In the introduction of the reading, the essay opens with two quotes from Donald Duck, while both quotes made me question the teachings of Walt Disney, the second caught more of my attention. It reads, "Baby frogs will be big frogs someday, which bring high prices on the market... I'm going to fix some special frog food and speed up the growth of those little hoppers!" I took a particular fascination with this quote because of the blatant campaign for capitalism. As I was reading Introduction to Part II I found myself curious about how Walt Disney presented themes of capitalism in his comics, I didn't doubt he did but reading that quote shocked me because it was so obvious. Now as a young child it wouldn't stand out to me, nor do I think it stands out to most children because we don't have much context for the material at that age however looking back at the language used it's quite obvious that Disney is conditioning the younger generations to adopt and think with a capitalistic mindset.
It's quite astounding that lines like these go right over our heads, young or old, if we are not looking critically at material this would not provoke any strong feelings. We would simply carry on consuming this media without realizing the effects it has on shaping our narrative in the world. This can be applied to all media we consume, I am not in a constant state of critical analysis when I stream movies or tv shows and so I sometimes find myself taken aback when watching film reviews and find out something about the piece of media that was completely lost on me. For example, I remember first learning about how the Matrix was an innuendo for the trans experience. I never once considered the movie in that context before and yet after I was informed it made perfect sense. It's very telling of how powerful and dangerous media is. We are constantly engaging with material that is either consciously or subconsciously telling us to behave, think, or act a certain way. Dorfman calling attention to how Disney is an agent of capitalism and how that affects generations to come is a powerful and necessary theory.
This is a really interesting perspective. Honestly I didn't make the connection between the Donald Duck quote and capitalism until I read your post and now I can't unsee it. While like you said, I'm honestly not surprised by capitalist propaganda being present in Disney's comics, I never took note of it as a child because at the time I didn't even know what capitalism was or how it functions. In Anna's blog post about this reading, she outlined how she felt the narratives in Disney movies had affected her view of herself and the surrounding world and I related a lot to her experience. I think it's easier to notice how the narratives surrounding heteronormativity and conventional beauty standards have affected me because as a queer woman I've had a lot of experience feeling like I don't match up to the standards they set. But, I wonder what other examples of capitalist propaganda existed in the media I consumed as a child that went completely over my head. With the level that capitalism is ingrained into every facet of society, I'm sure there are other examples outside of the Donald Duck quote from this chapter, I'd be really interested in taking a deeper look into what those might be. I think another narrative that's deeply present in media from Disney is ableism. I've briefly talked about this in class, but I think it's important to mention as its something I had never noticed until it was brought to my attention and it's kind of insane how many examples of this there are. Over the summer, I read a book called "Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space" by Amanda Leduc (which I would highly recommend if anyone is interested in this topic) that outlined Amanda's experiences as a disabled woman interacting with fairy tales and there were quite a few examples relating to Disney. In pretty much every Disney film with a disabled person, said person is either someone that we're meant to pity or the portrayed as the villain (think the Hunchback of Notre Dame or Captain Hook). Like the Donald Duck quote, I had never considered the deeper implications until they were brought to my attention and it's kind of scary to think about how much subconscious messaging we were exposed to as children and how these narratives can still affect us as adults.
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