MerryChristmas!, Dorfman & Matterlart

Disney has been an area of extensive critique and study among people for a long time. People like Dorfman and Matterlart attempt to understand why Disney is so successful and what it tell us about human nature. We discussed this issue thoroughly in CMC 200 and we came to the conclusion that Disney gives a false sense of history by eliminating the bad and emphasizing the good. Some argue that this is wrong while others argue that it isn't necessarily bad. We are, however, projecting this false sense of reality and what it used to be in the United States in the past. Dorfman and Matterlart's explanation of what Disney is attempting to do was rather interesting to me. They say, "The comics show the child as a miniature adult, enjoying an idealized, gilded, infancy which is really nothing but the adult projection of some magic era beyond the reach of the harsh discord of daily life." They call the era a magic one because it is truly portraying a life that did not exist. Perhaps the facts may be true, but this magic era is a very skewed version of reality. They then go on to say, "It is a plan for salvation which presupposes a primal stage within every existence, sheltered from contradictions and permitting imaginative escape. Juvenile literature, embodying purity, spontaneity, and natural virtue, while lacking in sex and violence, represents earthly paradise." This is also an interesting statement. By recreating the past in a positive light, the mastermind behind the project are creating this idea of earth that is impossible, thus calling it earthly paradise. Disney is a place where one can escape the earth in which they live and have that perception of earth altered. Another quote: "It guarantees man's own redemption as an adult: as long as there are children, he will have the pretext and means for self-gratification with the spectacle of his own dreams." Their explanation of why man tries to recreate this earthly, magical paradise was so eye-opening. Perhaps man is trying to redeem themselves from what they have become and how corrupt they have become by creating this mold of what they really want to happen.