservatives may sound alarms about Disney and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/disney-desantis-finds-corporate-foil-rcna22545">the rise of the “woke” corporation</a>, in reality there may be no such thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Gerencser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Progressives have cheered Disney in its battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over LGBTQ rights. But joining forces with corporations poses risks when principles no longer align with profits.Steven Gerencser, Professor of Political Science, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2085572023-06-29T15:03:50Z2023-06-29T15:03:50ZListen — Indiana Jones’s last ride: A legacy to celebrate or bury?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534185/original/file-20230626-19-s9axwz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C1%2C1257%2C721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' comes out in theatres on June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its originating ideas are taken from 19th-century racist archaeology. Will this iteration be different?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Walt Disney Pictures)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/8f4853b0-cd33-48af-9d8a-77c625f697b0?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>I love watching a good adventure movie, especially at the start of summer. I have some great memories of eating popcorn in the local suburban movie theatre while we watched aliens take over a spaceship or a group of kids hunt for long-lost treasure in an underground cave.</p>
<p>At the same time, even as a kid, I remember thinking how awful some of the racial and gender stereotypes were. </p>
<p>I specifically remember watching <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em> and cringing at the representations onscreen, especially, the <a href="https://scroll.in/reel/805944/temple-of-doom-is-the-indiana-jones-movie-that-indians-wont-forget-in-a-hurry">ruthless and flat-dimensioned South Asian characters and the ridiculous idea that Indians ate monkey brains</a> — and then there was little Short Round, Indy’s child guide and sidekick played by the young Ke Huy Quan.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late Amrish Puri played the critically acclaimed villain in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lucas Films)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the series, filmmakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg showcased nostalgia for the early mid-century with Indiana Jones, the humanitarian Hunter College professor turned adventurer at the centre. Indy outran all kinds of harrows to ensure the ancient artifacts he chased ended up where he thought they belonged: “in a museum.” (Another now famous line is from <em>Black Panther</em> when Erik Killmonger asks a museum curator: “How do you think your ancestors got these?”)</p>
<h2>Guilty pleasure or irredeemable Orientalism?</h2>
<p>Well, the final Indiana Jones movie, <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> is coming out tomorrow, 42 years after the first movie was released. </p>
<p>As the series comes to an end, we explore Indy’s complicated legacy — and his famous line: “it belongs in a museum.” </p>
<p>Will <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> reflect the changes in anthropology departments and <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">the growing movements from Indigenous</a> and Global South communities to return <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">stolen objects and ancestors from western museums</a>? Will it consider that <a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Eurocentric notions of what holds heritage has finally expanded beyond the artifact</a>?</p>
<p>Will this new movie be full of highly problematic stories? Or a guilty pleasure? Or, can it be both?</p>
<p>Historian Christopher Heaney has spent a lot of time thinking about this. He’s written a book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230112049/cradleofgold">about the “original” Indiana Jones</a> and wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/burying-indiana-jones">“Burying Indiana Jones” for <em>The New Yorker</em></a>. He’s a professor of Latin American History at Penn State University and he joined me on <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/indiana-joness-last-ride-a-legacy-to-celebrate-or-bury"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> — our last episode of the season, and just in time for summer blockbuster season — to unpack everything Indiana Jones.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcN_InsZCKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘How do you think your ancestors got these?’ ‘Black Panther’ offers a response to ‘it belongs in a museum.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Read more</h2>
<p><a href="https://mronline.org/2023/05/04/indiana-jones-hollywoods-chief-colonial-pilferer-is-back/">“Indiana Jones, Hollywood’s chief colonial pilferer, is back”</a> (<em>Monthly Review</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/empires-of-the-dead-9780197542552?cc=ca&lang=en&">Empires of the Dead</a></em> by Christopher Heaney (Oxford University Press)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/how-to-fake-an-alien-mummy/535251/">“The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes”</a> (<em>The Atlantic</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://blackgirlnerds.com/it-does-not-belong-in-a-museum-indiana-jones-colonizer-legacy/">“It does not belong in a museum”</a> (<em>Black Girl Nerds</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newarab.com/features/can-indiana-jones-overcome-its-orientalist-past">“Can Indiana Jones overcome its Orientalist past?”</a> (<em>The New Arab</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807837153/decolonizing-museums/">Decolonizing Museums</a></em> by Amy Lonetree (UNC Press)</p>
<h2>From The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">To accurately portray histories, museums need to do more than ‘reimagine’ galleries</a>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/benin-bronzes-what-is-the-significance-of-their-repatriation-to-nigeria-171444">Benin bronzes: What is the significance of their repatriation to Nigeria?</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Protecting heritage is a human right</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/belize-shows-how-local-engagement-is-key-in-repatriating-cultural-artifacts-from-abroad-171363">Belize shows how local engagement is key in repatriating cultural artifacts from abroad</a>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">Museums are returning indigenous human remains but progress on repatriating objects is slow</a>
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<h2>Our recs: Kids adventure movies/shows</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUTtJjV852c&ab_channel=ParamountPictures"><em>Dora the Explorer and the Lost City of Gold</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://animatedviews.com/2019/director-juan-antin-talks-about-pachamama-on-netflix/"><em>Pachamama</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81023618"><em>Finding Ohana</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://etcanada.com/news/951562/mira-nair-on-the-non-white-america-in-national-treasure-edge-of-history-love-it/"><em>National Treasure: Edge of History</em></a></li>
</ul>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Lucas Films) ‘You’ve taken your chances, made your mistakes, and now, a final triump,’ Phoebe Walter-Bridge says to Jones.</span></figcaption>
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The final Indiana Jones movie is coming out June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its ideas are taken from 19th-century orientalist and racist archaeology.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2066952023-05-30T14:47:26Z2023-05-30T14:47:26ZDisney’s The Little Mermaid review: Ariel finally finds her feminist voice<p><em>Warning: the following article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>I was brimming with nerves and excitement as I took my seat to watch Disney’s seventh live action princess film. As a Disney fan, their live action remakes help me revisit my childhood. But as a Disney scholar and a feminist, these adaptations often frustrate me.</p>
<p><a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-disney-princess-phenomenon">In my research</a>, I comment on how from 1989 to 1992, Disney’s animated princesses (Ariel, Belle and Jasmine) can be characterised as “lost dreamers”. While they can be assertive, rebellious and brave, with hopes beyond romance (Ariel wants to explore the human world, Belle wants adventure and Jasmine wants to leave the palace), these traits disappear when a relationship is introduced.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Little Mermaid (2023).</span></figcaption>
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<p>Both the modern adaptations <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU77vmVuYys">Beauty and the Beast</a> (2017) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eitDnP0_83k">Aladdin</a> (2019) fall short in their attempt to redress some of these issues. So I was worried for Ariel.</p>
<p>Ariel goes from wanting to be “<a href="https://genius.com/Jodi-benson-part-of-your-world-lyrics">part of that world</a>”, to part of Prince Eric’s world. So much so that she sells her voice to gain access to it. From that moment on, she is powerless and must wait for Eric to save them all. How on earth were Disney going to approach this?</p>
<p>The casting of black actress Halle Bailey as Ariel received <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/halle-bailey-racist-messages-little-mermaid-b2305577.html">significant racist backlash</a>. But has also been celebrated by the swathes of young girls who finally saw a Disney princess <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/parents-tiktoks-children-halle-bailey-black-little-mermaid-rcna47398">who looked like them</a>. Modern <a href="https://rebeccahains.com/books-by-rebecca-hains/the-princess-problem/">representation matters</a> among <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793604026/Recasting-the-Disney-Princess-in-an-Era-of-New-Media-and-Social-Movements#:%7E:text=Recasting%20the%20Disney%20Princess%20outlines,media%20and%20social%20justice%20movements.">Disney princesses</a> – there were no Disney princesses of colour until Aladdin’s Jasmine in 1992.</p>
<p>And Bailey is a star. Her voice, movements and facial expressions perfectly capture Ariel’s adventurous spirit. What I was most intrigued by however, were the changes in her character’s narrative and plot development.</p>
<h2>Lost dreamer no more</h2>
<p>In the 1989 animation, Ariel gives up her voice to Ursula the sea witch in exchange for legs. While Ariel is hesitant, Ursula reminds her that she will have no need for her voice above water. I was curious to see how the live action adaptation would navigate this complex plot line. </p>
<p>This time, Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula reveals she has added an extra kick – Ariel won’t remember that she needs true love’s kiss with Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) by sundown. Rather than focusing on Eric, then, we get to see Ariel experiencing land for the first time.</p>
<p>Another welcome addition was Ariel’s internal monologue. This way, the audience knew what she was thinking and feeling, even though she could not verbally express it. It’s also used to critique some of the things women on land endure:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Squeeze in the shoes and the corset, it’s tight,</p>
<p>And the seams are busting,</p>
<p>Some women choose this, I guess it’s alright,</p>
<p>Are my dreams adjusting?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The acknowledgement of the tight corset is perhaps a reflection on <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/disney-princess-waist-unhealthy-body-image-children-study">the tiny waists of previous Disney princess films</a>. Ariel’s internal monologue also provides the audience with her feelings on the sacrifices she has made:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What did I give to live where you are?</p>
<p>Where do I go with nowhere to turn to?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While Ariel is clearly interested in Eric, she bonds with him over their love of the world and exploring, which also provides Eric with further plot development than simply being “Prince Charming”. Eric is also given his own ballad, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiRgpDIGY8k">Wild Uncharted Waters</a>, which provides more insight to his character.</p>
<h2>Changing the narrative</h2>
