use and accent manipulation and to cite the sources of
your information.
Read “Demonizing in Children’s Television Cartoons and
Disney Animated Films,” a short quantitative study of the
concept of evil in Disney films (Fouts et al. 2006). How do
the findings of this paper contradict or support the data
and conclusions drawn in this chapter?
Consider the way you and others talk about Disney. Do you
hear phrases such as “allowances have to be made for the
times,” or “that’s the way things were,” or “everybody felt
that way,” or “come on, it’s supposed to be funny”? Where
do such reactions originate, and are they meant to move
discussion forward, or to shut down discourse and critical
analysis? For close readings of examples of this kind of
reasoning, see especially Hill (2008).Notes
1 Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1997, formal study of
all aspects of the Disney empire has grown significantly (Doherty July
21, 2006). Of the work released over the last decade, perhaps most
relevant to the issues raised here is Giroux’s The Mouse that Roared:
Disney and the End of Innocence (2010: 2nd edn).
Over that same period of time, Disney has released a number of full-
length animated films. Given technical limitations, it is not possible to
include those films in the quantitative analysis used for the pre-1997
films, which remains intact. Instead, I have viewed and analyzed the
newer films, and where they best fit into the discussion, I include my
qualitative analysis.
2 Fisch (2005) presents arguments for the constructive aspects of
television viewing for children, who are exposed to positive role
models and educational exercises in programming such as Sesame
Street.