A World of Laughter, A World of Tears, We All Live In Disneyland
Walt Disney was ahead of his time in that he saw better than any of his contemporaries the importance of branding, and of creating a culture around the products of his studio that devotees could become totally immersed in. When Disney's animation studio in Anaheim, California received letters in the 40s and 50s from people who wanted to tour their facilities, Walt realized that there was a market to be tapped there. So in 1955, Disneyland opens and provides the company's devotees with a place to make a pilgrimage to demonstrate their devotion. Had Disney not died of cancer in 1966, he might have been able to make his original vision for EPCOT in Florida a reality. He wanted the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow to be an actual, real community where real people actually lived and worked. He wanted Disney to have its own city under its control.
The original vision for EPCOT proved to be too ambitious for Disney to follow through with, but the idea expressed by Disneyland; of creating an entire culture that devotees could immerse themselves in, would soon become the norm in all entertainment. Disney was isolated in its approach until the late-70s, when two films created a template for Disney's approach to expand in scope. In 1977, Star Wars creates the modern blockbuster, and creates modern merchandising as a way of making money back from what was considered an expensive passion project for George Lucas. Star Wars becomes a massive hit, and the merchandising around it becomes a template for people after. One year later, in 1978, Superman: The Movie becomes the urtext of the modern superhero film. It takes the blockbuster template of Star Wars, and applies it to pre-existing intellectual property.
Disney's success in the period before the blockbuster was built on taking existing public domain stories, folk tales and fairy tales, and making their version of them the cultural default through sheer omnipresent attrition. In the 80, their attempts to do blockbusters of their own in Tron and The Black Hole didn't make much of an impact. But in the 21st century, they cracked how to get into it and become bigger than they'd ever been. They find a market where they aren't dominant, and then buy out whoever is, usually as a means of doing "boys stuff" to compliment the Disney Princess line's dominance in media for girls. Their first attempt at this was buying Power Rangers from Saban, but this wasn't as successful. But their purchasing of Marvel Studios in 2009 and LucasFilm in 2013 were a much bigger deal for the company.
Mass, pop culture like comic book superheroes and pulp science fiction have been called the folklore of the 20th century. If that's the case, then why wouldn't Disney eventually treat them the same way they treated actual folklore? By creating a new Disneyfied version of them that supplants the original versions through omnipresent attrition? Once Disney got past a certain size, it was inevitable.
The original vision for EPCOT proved to be too ambitious for Disney to follow through with, but the idea expressed by Disneyland; of creating an entire culture that devotees could immerse themselves in, would soon become the norm in all entertainment. Disney was isolated in its approach until the late-70s, when two films created a template for Disney's approach to expand in scope. In 1977, Star Wars creates the modern blockbuster, and creates modern merchandising as a way of making money back from what was considered an expensive passion project for George Lucas. Star Wars becomes a massive hit, and the merchandising around it becomes a template for people after. One year later, in 1978, Superman: The Movie becomes the urtext of the modern superhero film. It takes the blockbuster template of Star Wars, and applies it to pre-existing intellectual property.
Disney's success in the period before the blockbuster was built on taking existing public domain stories, folk tales and fairy tales, and making their version of them the cultural default through sheer omnipresent attrition. In the 80, their attempts to do blockbusters of their own in Tron and The Black Hole didn't make much of an impact. But in the 21st century, they cracked how to get into it and become bigger than they'd ever been. They find a market where they aren't dominant, and then buy out whoever is, usually as a means of doing "boys stuff" to compliment the Disney Princess line's dominance in media for girls. Their first attempt at this was buying Power Rangers from Saban, but this wasn't as successful. But their purchasing of Marvel Studios in 2009 and LucasFilm in 2013 were a much bigger deal for the company.
Mass, pop culture like comic book superheroes and pulp science fiction have been called the folklore of the 20th century. If that's the case, then why wouldn't Disney eventually treat them the same way they treated actual folklore? By creating a new Disneyfied version of them that supplants the original versions through omnipresent attrition? Once Disney got past a certain size, it was inevitable.
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