<p>Another key moment comes when Ursula (now parading as Vanessa) fools Eric into thinking that she saved him, not Ariel. As in the animated film, a miserable Ariel leaves the castle, accepting her fate. However, when Scuttle the seagull (an endearing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5377144/">Awkwafina</a>) arrives to explain, she jumps into action.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Melissa McCarthy as Ursula in The Little Mermaid.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In the 1989 animation, Ariel’s animal friends expose Vanessa – but not this time. I nervously hoped that Ariel would be given agency and I was not disappointed. It is Ariel who runs back to the engagement party, it is Ariel who grabs onto Vanessa’s necklace and it is Ariel who destroys it and reclaims her voice. This, is how Disney live action remakes should be, addressing the original problems of the film. </p>
<p>At the film’s climax, a furious Ursula claims Ariel as her own. As per the original animation, Eric arrives harpoons in tow to try and help, but to no avail. While we have seen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht8dxvGkuSc">Mulan at war</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY123ljDLhc">Rapunzel weaponising her handy frying pan</a>, we have never seen a Disney princess commit the same acts of violence as Disney princes.</p>
<p>In this adaptation, however, it is Eric who is helpless and at the mercy of Ursula. Surely, I thought, Disney would not have Ariel commit the final blow? My heart raced as Ariel sent a ship coursing towards Ursula, fatally stabbing her. She saves Eric and all the kingdoms, land and sea. I was astounded. Never in all of Disney’s live actions or animations has a princess committed this type of violence. </p>
<p>In the end, instead of getting married, Ariel and Eric leave to explore uncharted waters together, demonstrating that a woman does not have to choose between her dreams and romance. In The Little Mermaid, audiences finally get to see Ariel in all her powerful, adventurous glory. She is not “part of that world” – it has become her world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Muir is affiliated with the Disney, Culture and Society Research Network, an interdisciplinary and international research network for Disney Studies. It is in no way affiliated with the Walt Disney Company. </span></em></p>In The Little Mermaid, audiences finally get to see Ariel in all her powerful, adventurous glory.Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2045672023-05-23T11:14:46Z2023-05-23T11:14:46ZHow Alien mutated from a sci-fi horror film into a multimedia universe<p>A new life form was born on May 25 1979 when an alien exploded from the chest of a bewildered officer aboard the commercial towing vessel, Nostromo. The alien that comes to be known as the xenomorph escapes, grows, stalks and kills all but one of the ship’s crew. The lone human survivor, Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, blasts it into deep space turning it and her into icons. </p>
<p>We are, of course, talking about the cinematic classic, Alien.</p>
<p>But what was born that day was not just a horrifying monster. It would become a fully fledged fictional world that, in the four decades following, has become an indelible part of our popular culture. And it is a topic we explore in our new book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/alien-legacies-9780197556030?cc=gb&lang=en&">Alien Legacies</a>.</p>
<p>Though initially conceived as a cash-in on the popularity of science fiction in the aftermath of Star Wars, Alien grew from a hugely successful film into not only a franchise but a whole universe. It spawned three sequels - James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), David Fincher’s Alien3 (1992) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection (1997). </p>
<p>There were also two prequels - Prometheus (2012) and Alien Covenant (2017), which were both directed by Scott. And finally, there was a spin-off “mashup” franchise - Alien vs Predator directed by Paul WS Anderson (2004), and its sequel Requiem (2007). </p>
<p>It has inspired innovation and creativity beyond the films. There have been novelisations, video games, audiobooks, comics and <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/%E2%80%98Ages-five-and-up%E2%80%99%3A-Alien-toys-for-children-and-the-Antunes-Plowman/37a5b6f9d25db0aa08a24322bd82cbcd7bd87d87">toys</a>.</p>
<p>The first two films, Alien and Aliens, have enjoyed considerable scrutiny given their cultural presence and resonance for debates concerning gender, technology and genetics. </p>
<p>But what has received less focus is what Alien has become. The franchise has proliferated and mutated across various forms of media while staying true to its cinematic origins.</p>
<p>Alien, like Star Wars, is what we can now call a “transmedia franchise”. It has pioneered ways of expanding storytelling across media boundaries. Our book examines the transmedia universe as a whole, addressing the original films, the prequels and everything that followed. </p>
<p>The franchise has been open to adopting new methods and ideas, as well as adapting to changes in new media technology and politics. </p>
<p>In fact, one almost entirely neglected aspect of the Alien universe we explore are documents purporting to be “real” crew profiles, training manuals and diaries that expand upon and develop our knowledge and understanding of this fictional world. </p>
<p>One of the extras on the 2010 Alien Anthology Blu-ray collection was a special feature called Weyland-Yutani Inquest: Nostromo Dossiers. This was a collection of corporate documents detailing the professional lives of the Nostromo spaceship crew.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">From The Weyland-Yutani Report: A look at the Nostromo’s crew including past employment and personal life details.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Some of this material, such as the <a href="https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines_Technical_Manual">Colonial Marines Technical Manual</a>, has been created by fans. It found its way into gaming instalments of the franchise having been picked up and explored by the many creative artists and writers who have worked in the Alien universe. These include Aliens versus Predator, Aliens versus Predator: Extinction and Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013).</p>
<p>The attempt by media companies to control and manage fan practice is not new, but it demands our attention. <a href="https://ew.com/movies/2019/03/13/alien-trailer-shorts-40th-anniversary/">Inviting people</a> to pitch their own short films set in the Alien universe to mark the fortieth anniversary in 2019 was a canny means by 20th Century Fox to curry favour with the fans of the series. </p>
<p>Similarly, transmedia marketing campaigns have grown to include fictional evil corporate websites, exclusive events at conventions, personalised advertising and franchise universe websites. </p>
<p>We argue that Alien’s transmedia marketing is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2012/04/18/prometheus-when-movie-marketing-goes-very-right/">particularly captivating</a> because it is closely linked to the film’s production. As a result, these marketing campaigns are arguably becoming as creative and entertaining as the films themselves. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The transmedia marketing campaign for the Prometheus film.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The Alien series asks existential questions uncommon in mainstream blockbuster cinema about the origins and destiny of humanity and the dividing line between the human and the machine. </p>
<p>Alien should not be seen, as popular culture so often is, as unimportant or irrelevant to our understanding of ourselves as a species. It has the potential to contribute to our knowledge and enlightenment. </p>
<p>The continuing debate among scholars and fans surrounding the Alien franchise demonstrates how popular culture can bridge disciplinary boundaries and make complex academic debates more accessible. It helps us better understand the significant questions we must ponder as humans. </p>
<p>We hope our book will contribute to conversations about Alien. It explores its relevance to contemporary debates and paves the way for future studies on the franchise. After all, it has entered an uncertain <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/World-building%2C-Retconning-and-Legacy-Rebooting%3A-Fleury/01dd0b7bc45907cf1f56e55e1237c6d3678609af">new phase</a> under the control of a new owner. </p>
<p>In 2019, Disney bought Fox and with it the rights to Alien. And Disney is a company that, throughout its history, has shown itself willing and able to adapt and build upon all aspects of its holdings in a variety of ways. </p>
<p>This starts with <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/new-alien-movie-set-to-begin-production-this-month-as-cast-and-synopsis-is-revealed">Fede Alvarez’s untitled Alien film</a>, currently in production, and set for release via Disney’s Hulu streaming service. </p>
<p>Fans and academics will both probably continue to chase Ripley and the xenomorphs across the cosmos for the next forty years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Abrams has received and continues to receive funding from charitable organisations and research councils.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Frame has in the past received funding from disciplinary subject associations and research councils.</span></em></p>A new book explores the enormous Alien franchise spawned by the 1979 film.Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor UniversityGregory Frame, Teaching Associate in Film and Television Studies, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044852023-04-28T15:49:43Z2023-04-28T15:49:43ZHow Wrexham’s football fairy tale is fuelled by Disney and Hollywood glamour<p>For one of the oldest football clubs in the world, this has been a season to remember. Wrexham’s men’s team <a href="https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12863302/wrexham-promoted-back-to-football-league-after-15-year-exile-as-hollywood-watches">have won</a> the National League title and promotion to League Two, the fourth tier of English football.</p>
<p>And while it’s still a long way from the dizzy heights of the Premier League, success has been joyfully embraced by Wrexham’s fans and the club’s celebrity owners, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.</p>
<p>The Hollywood-based pair <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/09/ryan-reynolds-and-rob-mcelhenney-complete-takeover-of-wrexham">bought</a> Wrexham Association Football Club (AFC) in 2021, bringing £2 million to the table, and plenty of Californian glamour to their adopted corner of north Wales, which is now the subject of a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62663215">documentary series</a> streaming on Disney+. </p>
<p>But it was another of Disney’s famous productions which came to our minds when we considered this modern football fairytale: the <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Cars#tab=summary">popular cartoon</a> Cars, in which a big star finds himself living in a small provincial town. </p>
<p>The star, Lightning McQueen, eventually falls in love with the town of Radiator Springs, and inspires his new neighbours to dream big. Cars tells the story of the great American dream, that anyone can make it to the top, and highlights the importance of a place and its people.</p>
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<p>The real life version playing out in north Wales has Reynolds in the starring role, and Wrexham as Radiator Springs. But their story also illustrates some of the profound changes that are taking place across professional football – where kicking a ball around a pitch has become a lucrative industry involving marketing strategies, <a href="https://www.premiersportsnetwork.com/news/teamworks-partnership-pg4kh">media partnerships</a> and commercial opportunities. </p>
<p>Wrexham AFC has a long history and a loyal fan base. But of late, it has fallen upon hard times and languished in the lower reaches of the English professional leagues. At one stage in the 2000s, the club spent almost two years in administration, and in 2011 it was served with a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-13101239#:%7E:text=Wrexham%20FC%20have%20been%20issued,gates%20of%204%2C000%20to%20survive.">winding-up order</a> for not paying its taxes.</p>
<h2>Big players</h2>
<p>The club’s Hollywood saviour, Ryan Reynolds, arrived at a time when he was needed. And he has also proved himself to be no slouch when it comes to <a href="https://the-take.com/read/how-ryan-reynolds-went-from-star-to-wealthy-entrepreneur">the business world</a>. If his plan was to extract commercial and financial value from football through shrewd management and experience in entertainment, his record already looks pretty impressive. </p>
<p>Wrexham has secured promotion, attracting global attention, and new sponsorship deals. Reynolds is now even talking about building a <a href="https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/nhl-ryan-reynolds-wants-to-bring-welcome-to-wrexham-style-show-to-ottawa-174335500.html">sport franchise network</a> and has gone from being an impassive observer of football to someone who has developed a <a href="https://www.indy100.com/celebrities/ryan-reynolds-wrexham-tribute">love for the game</a> and for Wrexham.</p>
