Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Sperb Jason
Title : Disney’s most notorious film Race, convergence, and the hidden histories of song of the South
Year : 2012

Link download : Sperb_Jason_-_Disney_s_most_notorious_film.zip

Preface. This book is dedicated to understanding the lost ideals, disturbing truths, and hard facts underlying the histories of Disney’s most notorious fi lm. I wish to state upfront that I empathize with the more skeptical, even resistant, Disney fan. In many ways, I was a member of the company’s key demographic. Raised by television, I was a child of the Reagan ’80s, when the company most emphatically cemented its retrospective status as both a unique brand and a tradition of family entertainment. I am a white, middle-class American who grew up in the suburbs in the wake of “white fl ight” from major cities in the 1970s. I was also one of countless people who were themselves the product of a “Disney household.” A key factor to the company’s long-term business success is that parents are “encouraged” to raise their own children on all things Disney and to instill in their offspring the desire to raise their own kids in the same reassuring environment (i.e., buy recognizable stuff and get your kids to do likewise). Disney’s phenomenal, largely self-generating, success in historical terms is really that simple - the plan to sell generational experiences, or more precisely, to sell the always already nostalgic experience of being a member of a particular kind of generation. This is not the only prospective audience for the company, but the one most conducive to the Disney brand today. Growing up, I was constantly brought along on a preprogrammed journey for my parents’ own commodifi ed nostalgia. In that environment, I was initiated into a longing for a time I never experienced fi rsthand (and, as a new father myself, I can now understand the appeal of that thoroughly selfi sh impulse). I remember hearing about how my parents’ fi rst date was to a Disney movie. I remember seeing Snow White and other rereleased “classic” fi lms in theaters when I was young - in the era, before home video, when Disney still recycled their old fi lms theatrically for every new generation of children. ...