Image and reality

From "Disney and its conservative critics: Images versus realities" by Ronald E. Ostman

This article focuses on conservative critics issues with Disney released films. There is little to no mention of the theme parks, but it does provide some useful information on Walt Disney and how the company was run under him. Therefore this information would be helpful and setting the groundwork and motivation that one could assume went into the theme parks and how it was developed.

* "According J. Anthony Lukas and Richard Schickel, founder Walt Disney had a personal reputation as a 'great puritan entrepreneur of culture in the 20th century...an extreme expression of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant culture values.'

The late Walt Disney was a Goldwater/Nixon/Reagan conservative.

According to Finch, after Mickey was established as a national (and later international) star he was expected to behave properly at all times. If he occasionally stepped out of line any number of letters would arrive at the Studio from citizens and organizations who felt that the nation's moral well-being was in their hands. It was becoming harder and harder to find comic situations for Mickey [in the mid-1930s] that would not give offense in some quarter. Eventually he would be pressured into the role of the straight man...

According to Kunzle, 'even love is prohibited (the relationship between Mickey and Minnie, or Donald and Daisy, is 'platonic'-but not a platonic form of love)" (2 of 9)
These quotes help to illustrate the type of man that Walt Disney was, and therefore we can better understand how Mickey Mouse developed into the image that we have today. However, it is interesting about the relationship between the "couple." People at the parks always say that Mickey and Minnie, along with Donald and Daisy, are forever sweethearts which is why they aren't married. I wonder if this is a more modern take on Walt's vision.

"Disney culture soothes some of our deepest cultural fears. Facing the complexities of pluralism, we try donning identical Mickey Mouse ears. Worried about our lack of historical identity, we find comfort in a personal audience with Mr. Lincoln. As we question the 'American Dream' and the structures of consumerism, we visit Disneyland and can affirm that America is, in Mickey's words, 'the best in the world.

"Mickey's is a child's world, safe (though occasionally scary), nonviolent, non-ideological, where all the stories have happy endings...

"In the 1970s, critics on the political Left began questioning the company. For example, in 1975 Kunzle wrote convincingly that lurking not too far below Mickey and Walt Disney and company's innocence were 'the scowl of capitalist ideology' and 'imperialist values.' Since Disney was shown to wear political and economic trappings, it was not too far a leap of logic to realize that Disney products also could be used to advance a particular cultural agenda." (5 of 9)
These quotes progress from discussing the overall Disney culture to how Mickey and the entire Disney culture can be used to express specific political and cultural views.