<p>He and McElhenney are the stars of Welcome to Wrexham, the Disney+ series which claims the actors are “bringing some serious hope and change to a community that needs it”. Each episode is estimated to have <a href="https://www.dailypost.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/welcome-wrexham-documentary-rakes-430000-25923219">generated around £430,000</a> for the club and its owners. </p>
<p>As a result, some of Wrexham’s success carries the hallmarks of what is termed “<a href="https://newint.org/features/1998/12/05/guide">Disneyfication</a>”, the creation of sentimentally compelling entertainment for mass audiences in everything from sport to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2006/nov/23/disneyfyingnature">nature</a> and <a href="http://www.booksthatgrow.com/the-disneyfication-of-fairy-tales">children’s stories</a>. Disneyfication is often seen as being synonymous with globalisation, commercialisation and commodification, and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1477963313Z.00000000014?journalCode=yorg20">research suggests</a> it has some key characteristics. </p>
<p>The first, known as “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003086437-10/disneyfication-olympics-alan-tomlinson">theming</a>” involves an institution being placed into a narrative that is mostly unrelated to its original purpose. Wrexham AFC <a href="https://www.wales.com/visit/sport/wrexham-goes-hollywood">was formed in 1864</a> and for most of its existence was never the subject of heart-rending digital content for a US entertainment business and two Hollywood actors. Players have gone from kicking a ball in a stadium to becoming performers in a drama that is streamed around the world.</p>
<p>Another component of Disneyfication is “hybrid consumption” – attracting fans and potential consumers through various commercial means. In Wrexham’s case, that started with owning a fairly large stadium with room for 10,000 spectators, and continues with more than <a href="https://the18.com/en/soccer-entertainment/welcome-to-wrexham-should-you-watch">319,000 people</a> watching the first episode of Welcome to Wrexham, and over <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@wrexham_afc">1 million followers</a> of the club’s TikTok account. </p>
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<p>Disneyfication also requires a focus on selling things. To that end, <a href="https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/tiktok-agrees-deal-sponsor-wrexham-20938128">TikTok’s logo has appeared</a> on Wrexham’s shirts which are a cornerstone of Wrexham’s <a href="https://www.dailypost.co.uk/sport/welcome-wrexham-huge-spike-demand-25024992">rapidly proliferating merchandise portfolio</a>. Visit Wrexham’s online store and you’ll even see shirts carrying the logo of Aviation Gin, an alcohol business in which <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/news/ryan-reynolds-aviation-gin-sale-diageo">Reynolds has a stake</a>.</p>
<p>Football traditionalists <a href="https://www.cityam.com/wrexhams-promotion-feelgood-fairy-tale-or-brand-building-exercise-that-sticks-in-the-craw-our-writers-debate/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">may despair</a> at the influence Wrexham’s owners are having on the sport and on the club, and worry that Disneyfication may now be reaching the lower leagues as well as the very <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/31/disneyfication-clubs-manchester-city-red-bull">pinnacle of English football</a>. Some will worry that the Racecourse Ground is becoming more like a <a href="https://tribes.hypotheses.org/2810">theme park attraction</a> than a football stadium.</p>
<p>Even so, the Disneyfication of Wrexham is changing the town, in a way not dissimilar to Lightening McQueen’s influence on Radiator Springs. Visitor numbers <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65336986">have soared</a> and the football club’s success is beginning to have a tangible <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63256557">local economic impact</a>, adding to hotel room bookings and beer sales. </p>
<p>Like Disney attractions around the world, a small football club is proving capable of generating financial returns and a hint of fantasy. There is clearly a Disney version of the American dream to be had – and enjoyed – in this provincial town of north Wales.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not just Premier League clubs that enjoy the benefits of being in the spotlight.Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy, SKEMA Business SchoolPaul Widdop, Reader of Sport Business, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1979482023-01-18T12:02:52Z2023-01-18T12:02:52ZWelcome to Chippendales: why the Disney brand won’t be harmed by provocative programming<p>A true crime series about male strippers, arson and murder-for-hire, marketed with lines like “Women get horny!” and “Blood will spill”? It’s safe to say that Disney+ isn’t the most obvious destination for a show like <a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/en-gb/series/welcome-to-chippendales/5Xes8hB719ux">Welcome to Chippendales</a>.</p>
<p>On the surface, the commission looks risky – a borderline negligent brand mismatch. Surely Welcome to Chippendales’ violent and sexual content threatens the wholesome, family-friendly reputation Disney has spent decades <a href="https://archive.org/details/understandingdis0000wask/page/n1/mode/2up">building up, exploiting and preserving</a>? Surprisingly, no – but this isn’t anything to do with the series itself.</p>
<p>Welcome to Chippendales is a great example of the control Disney now has over its brand and the ways it takes advantage of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315396828/online-tv-catherine-johnson">streaming technologies</a> to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/0163443717736118">ensure shows circulate with the “right” audiences</a>.</p>
<p>Central to the emergence of edgy, adult-only content on Disney+ was the introduction of its new, adult-oriented Star content hub in February 2021. Nomad (the agency behind the Disney/Star branding) <a href="https://www.nomadstudio.com/work/disney-star">explained</a> that “the new identity system serves as a protective layer between [Star’s] content and the Disney brand, ensuring the two worlds never collide.”</p>
<p>Releasing provocative content such as Welcome to Chippendales under “Star Originals” rather than Disney reduces the chances of unwanted associations rubbing off on the House of Mouse.</p>
<h2>Separation or synergy?</h2>
<p>Brand managers call this “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/000812560004200401">brand architecture</a>” – the ways conglomerates manage the relationship between their different brands. The dilemma is whether to aim for separation (shielding brand identities from the potential failings of others) or synergy (encouraging cross-promotion and valuable brand overlaps).</p>
<p>Disney is well known for its hybrid approach, running a number of divisions that are clearly branded as arms of Disney (such as its parks and resorts, Disney Cruises and Disney Stores), while others appear to outsiders as autonomous companies (for example, Marvel and ESPN).</p>
<p>Star originally came into the Disney fold in 2019 as part of a <a href="https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/disney-fox-deal-complete-1203167374/">US$71 billion (£58 billion) deal to acquire 21st Century Fox</a>. Since then, Star has emerged as the conglomerate’s go-to label for separating its more provocative Disney+ titles from the rest of its content.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A phone screen displays both the Disney+ and Starlogos." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504958/original/file-20230117-22-56po1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Star came to Disney as part of its deal to acquire 21st Century Fox.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/disney-plus-star-logo-on-smarthphone-2144109683">Miguel Lagoa</a></span>
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<p>It’s a strategy the company has used for the best part of 30 years, with varying degrees of success. When Disney acquired Miramax in 1993, the studio was the most exciting name in indie cinema, responsible for distributing films like Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) and Reservoir Dogs (1992).</p>
<p>It behoved Disney to get into bed with such a hot property, enabling it to reach discerning new audiences, university educated with high incomes. But keeping the two brands separate at the corporate level was not always enough to stop their reputations bleeding into one another.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kevin Smith in an all black suit wearing round glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504960/original/file-20230117-11104-eon4h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Writer and director of Dogma, Kevin Smith.</span>
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<p>Critics worried that Disney might sanitise Miramax, while Miramax’s devil-may-care attitude towards controversy looked like a Disney PR disaster waiting to happen. As Miramax released films like Kids (1995) – featuring sexually active, drug-using teenagers – and Kevin Smith’s divisive religious satire Dogma (1999), the relationship became a major problem.</p>
<p>The backlash to Kids was fierce enough that <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Indie_Inc.html?id=9PrkDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">protest groups called for a Disney boycott</a>. Miramax owners Harvey and Bob Weinstein had to resort to extreme measures to resolve the fiasco, buying the rights themselves and creating a standalone, unaffiliated distribution company purely for Kids.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Miramax sold Dogma’s North American rights to Lionsgate, sacrificing millions in box office revenue in order to avoid the wrath of the US religious right.</p>
<h2>Same show, different label</h2>
<p>Disney has spent decades engaged in internal gerrymandering, looking to create separations or synergies between its sub-brands. But in today’s streaming era, the studio can shift its borders more easily than ever before.</p>
<p>This is especially evident with Welcome to Chippendales, because the series appears under a different company name depending on how and where you encounter it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DchtacgVLbQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The US trailer for Welcome to Chippendales makes no mention of Disney.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, when it debuted in the US in November, Welcome to Chippendales wasn’t on Disney+ at all and there was no Disney branding to be seen on any of its promotional materials. As was the case with the sexually explicit Pam & Tommy (2022) and addiction-themed Dopesick (2021).</p>
<p>These series were branded in the US as Hulu Originals. Hulu is owned by Disney, but has its own platform with different content.</p>
<p>In the UK, the distinction between brands is less stark. Welcome to Chippendales appears under the Star tile, but is part of the same platform as the content from other Disney divisions and sub-brands (appearing in “New to Disney+”).</p>
<p>Intriguingly, the Star brand is featured more heavily on the platform itself, whereas UK marketing materials for the series have focused almost exclusively on Disney, not mentioning Star at all. Presumably this is because of Star’s lower brand recognition in the UK and the need to direct consumers to the viewing platform. </p>
<p>For Disney, all of this represents an unprecedented level of control over its intellectual property. Circulation can now be tailored to the whims and habits of different territories and demographics, without any need for elaborate or last-minute changes to distribution deals. </p>
<p>It’s as quick – and impressive – as ripping off a pair of Velcro trousers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard McCulloch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sub-brands such as Star and Hulu have allowed Disney to experiment with adult-themed content while protecting its core brand.Richard McCulloch, Senior Lecturer Media and Film, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1944352022-12-20T13:37:48Z2022-12-20T13:37:48ZDisney’s Black mermaid is no breakthrough – just look at the literary subgenre of Black mermaid fiction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500853/original/file-20221213-27076-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C31%2C5256%2C3388&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A coffin made to resemble a mermaid at a Ga funeral. The Ga people live along the southeast coast of Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ghana-teshie-coffin-made-and-painted-to-resemble-a-mermaid-news-photo/481610203?phrase=african mermaid&adppopup=true">Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mermaids have become a cultural phenomenon, and clashes about mermaids and race have spilled out into the open. This is most pointedly apparent in the backlash over Disney’s much-anticipated “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5971474/">The Little Mermaid</a>.”</p>
<p>After Disney unveiled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-wPm99PF9U">its trailer for the film</a>, which will be released in May 2023, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2022/09/13/little-mermaid-trailer-reactions-halle-bailey-orig-jc.cnn">social media captured the faces</a> of gleeful young Black girls seeing Black mermaids onscreen for the first time. Less inspiring was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2022/09/14/disneys-little-mermaid-backlash-has-reached-insane-heights/?sh=1318a9845592">the racism</a> that simultaneously occurred, with hashtags like #NotMyMermaid and #MakeMermaidsWhiteAgain circulating on Twitter.</p>
<p>The fact that Disney’s portrayal of a nonwhite mermaid is controversial is due to 150 years of whitewashing. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/black-little-mermaid.html">In a 2019 op-ed for The New York Times</a>, writer Tracey Baptiste – whose children’s novel “<a href="https://traceybaptiste.com/the-jumbies-series">Rise of the Jumbies</a>” features a Black mermaid as the protagonist – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/black-little-mermaid.html">points out how</a> “Eurocentric stories have obscured the African origins of mermaids.” </p>
<p>“Mermaid stories,” she writes, “have been told throughout the African continent for millenniums. Mermaids are not just part of the imagination, either, but a part of the living culture.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, contemporary culture is pushing back. Mermaids have, in recent years, become a popular subject in literature, film and fashion. In many cases, their depictions reflect contemporary culture: They appear as Black and brown, as sexually fluid and as harbingers of the climate crisis. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jessicapressman.com/">As a scholar of contemporary literature and media</a> – and as a lifelong lover of mermaids – I am fascinated by the recent surge of mermaid literature that remixes African folklore and connects the transatlantic slave trade to mermaid tales.</p>
<p>By briefly charting this new literary movement, I hope to show how these stories are part of a larger current with a much longer historical tail. I also hope to put to rest the idea that Disney’s decision to feature a Black mermaid represents some sort of modern breakthrough.</p>
<p>Here are three very different works of Black mermaid fiction that, in my view, deserve attention.</p>
<h2>1. Rivers Solomon’s “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Deep/Rivers-Solomon/9781534439870">The Deep</a>” (2019)</h2>
<p>This novella is marketed as fantasy, but it does the very real and important work of opening up new ways to think about the legacy of slavery. </p>
<p>Specifically, it pushes readers to think about mermaids as products of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Middle-Passage-slave-trade">the Middle Passage</a>, the harrowing stage of the transatlantic slave trade in which enslaved Africans were transported in crowded ships across the Atlantic Ocean. </p>
<p>The novel’s conceit is that pregnant, enslaved Africans who either jumped or were thrown overboard from slave ships gave birth underwater to babies who moved from amniotic fluid to seawater and evolved into a society of merfolk.</p>
<p>The protagonist, Yetu, is a mermaid who serves as a repository of the traumatic stories that would be too troubling for her people to remember on a daily basis. She is the historian, and once a year she delivers “The Remembrance” to her people in a ritual of sharing.</p>
<p>As the narrator explains, “Only the historian was allowed to remember,” because if the regular folk “know the truth of everything, they will not be able to carry on.”</p>
<p>Once a year, the society gathers to hear the history. The memories are not lost or forgotten but submerged and transformed, hosted by the ocean and housed in the body of a mermaid.</p>
<p>This vibrant and readable book can be tied to the work of literary scholar Christina Sharpe, who presents the concept of “the wake” – a means of contemplating the continued effects of the Middle Passage. <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/in-the-wake">For Sharpe</a>, “The wake” is “a method of encountering a past that is not past” and of endeavoring to “memorialize an event that is still ongoing.” </p>
<p>“The Deep” also offers an allegory for the challenges of working in archives of African American experience – the main mermaid is, of course, the historian – and evokes the work of another important scholar in contemporary Black studies, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374531157/loseyourmother">Saidiya Hartman</a>, who has written about the erasure of Black women from archives largely compiled by white men.</p>
<h2>2. Monique Roffey’s “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/703096/the-mermaid-of-black-conch-by-monique-roffey/">The Mermaid of Black Conch</a>” (2020)</h2>
<p>This gorgeous and complex work of Caribbean literature dips into magical realism but is deeply grounded in the reality of today – specifically, <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-postcolonial-literature/">the effects of colonialism</a> and exploitative tourism.</p>
<p>Like “The Deep,” “The Mermaid of Black Conch” explores lost ancestries and imagines alternative futures. The novel highlights the continued impact of white settlement on a fictional Caribbean island called Black Conch.</p>
<p>One day, a mermaid named Aycayia is caught in the net of a fisherman. She is ancient and Indigenous – “red-skinned, not black, not African” – and carries the weight of history. David, the fisherman who finds her and falls in love with her, recalls his first sighting of her: “She looking like a woman from long ago, like old-time Taino people I saw in a history book at school.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman wearing pink scarf holds book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500857/original/file-20221213-26186-zd3iu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author Monique Roffey employs magical realism in her book ‘The Mermaid of Black Conch.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/monique-roffey-who-was-announced-this-evening-as-the-winner-news-photo/1230803463?phrase=monique%20roffey&adppopup=true">Ian Gavan/Getty Image</a></span>
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<p>Similar to Solomon’s historian in “The Deep,” this mermaid is depicted as an embodied archive; her hair is a home for sea creatures, and her face is a history book. </p>
<p>However, Roffey’s mermaid is an anomaly, singular and isolated, not a member of a tribe. The ocean keeps this ancient beast safe, hiding her from the destructive forces of Western capitalism, embodied in the father-son duo of American tourists who seek to capture and capitalize on what they see as an aquatic trophy.</p>
<h2>3. Nnedi Okorafor’s “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lagoon/Nnedi-Okorafor/9781481440882">Lagoon</a>” (2014)</h2>
<p>“A star falls from the sky. A woman rises from the sea. The world will never be the same.” The publisher’s summary describes a science fiction novel that combines the alien-encounter genre with African mythology to create a vast narrative network of characters, human and nonhuman, that stretches across Nigeria. </p>
<p>The arrival of aliens off the coast of Lagos transforms the area and the people, miraculously remedying centuries of oceanic destruction caused by industrial and colonial exploitation. It also turns Adaora, a female marine biologist caught in a bad marriage, into a mermaid. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Woman with glasses smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500859/original/file-20221213-22736-avllq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nnedi-okorafor-attends-the-70th-emmy-awards-at-microsoft-news-photo/1035243148?phrase=Nnedi%20Okorafor&adppopup=true">Neilson Barnard/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>“Lagoon” is far more than an allegory of ecological repair. But I want to point out how literature explores the global ecological crisis and, specifically, how <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0014.xml">ecocriticism</a> plays a key role in the emergent genre of Black mermaid literature. </p>
<p>As ecocritic and Caribbean literature scholar Elizabeth DeLoughrey <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/routes-and-roots-navigating-caribbean-and-pacific-island-literatures/">writes</a>, rising sea levels caused by global warming are spurring a planetary future that is “more oceanic.” </p>
<p>Many contemporary mermaid tales share an acute sense of environmental concern.</p>
<p>Mermaids serve as signals, in both senses of the word – as an emergency alert and as a medium for transmitting a message about humanity’s increasingly oceanic planetary future. </p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.akpress.org/undrowned.html">Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals</a>” (2020), Black feminist theorist Alexis Pauline Gumbs points to “several practices of marine mammals that resonate with Black freedom movement strategies and tendencies.” Racial justice and environmental activism are aligned – and, as many Black mermaid novels teach readers, inseparable.</p>
<p>There are many more works I could have included in this roundup – Natasha Bowen’s “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609878/skin-of-the-sea-by-natasha-bowen/">Skin of the Sea</a>” (2021), which grounds its narrative in the West African myths of Mami Wata and the goddess Yemoja, or Bethany C. Morrow’s “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250315328/asongbelowwater">A Song Below Water</a>” (2020), a young adult novel that tells the coming-of-age story of a Black girl who becomes a mermaid.</p>
<p>None of these texts are outliers because they feature Black mermaids. </p>
<p>Instead, they are part of a broader cultural movement – a contemporary mermaid craze deserving of critical attention and appreciation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Pressman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These literary works ask readers to rethink the histories of these half-human sea creatures and their role in society today.Jessica Pressman, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1948612022-11-22T11:57:39Z2022-11-22T11:57:39ZDisenchanted: Disney attempts to break stereotypes of motherhood only to reinforce them<p>Mothers in fairy tales have a way of being absent, typically through untimely deaths (think Cinderella, Snow White or Beauty and the Beast) or thanks to storylines that position them as background characters. Disney’s Disenchanted turns this on its head. Here, at last, we have a fairy tale where mum takes centre stage, as well as left and right, as Good Mother, Wicked Stepmother, and the ever-entertaining and power-hungry Queen Mother.</p>
<p>Usually, fairy tales end when the princess gets her guy, as it did in the first film, Enchanted. But this sequel shows what happens next, following the lead character Giselle who is blissfully married to her true love Robert. She’s raising their new baby Sofia and her now teenage stepdaughter Morgan. But happiness is not quite all it promised to be. Teenagers are hard work and so are babies – something needs to change.</p>
<p>Luckily, they manage to escape to suburban Monroeville. But as it becomes clear the move wasn’t enough, and in a wish gone wrong, Giselle turns Monroeville into a disastrous magic land where everyone in town is restricted by the script laid out in fairy tales. </p>
<p>Many parents will see themselves and their everyday battles mirrored in Disenchanted. Somewhat frustratingly, however, age-old expectations persist, as Disney is still inclined to pedal the post-war ideals of father-provider and mother-nurturer, even while embracing a more modern blended family. </p>
<h2>What makes a ‘real’ mother?</h2>
<p>At the heart of Disenchanted is the tension between mother and stepchild. The teenage angst is directed at Giselle, who Morgan blames for ruining her life. Her father, however, gets none of the flack and dismisses Giselle’s worries before making himself scarce. Giselle swiftly starts to be referred to as stepmother, instead of mother. </p>
<p>This is a big deal in fairy tales, as <a href="https://catapult.co/stories/column-tales-for-willful-readers-how-fairy-tales-depict-facets-of-motherhood">mothers</a> play very specific roles. </p>
<p>Biological mothers who are still alive are rare. These women are made out to be the very model of goodness. Their main goal in life is to become a mother – a womanly desire Disney and fairy tales applaud even though it too often ends in horrible ways (Snow White). They serve to place their child on the right path (quite literally in Little Red Riding Hood), to qualify their goodness and to make us believe that because the protagonist had a good mother, everything will be alright. </p>
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<p><a href="https://cherwell.org/2019/01/21/the-psychology-of-an-evil-stepmother/">Evil stepmothers</a> on the other hand bring excitement, peril and adventure. These women are biological mothers or mothers by marriage but their main goal is often to be more and to have more. Their ambition tends to divert protagonists off their paths and get them into trouble. Sometimes the protagonists “find themselves” as a result of dealing with stepmotherly ambition. Thanks to the evil Queen, Snow White finds solace, usefulness and friendship with the seven dwarfs, which leads her to her prince. </p>
<h2>Can power and motherhood co-exist?</h2>
<p>The self-interested version of a <a href="https://retrospectjournal.com/2016/10/26/wicked-women-the-stepmother-as-a-figure-of-evil-in-the-grimms-fairy-tales/">stepmother-cum-witch</a> allows readers and audiences to explore her badness while remaining secure in the knowledge that “real” mothers are safe and to be trusted. </p>
<p>Disenchanted attempts to flip the script on this. Giselle is both a “real” mother and a stepmother. So when Monroeville transforms into a magic land and the laws of fairy tales come into play, it’s not so clear cut which way this mother will go. </p>
<p>A battle between good and evil plays out as the two sides, real mother and step mother, tussle for control over Giselle. </p>
<p>Giselle flits from Cinderella’s stepmother to Rapunzel’s captor (whom she also called mother) as she grows increasingly wicked and more power hungry. But is ambition really the worst crime a mother can commit? Disenchanted seems to think so.</p>
<p>When we are introduced to Giselle she is pitched as the perfect woman. Dressed like a perfect <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-1950s-Housewife/">50’s housewife</a> in pretty floral and full skirts, she is the queen of her domestic sphere. We see her cook and clean and care for her family. She is happy playing the role of stay at home wife. Donning a suit, Robert is her 50s male counterpart. A successful lawyer, he is mostly away at work in his role as protector and provider. </p>
<p>Giselle becomes less than perfect when ambition gets in her way. Robert, however, remains perfect and just as missing in the action as before. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.crsd.org/cms/lib/PA01000188/Centricity/Domain/667/English/Fairy%20Tales/Fathers%20and%20Daughters.pdf">Fathers in fairy tales</a> are often absent, such as in Cinderella where he is away on business and then dies. Where fairy tale fathers differ most from mothers is their apparent absent dependability. Fathers can be busy elsewhere but their love remains unquestioned. Mothers, on the other hand, are expected to be present and active and therefore more fallible and open to criticism.</p>
<p>The patriarchy may prefer their mothers amenable and generous, but modern fairy tales could permit us to explore the other side. A Re-Enchanted next, perhaps, where power and motherhood co-exist?</p>
<p>Where the film does challenge fairy tale tropes is in the question of the strength of a mother’s love, particularly for those she has not birthed herself. Ultimately Disenchanted is a tale of the love between stepparents and stepchildren and the importance of celebrating that unique connection. It is in the “real” world where this love can thrive, making it clear that fairy tales aren’t always what they are cracked up to be and the real magic can be found in family.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Marr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In fairy tales there are real mothers and stepmothers and the latter are always evil.Vanessa Marr, Principal Lecturer in School of Art and Media, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1924212022-10-13T10:59:42Z2022-10-13T10:59:42ZAngela Lansbury – a storied career sure to touch people for years to come<p>I never met Angela Lansbury, but she was one of those icons that felt like a trusted friend and family member. Every Sunday evening, I devoured Jessica Fletcher’s activities in Murder, She Wrote – <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086765/">catching the bad guys and saving another poor victim from eternal damnation</a>. The younger generation discovered her as Mrs Potts in Disney’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/">Beauty and the Beast</a> and more recently as the balloon seller in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5028340/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0">Mary Poppins returns</a> (<a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/awards/mary-poppins-returns-julie-andrews-1203065856/">a role created as a cameo appearance for Julie Andrews, who turned it down so attention was not taken away from Emily Blunt</a>). Disney considered Lansbury for the original casting of Mary Poppins, so it is fitting that one of her last film appearances return full circle to her earlier Hollywood career.</p>
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<p>Lansbury, who died on October 11 2022, was a constant presence in film, stage and TV for nearly 70 years. She was one of the original Hollywood greats from the silver screen, but she did not fade into obscurity; she worked far longer and harder than many of the starlets of her age, who said no to unbecoming roles.</p>
<p>Dame Angela Lansbury was an icon of the stage and screen, but beneath this strong and lovable figure is a story filled with highs and lows that fuelled her talent and perseverance. </p>
<h2>A star of the silver screen</h2>
<p>Born in 1925 in London to Irish actress Moyna Macgill and politician Edgar Lansbury, the first experience to shape her life came at the age of nine when her father died of stomach cancer, leaving a gaping hole in Lansbury’s life. Finding refuge in the cinema as her interest in school waned, she fell in love with the movies and was able to pursue acting when the family moved to the US in 1940 to escape the Blitz. </p>
<p>Lansbury gained employment at the movie studio MGM, taking on minor roles in many major films, but more importantly, socialised in the world of acting. In 1944, she befriended John Van Druten the scriptwriter for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036855/">Gaslight</a>, a tale of psychological manipulation (where the term “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">gaslighting</a>” derives from), and was subsequently cast in the role of maid Nancy alongside Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The film led to her first Oscar nomination. </p>
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<p>Her socialising continued and in 1945 she met and married her hero, actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0188673/bio">Richard Cromwell</a>. The marriage lasted all but a year; she was one of the last people to know he was gay. In 1946 she met British actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7151929/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_trv_sm#trivia">Peter Shaw</a>, who she famously told after a screentest: “Darling, I love you very much, but an actor you aren’t.” He subsequently left the profession, eventually turning to casting and production. The couple were married in 1949 until his death 54 years later.</p>
<p>Lansbury continued her film career, playing, as she described, villainous parts much <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/958167/angela-lansbury-5-things-you-might-not-know-about-murder-she-wrote-star">older than her age</a> and appeared in over 40 films. It was not until the 60s that she was recognised as a leading lady and at the age of 41 took on the title role of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcF-WRNLcTc">Mame</a>, winning her first Broadway Tony award. Despite her effort at creating the role, she was rejected by the film studios to play the same part in the Hollywood adaptation, losing out to Lucille Ball.</p>
<h2>Leading roles</h2>
<p>During the 70s, the family retreated to County Cork, Ireland after their Malibu home was burnt to the ground and daughter Deidre had a close encounter with murderer <a href="https://variety.com/2022/film/news/angela-lansbury-saved-daughter-charles-manson-1235400889/">Charles Manson</a>. She limited her work to focus on her family until Disney’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066817/">Bedknobs and Broomsticks</a> delivered her long-awaited Hollywood leading lady role in 1971. </p>
<p>Developed at the same time as Mary Poppins but put on hold due to technical complications, Bedknobs and Broomsticks was originally planned for <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/72445/13-magical-facts-about-bedknobs-and-broomsticks">Julie Andrews</a>. However, by the time Andrews went to accept the part, Lansbury had already been cast. </p>
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<p>She continued to pioneer new stage roles, notably for Stephen Sondheim as Rose in Gypsy (1973, London premier) and the original Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979 Broadway premiere) leading to a further four Tony awards. In 1980, she met with Andrew Lloyd Webber, who pitched to her the role of Norma Desmond for his new musical version of the Billy Wilder classic film, Sunset Boulevard. The song he used to try to entice Lansbury was later rewritten and became Memory, finally appearing in Cats sung by Elaine Paige. Although Lansbury desperately wanted to play the role she was not considered when it was finally produced in 1993. </p>
<p>In 1991, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast introduced Lansbury to a new audience as the motherly figure Mrs Potts and ironically this was as close as she was going to get to winning an Oscar when the title tune for which she is now famed for singing won best original song.</p>
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<p>In her massively varied career, it was the TV series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086765/">Murder, She Wrote</a> (1984-96) that established Lansbury as a worldwide household name as the amateur detective Jessica Fletcher, running for 12 seasons. Lansbury holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for outstanding lead actress in a drama series receiving 12 for Murder, She Wrote, one for each season.</p>
<p>Lansbury kept working to the very end. Her final screen appearance will be aired in December 2022 in the Netflix murder mystery <a href="https://www.looper.com/1042609/how-you-can-see-glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery-in-theaters-before-it-hits-netflix/">Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery </a>. While details of her exact role in the film have not been made public, it will likely have some connection to Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. </p>
<p>Through her iconic roles, Angela Lansbury has left a legacy that will touch the lives of people for years to come – whether that’s as Mrs Potts weaving a “tale as old as time” or as the sleuth Jessica Fletcher. Goodbye, Dame Angela Lansbury.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Langston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From her role as sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote to originating some of the most famous roles on the stage, Lansbury’s career was impressive and expansive.Stephen Langston, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Performance, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910012022-10-04T19:06:04Z2022-10-04T19:06:04ZThe Little Mermaid has always been a story about exclusion – and its author was an outsider<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487461/original/file-20220930-12-h27bv0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C101%2C3988%2C1892&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Edmund Dulac/IMDB</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Disney’s forthcoming live-action adaptation of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5971474/">The Little Mermaid</a> has sparked an astonishing backlash. The <a href="https://youtu.be/xiyPHXkcz6s">trailer</a> for the 2023 film was met with millions of dislikes on YouTube, seemingly because the mermaid is played by Halle Bailey, a Black actress. </p>
<p>The 1989 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097757/">animated Disney film</a>, on which the upcoming film is based, featured a red-headed mermaid named Ariel (and a singing crab with a Jamaican accent). The implication of much of the recent criticism is that a Black mermaid is not “authentic” to The Little Mermaid fairy tale.</p>
<p>But fairy tales are continually retold in new ways over time.</p>
<p>Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tale is radically different to the 1989 film. He was a bisexual social outsider who struggled to express his desires. And his The Little Mermaid was not the happily-ever-after romance Disney fans are familiar with, but a tale of torturous unrequited love – which he worked on while a man he was infatuated with was getting married.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Black girls react joyfully to The Little Mermaid trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The first Cinderella was Chinese</h2>
<p>Outrage over fairy tales crossing cultural and racial boundaries is misguided. Variations of most popular tales are found in multiple cultures, and familiar tale types have a history of circling the globe. The way they’re told has adapted, too: from being shared orally, to literary versions (from the 17th century), and now film, television and games (from the 20th century). </p>
<p>Indeed, the very reason fairy tales have endured is because they are continually retold in new ways, to suit changing audiences and cultural norms. </p>
<p>The first recorded Cinderella variant, for example, is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Xian">Yeh-Hsien</a>, from China. It was first published around 850; while Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, which influenced most adaptations we know today, was published in 1697. Yeh-Hsien does not have the aid of a fairy godmother; instead, she wishes on the bones of a fish. If fairy tales should only “belong” to the first culture in which they were ever told or written, then it would be logical to suggest we should only depict Cinderella as Chinese. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The story of Yeh-Hsien is the first recorded variant of Cinderella.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid</h2>
<p>Disney’s animated adaptations, beginning with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/">Snow White</a> in 1937, have come to define our cultural understanding of fairy tales. It’s one reason why we’ve lost our cultural awareness of the diverse origins and traditions surrounding these tales. And these films, aimed at a family audience, sanitise earlier fairy tale variants – which were often more gruesome and disturbing than their Disney adaptations.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The story of Disney’s Little Mermaid, Ariel, is very different from Hans Christian Andersen’s original.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Unlike the Disney films, Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is a tragic story of suffering and extreme sacrifice. P.L. Travers, the author of <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007398553/mary-poppins/">Mary Poppins</a>, wrote about her dislike of the mermaid’s protracted agony and found Andersen’s “tortures, disguised as piety” to be “demoralizing”. </p>
<p>Many of Andersen’s protagonists are small and delicate figures who arouse our sympathy. This frailty can be due to being poor and uncared for, as in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Match_Girl">The Little Match Girl</a>. Or it can result from characters who are unable to move without difficulty. The tiny <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbelina">Thumbelina</a> must be carried from one location to another. And the Little Mermaid walks with the sensation of metal blades piercing her feet with every step. </p>
<p>The Little Mermaid is also a prime example of Andersen’s focus on female sacrifice and suffering. For a start, she has her tongue cut out by the sea witch and is made mute. And she maintains her delicate femininity with her “lovely, floating” walk on her hard-won human legs, despite the severe pain that is the cost of her bargain.</p>
<p>The mermaid saves the Prince on two occasions. First, she risks her life to rescue him from a shipwreck. Andersen’s fairy tale is not a love story, however, because the Prince never romantically desires the mermaid. He is impressed by her devotion but treats the mermaid like an animal or a child. He even gives her “permission to sleep on a velvet cushion at his door”. </p>
<p>The ultimate self-sacrifice of the Little Mermaid is evident when the Prince marries another woman and the mermaid holds the train of her wedding dress, while thinking only “of her death and of all she had lost in this world”. </p>
<p>The sea witch had promised that if the mermaid could make the prince fall in love with her, she would gain an immortal soul. If not, she would die of a broken heart on the first day after his marriage to someone else – and become sea foam on the waves. When she is faced with the choice to kill the Prince and rejoin her family in her mermaid form, she sacrifices her own life instead.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-arent-real-but-theyve-fascinated-people-around-the-world-for-ages-150518">Mermaids aren't real – but they've fascinated people around the world for ages</a>
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<h2>Andersen as outsider</h2>
<p>Andersen’s sad personal life unavoidably influences how his stories of downtrodden and pitiful characters are interpreted. In the case of the Little Mermaid, there is a close connection between the writing of the story and Andersen’s own feelings of isolation and rejection.</p>
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<span class="caption">Hans Christian Andersen.</span>
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<p>Andersen was a social outsider who never married – and potentially never had sex. He did become infatuated with both men and women and is therefore understood as bisexual. Yet he struggled to express his desires, an issue related to a series of complex psychological problems. </p>
<p>One of the men Andersen loved was his friend Edvard Collin, who did not return Andersen’s feelings. Biographer <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/hans-christian-andersen-9780140283204">Jackie Wullschläger</a> notes that The Little Mermaid was written “at the height of Andersen’s obsession with and renunciation of Edvard Collin”. When Collin’s marriage to a woman was held in August of 1836, Andersen intentionally remained on the Danish island of Funen in order to avoid the wedding. There, he continued to work on The Little Mermaid. </p>
<p>It is possible to view the Little Mermaid failing to gain an eternal soul through marriage to the Prince as Andersen rejecting the idea that immortality must depend on love being reciprocated. As Wullschläger suggests, Andersen likely equated himself, a bisexual, with the mermaid’s understanding of herself as a different species to humans.</p>
<p>Andersen wrote that he deliberately avoided the convention found in other mermaid fiction, such as Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140996.Undine">Undine</a> (1811), in which human love enables the acquisition of a soul:</p>
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<p>I’m sure that’s wrong! […] I won’t accept that sort of thing in this world. I have permitted my mermaid to follow a more natural, more divine path.</p>
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<p>Andersen’s tales frequently promote his Christian religious ethics. The path to salvation with God that Andersen maps often entails a cheerful embrace of pain, suffering, or humiliation. Maria Tatar comments that Andersen’s protagonists embrace death “joyfully”. They “reproach themselves for their sins and endorse piety, humility, passivity, and a host of other ‘virtues’ designed to promote subservient behaviour”. </p>
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<span class="caption">The mermaid and her sisters rescue the Prince.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Reid</span></span>
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<p>Most of Andersen’s protagonists are female. Fairy tales in the 19th century, such as those of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms%27_Fairy_Tales">Brothers Grimm</a>, commonly sought to direct the behaviour and morality of girls. In the case of the Little Mermaid, her harsh treatment and ultimate fate can be understood as punishment for her sexual curiosity in pursuing the Prince. It’s also a caution against attempting to leave the undersea home where she belongs. </p>
<p>The conclusion of Andersen’s tale transforms the Little Mermaid into sea foam and then a “daughter of the air” who may gain a soul after 300 years of compassionate, self-sacrificial behaviour. The moral educational function of fairy tales is especially evident in this ending. Child readers are informed their own good acts will shorten the length of time the Little Mermaid (and the other daughters of the air) must wait by one year, while bad acts will lengthen their wait. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-early-australian-fairy-tales-displaced-aboriginal-people-with-mythical-creatures-and-fantasies-of-empty-land-185592">How early Australian fairy tales displaced Aboriginal people with mythical creatures and fantasies of empty land</a>
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<h2>Diversifying and adapting fairy tales</h2>
<p>Disney’s original, animated The Little Mermaid departs radically from Hans Christian Andersen’s published fairy tale. Some of these changes reflect developments in ideas about the purpose of stories of children. Young characters undergoing extreme self-sacrifice and unhappy endings now rarely appear in stories for children. </p>
<p>Disney’s transformation of a story of salvation and religious devotion into a straightforward romance is but one example of how fairy tales lend themselves to retelling in new contexts. The live-action adaptation starring Halle Bailey, which seeks to make children of colour feel represented in fairy tales, is one more iteration of the story.</p>
<p>This attempt to diversify fairy-tale adaptations builds on the queer history of The Little Mermaid. The story is already understood as having parallels with Andersen’s bisexuality – and the experience of transgender people. The most important UK organisation for supporting transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse young people, for example, is called <a href="https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/about-us/">Mermaids</a>. </p>
<p>It’s unsurprising that outsiders of all kinds connect with a story about a mermaid who cannot fit in the human world she desperately wishes to belong to. Whether that’s a beloved author in 19th-century Denmark, or an African American girl today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Disney’s new Black mermaid has been called ‘inauthentic’ – but fairy tales have always been repurposed across cultures. And Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid was different from Disney’s.Michelle Smith, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886362022-09-16T12:18:13Z2022-09-16T12:18:13ZHayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’ continues to delight fans and inspire animators 20 years after its US premiere<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484891/original/file-20220915-25735-4sr3t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=208%2C7%2C1069%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics praised the film for its stunning visuals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/Spirited_Away_051.jpg?bwg=1569839416">Studio Ghibli</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature “Spirited Away” premiered in the U.S. 20 years ago, most viewers hadn’t seen anything like it.</p>
<p>Disney distributed the film. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/movies/film-review-conjuring-up-atmosphere-only-anime-can-deliver.html">But as one critic pointed out</a>, “Seeing just 10 minutes of this English version … will quickly disabuse any discerning viewer of the notion that it is a Disney creation.”</p>
<p>It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro who, when traveling with her parents, stumbles across what appears to be an abandoned theme park. As they explore, the parents are transformed into giant pigs, and Chihiro soon realizes that the park is occupied by strange, supernatural spirits. She ends up working at a bathhouse as she tries to figure out a way to free herself and her parents so they can return home.</p>
<p>The film went on <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/spirited-away-film-oscars-records-history-1235052088/">to win an Oscar</a> for Best Animated Feature. Twenty years later, it’s <a href="https://www.timeout.com/film/best-animated-movies">frequently</a> <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/40-greatest-animated-movies-ever-19817/fantastic-mr-fox-2009-3-208589/">listed</a> as one of the best animated films of all time. </p>
<p>Yet as <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/visual_art_and_design/our_people/directory/davis_northrop.php">a scholar of manga and anime studies</a>, I’m often struck by how popular the film became – and how fondly viewers remember it – given that so many of its elements would have been alien to American audiences.</p>
<h2>The manga revolution</h2>
<p>Many of the first anime films were inspired by manga, or Japanese comics.</p>
<p>Some of the <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/12/27/beginners-guide-manga">hallmarks of modern manga</a>, such as characters with big eyes, streaks to signal movement and different-sized panels <a href="https://immortalliumblog.com/the-importance-of-manga-paneling/">to convey action, character and emotion more effectively</a>, can be traced to the work of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12244368/osamu-tezuka-story-explained">Osamu Tezuka</a>, the so-called “<a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/tezuka-osamu-god-of-manga/">God of Manga</a>.” </p>
<p>Tezuka was influenced by his childhood and Japanese culture, but he was also inspired by American movies, television and comics. </p>
<p>When Tezuka was a child, he attended the performances of <a href="https://www.oldtokyo.com/takarazuka-gekijo/">Takarazuka</a>, an all-female theater group in Tokyo whose actresses tended to have well-lit, expressive eyes. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yPDHCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=pathe+projector+miyazaki&source=bl&ots=C961kgFDGy&sig=ACfU3U0AxM0ui5H20mba36S6o6XB_rJbsg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBmsaY4pb6AhVsSkEAHXK3DBkQ6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&q=pathe%20projector%20miyazaki&f=false">His father also showed him</a> American animation on a <a href="http://www.pathefilm.uk/95gearpathe.htm">Pathe projector</a>, and he was drawn to wide-eyed characters like <a href="https://media.allure.com/photos/58a2111cb02f3ebc310e2e78/master/pass/PBDBEBO_EC028_H.JPG">Betty Boop</a> and <a href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/c/ce/Profile_-_Bambi.png/revision/latest?cb=20190313173158">Bambi</a>. Together, they inspired the big, expressive eyes that would become characteristic of Tezuka’s work.</p>
<p>Tezuka’s debut manga, titled “<a href="https://tezukaosamu.net/en/manga/207.html">New Treasure Island</a>,” was published in 1947 and became a hit with Japanese youth. Soon an entire manga industry sprang up, churning out vibrantly creative and emotionally relatable comics in a wide range of genres.</p>
<p>Miyazaki was 21 years old when Tezuka’s popular manga “<a href="https://adultswim.fandom.com/wiki/Astro_Boy">Astro Boy</a>” appeared on TV in Japan in 1963. NBC soon picked it up, airing 102 episodes in the U.S. and exposing millions of Americans to Japanese anime for the first time.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h4SmuiiwCV0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Astroboy’ was the first TV show based on a Japanese manga to air in the U.S.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the ensuing decades, Americans enthusiastically embraced a range of manga and anime series through franchises like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214341/">Dragon Ball</a>,” “<a href="https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Narutopedia">Naruto</a>” and “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-54730487">Demon Slayer</a>.” </p>
<h2>Doing anime differently</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Miyazaki-Hayao">Miyazaki began his career</a> in 1963 as an entry-level animator for Toei animation. He went on to work on a number of animated TV shows and films before founding his own production company, Studio Ghibli, with his longtime friend and collaborator, Takahata Isao, in 1985. </p>
<p>Anime is often based on successful manga series, and it involves creating a vibrant character kingdom and the construction of a world that often lends itself to spinoffs like movies, television shows, musicals, toys and massive merchandising opportunities.</p>
<p>In this sense, many of the films that came out of Studio Ghibli were not really traditional anime. Most lack the merchandizing tie-ins that have become ubiquitous in franchises like “Pokemon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh.” And while some of Ghibli’s films originated as manga, many of them did not. Miyazaki and his team also broke from industry norms by hiring artists as full-time staffers, rather than as underpaid freelancers.</p>
<p>As Miyazaki once said, “Animation has the potential to be far more than just about business, or merchandising, or selling character goods; it can have its own ambitions.” </p>
<h2>When the line between good and evil blurs</h2>
<p>When “Spirited Away” was released, the only feature-length Japanese animated film most Americans would have likely been exposed to in theaters was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/10/akira-anime-japanese-cartoon-manga">Akira</a>,” which had a limited run in 1990. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences <a href="https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991031382479703276/01VAN_INST:vanui">didn’t even award an Oscar for Best Animated Feature until 2001</a>, because Disney and Pixar so thoroughly dominated the genre. </p>
<p>Compared with traditional Western animation, manga and anime tend to reflect a more adult and complicated view of morality, rather than the “good versus evil” paradigm common in children’s media. </p>
<p>“Spirited Away” centers on a spirit world that, while present in various other manga and anime films, challenges non-Japanese audiences. It is unclear whether the spirits will harm or help the protagonist. Miyazaki, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/movies/film-review-conjuring-up-atmosphere-only-anime-can-deliver.html">New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell wrote</a>, captures “that fascinating and frightening aspect of having something that seems to represent good become evil.” </p>
<p>The world appears to be inspired by a class of spirits known as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami">kami</a>” that are venerated in the religion of Shinto, although Miyazaki has noted that he invented his own spirits, rather than use previously known kami. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11032374/">Demon Slayer</a>,” a 2020 anime film that was a hit in the U.S., <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-54730487">also contained characters</a> from the spirit world.</p>
<p>As kami expert <a href="https://www.popmatters.com/yokai-attack-the-japanese-monster-survival-guide-by-hiroko-yoda-and-matt-al-2496114419.html">Matt Alt</a> told me, “Only a place with countless shrines, each venerating their own locations and local deities, could have dreamed up something like ‘Spirited Away.’” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Girl sits on a train next to ghosts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The world of ‘Spirited Away’ includes supernatural entities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Spirited-Away-052.jpg">Studio Ghibli</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet thanks to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8geg4b/spirited-away-ghibli-miyazaki-15th-15-year-anniversary-best-animation-hannah-ewens">the beauty of the film’s visuals</a> – as well as the fact that, deep down, it contains universal storytelling tropes – Miyazaki can get viewers to buy into his world. No matter how strange <a href="https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Stink_Spirit">a shape-shifting sludge spirit</a> might appear to audiences, they can still relate to the spunky, and sometimes sullen, Chihiro. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Turning_Point_1997_2008/VB4hEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">As Miyazaki explained in an interview</a>, the film’s idiosyncrasies ultimately enhance its universality: “No one waves weapons about or has showdowns using superpowers, but it’s still an adventure story. And while an adventure story, a confrontation between good and evil is not the main theme either. This is supposed to be the story of a young girl who is thrown into another world, where good people and bad are all mixed up and coexisting.”</p>
<p>“In this world,” he continues, “she undergoes rigorous training, learns about friendship and self-sacrifice and, using her own basic smarts, somehow not only survives but manages to return to our world.”</p>
<h2>A lasting imprint</h2>
<p>While Walt Disney and other American creators made a huge impression on Tezuka, the influences of anime can be seen in countless <a href="https://collider.com/best-movies-inspired-by-anime-the-matrix-avatar/">American films</a> and <a href="https://www.absoluteanime.com/boondocks/">TV shows</a>.</p>
<p>This sort of cultural cross-pollination, which I detail in my book “<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/manga-and-anime-go-to-hollywood-9781623560386/">Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood</a>,” has been going on for decades. </p>
<p>Miyazaki’s films also have made a unique imprint on the imaginations of a generation of Western animators.</p>
<p>John Lasseter, the former chief creative officer of Pixar, <a href="https://www.awn.com/news/john-lasseter-pays-tribute-hayao-miyazaki-tokyo-film-festival">has said</a> that whenever he and his team got stuck for ideas, they would screen a Miyazaki film for inspiration. Domee Shi, the director for Pixar’s “Turning Red,” <a href="https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3169814/animes-influence-pixars-turning-red-spirited-away-director">specifically cited</a> “Spirited Away” as a huge influence. And a 2014 episode of “The Simpsons” <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2014/01/simpsons-miyazaki-tribute-annotated-anime-episode-says-goodbye-to-hayao-miyazaki-here-are-the-references-video.html">even contained a tribute</a> to Miyazaki. </p>
<p>Tezuka once said that a story was like a tree, which is only as strong as its roots.</p>
<p>To me, Miyazaki and his team achieved the highest level of filmmaking by not only creating gorgeous visuals, but by also crafting relatable lead characters, a compelling supporting cast and rich, enthralling worlds. Engaging viewers with a creative story arc, he always found a way to land with a timeless message.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Turning_Point_1997_2008/VB4hEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Miyazaki noted</a> that Chihiro ultimately returns to her ordinary world “not by vanquishing evil, but as a result of having learned a new way to live.”</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the class of Japanese spirits that those in “Spirited Away” evoke. It is “kami,” not “yokai.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Northrop Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the fact that many of its elements were alien to American audiences, the film became a sensation.Northrop Davis, Professor of Media Arts, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1889822022-08-23T20:04:26Z2022-08-23T20:04:26ZBluey was edited for American viewers – but global audiences deserve to see all of us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480500/original/file-20220823-24-z2639u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C2137%2C1496&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC TV</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Beloved children’s program Bluey has received some backlash. </p>
<p>Not due to the program, but to Disney’s decision to make edits to various episodes for the US market. </p>
<p>Dubbed “<a href="https://mouthsofmums.com.au/7-things-disney-apparently-censored-in-bluey-season-3/">censorship</a>” by some publications, the changes to the third season, released in America on Disney+ this month, include Bandit not being hit in a sensitive area, a conversation about getting a vasectomy replaced with “getting dog teeth removed”, the horse Buttermilk no longer stands next to poo on screen and Aunt Trix is no longer seen on the toilet during a video call.</p>
<p>One episode, Family Meeting, where Bluey accuses dad Bandit of farting in her face, was removed entirely – although due to the backlash it appears this decision has been <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/streaming/bluey-episode-banned-on-disney-in-the-us-for-bizarre-reason/news-story/b5877d7134a6b217234398eb7892d4da">rescinded</a>.</p>
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<p>Episodes in previous seasons have also been <a href="https://twitter.com/blueymoments/status/1261872704237551618">edited</a> or <a href="https://blueypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dad_Baby">unavailable</a> to stream on Disney+. </p>
<p>This decision by Disney comes at a time when there has been a fundamental shift, both in the way audiences consume content and how content is distributed. Through global streaming services, content previously produced for a local market now has a greater opportunity to reach a global audience. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/arts/television/bluey-cartoon-dog-australia.html">The New York Times</a> has said Bluey “could rival The Wiggles as Australia’s most popular children’s cultural export”. </p>
<p>But can screen content truly be considered a cultural export if it is re-edited to reflect cultural aspects of the market it is being distributed in?</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-idealised-australian-ethos-why-bluey-is-an-audience-favourite-even-for-adults-without-kids-168571">'An idealised Australian ethos': why Bluey is an audience favourite, even for adults without kids</a>
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<h2>Content for global audience</h2>
<p>Australian media content being changed for the US market is not a new phenomena. </p>
<p>More than 40 years ago, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079501/alternateversions">Mad Max</a> was dubbed with American accents for the US market. </p>
<p>More recently, Australian television shows like <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2011/06/watch_the_original_australian.html">Wilfred</a> (2011), <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-30/american-version-kath-and-kim-tv-remakes/100689218">Kath & Kim</a> (2009) and <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/the-slap/the-slap-australia-explained/">The Slap</a> (2015) have been reproduced for a US market. </p>
<p>Since these Americanised series premiered, there has been a shift in the commissioning of media. Content distributors no longer solely rely on local broadcasters: they now are able to go direct to a global audience through streaming services. </p>
<p>Since the start of 2022, Netflix has commissioned content <a href="https://www.ampereanalysis.com/press/release/dl/netflix-looks-to-international-commissions-for-growth">from 44 territories</a>, Warner Bros commissioned work across 27 territories for HBO Max and Discovery+, Disney 23 and Amazon 21. </p>
<p>These streaming platforms aren’t looking for local hits: they’re looking for global hits, from anywhere. It’s not just about making the next Stranger Things, it’s <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/netflix-commissions-originals-from-a-record-28-international-markets/5173422.article">about making</a> the next Money Heist – the Netflix hit from Spain – or the next South Korean juggernaut Squid Game.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-729" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/729/5a70332dc784cc40444abc32d8596da0279a50bc/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>A question of quotas</h2>
<p>In 2021, the federal government removed the quota requiring local children’s programming on Australian commercial television. This has resulted in a significant <a href="https://tvtonight.com.au/2022/08/2021-content-quotas-soaps-deliver-but-kids-tv-in-freefall.html">decline</a> in the broadcast of children’s content.</p>
<p>We have seen <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/spending-subscription-video-demand-providers-2020-21">increased investment</a> of Australian content by streaming services. Together, Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix and Stan spent A$178.9 million in the 2020–21 financial year, including children’s television. This is up more than $25 million in the <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/spending-subscription-video-demand-providers-2019-20">previous year</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1261872704237551618"}"></div></p>
<p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-has-a-new-development-funding-initiative-with-the-australian">Netflix launched</a> a partnership with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation to fund the development of original Australian children’s series. Disney has <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/disney-releases-first-wave-of-local-content-commissions-with-9-australian-originals-737567">also announced</a> its planned investment in local Australian children’s content.</p>
<p>This increase by streaming service is yet to fill the shortfall by commercial television.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cheese-n-crackers-concerns-deepen-for-the-future-of-australian-childrens-television-147183">Cheese 'n' crackers! Concerns deepen for the future of Australian children's television</a>
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<h2>But is it Australian?</h2>
<p>In June, the <a href="https://makeitaustralian.com/">Make It Australian</a> campaign was launched at the Sydney Film Festival. The campaign calls for Australian stories to be “told on Australian screens by us, to us, about us”.</p>
<p>At the campaign launch, arts minister Tony Burke said international and commercial success for Australian films is “wonderful, but that is a bonus.”</p>
<p>The “first objective” for Australian films, he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>is to make sure our stories are told so that we know better ourselves; we know better each other and the world has a better way of knowing us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is the last point that Tony Burke makes, about the world “knowing us”, that is less considered in the ongoing local screen content debate. Indeed, Australian content is being <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/spending-subscription-video-demand-providers-2020-21">shown to a global audience</a>. </p>
<p>But what happens when Australian content is edited with these international audiences in mind? Edits like those Disney made to Bluey not only impact the humour and the narrative, but also impact the cultural representation within the program.</p>
<p>Increased investment by streaming services will provide opportunities for Australian local content to be successful locally and globally. But for Australian television and films to be true cultural exports, the world should be seeing the version of ourselves we are seeing, too.</p>
<p>The success of this relies on not only focusing on content production and local distribution, but including strategies that allow Australian content to remain free from localised edits, so it can truly reflect an Australian cultural export. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tv-has-changed-so-must-the-way-we-support-local-content-139674">TV has changed, so must the way we support local content</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the rise of streaming platforms, Australian television can reach a global audience – but what will that audience be seeing?Marc C-Scott, Senior lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1850922022-07-11T15:32:08Z2022-07-11T15:32:08ZSome people treat Disney as sacred. Does that make it a religion?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470644/original/file-20220623-51658-q2jdih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5472%2C3656&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many critique Disney adults as being victims of exploitation because Disney merchandise and trips to the parks come at a steep price.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Raoux)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/some-people-treat-disney-as-sacred--does-that-make-it-a-religion" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Disney has been making the headlines lately, but it hasn’t been about blockbusters. Recently, people have been up in arms over a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8911662/disney-apologizes-employee-interrupts-marriage-proposal-paris/">ruined Disney park proposal</a> and a couple who opted to have <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/internet-loses-mind-couple-said-minnie-mickey-wedding-instead-food-rcna32228">Minnie and Mickey at their wedding instead of food</a>. </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/11/1104056661/disney-adults">news articles</a> and social media users were quick to say that for some folks, Disney is a religion — citing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/God-in-the-Details-American-Religion-in-Popular-Culture/Mazur-McCarthy/p/book/9780415485371">mythologies, symbols, rituals, community</a> and regular expensive pilgrimages to the park as central reasons. </p>
<p>But just because many people treat Disney as sacred, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a religion. </p>
<p>Religion is an incredibly difficult thing to define, yet most people assume they already know what it means. You know it when you see it, right? The problem is, under this logic, anything and everything could be considered a religion. </p>
<p>Practically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with this. The world will not fall apart. But the problem for those of us studying religion is if everything’s a religion, then what are we really studying? </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Disney adults talk about being banned from dressing up at Disney parks.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-25243">my own work</a>, I study the ways in which people use popular culture to bring meaning to their life. More than ever before, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/unaffiliated-religious-nones/">people are identifying less and less with a religious tradition</a>. This leads some people to look for meaning and identity in the things they love most: like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1465620">baseball</a>, <a href="https://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/">books</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bending-not-breaking-an-avatar-the-last-airbender-podcast/id1486277624">television</a> and even <a href="https://www.beyoncemass.com/">Beyoncé</a>.</p>
<p>My goal here isn’t to argue against those who consider Disney their religion. But I want to challenge how words like religion are used so we can come to a better understanding of what it might mean to treat the Disney parks as sacred.</p>
<h2>Not just for kids</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bqx9">Religion is not a universal category</a>. It is a category that was <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/1593">used by Christian colonialists</a> to determine who was similar to the colonists and who was not. And, by extension, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo13657764.html">who was human and who was not</a>. </p>
<p>I think it is possible to approach <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-are-disney-adult-fans-2021-8#what-are-disney-adults-1">Disney adults</a> with empathy and understanding without necessarily calling their relationship to Disney religion. </p>
<p>What’s more interesting is that Disney is being incorporated into important life events, and the ways in which it is <a href="https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/753369740/kraftland">meaningful to people</a>. </p>
<p>Disney products — movies, shows, etc. — like any product of popular culture, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsd3">have always</a> reflected and contributed to whatever’s currently happening politically and religiously.</p>
<p>In response to the wedding and proposal controversies, religious studies scholar <a href="https://forward.com/news/505141/what-can-disney-adults-teach-us-about-religion-a-lot-according-to-this-professor/">Jodi Eichler-Levine</a> argued that “people tend to dismiss Disney” because it’s for kids and it’s fake. But, as she says, “even if the people in the costumes are fake, the emotions are real.” </p>
<p>What Eichler-Levine said reminds me of my Dad who, without fail, will cry every time he sees the Disney World fireworks show. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Happily Ever After fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Paying a hefty price</h2>
<p>Religious studies scholar Linda Woodhead <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2011.544192">argues that religion can be</a> understood in five ways: as culture, identity, relationship, practice and power. </p>
<p>Some people who love Disney incorporate it into important cultural events, while others wear paraphernalia as an expression of identity. Some people come to develop a close relationship to the brand through regular park attendance and by being a part of the Disney-loving community.</p>
<p>I think when people say Disney is a religion, they mean that some people treat Disney as sacred. French sociologist David Émile Durkheim <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41360/41360-h/41360-h.htm#Page_36">defines sacredness as</a> a category communities ascribe to certain things based on how they treat them.</p>
<p>Many critique Disney adults <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/disney-adults-tiktok-hated-internet-1370226/">as being victims of exploitation</a> because Disney merchandise and trips to the parks come at a steep price. Such critiques could also be applied to the history of exploitation in Christian traditions. </p>
<p>Before the Protestant Reformation, Catholic Church leaders asserted that in order to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/purgatory-Roman-Catholicism">avoid time in purgatory</a> after death, congregants <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/indulgence">needed to pay indulgences</a>. Doing so would cleanse them of their sins so they could bypass purgatory and secure a place for their soul in heaven — some religious leaders came to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther/The-indulgences-controversy">conclusion this was exploitative</a>.</p>
<p>But even today this sort of exploitation <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump">is still happening</a>.</p>
<p>I see a big similarity between the previous example and Disney asking consumers to pay a hefty price to come to the parks in order to experience Disney’s magic with their own eyes, ears and yes, <a href="https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/secrets-disney-parks-gallery/slide-18">even their nose</a>! Similarly, historic religious leaders made believers pay a hefty price to secure their place in paradise after death. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, under capitalism, people are going to be exploited every day. </p>
<p>Disney isn’t arguing that by spending money at their parks your soul will be saved. So by this logic, if some people treat Disney as sacred, is it a big deal?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah McKillop does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People are increasingly identifying less with religious tradition and are looking for meaning and identity in the things they love most.Hannah McKillop, Doctoral Student in Religious Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.