This week's challenge, as the title on this post suggests, is to form a Frankfurt School style critique of a culture industry of our choosing. So I thought I'd stick to an area I can critique fairly well as it's an industry I'm interested in. The culture I've chosen is film culture but the industry i've decided to focus on is something we all know and love, Disney....
Disney is a prime example of an industry within film culture that is, in the words of Walter Benjamin, 'Mechanically Reproduced'. Disney makes several films a year and no matter what the story, they all have the same principal message to them. Now I'm not trying to completely diss Disney because after all, we all have our favourite Disney classic and they have made some good films, but if you pay to see a Disney movie at the cinema, you know what you're getting. Disney have taken the fairy tale format, put a different spin on it every time and made a shed load of money out of it. We can sit and enjoy them while being amused without having to put any thought into the watching process at all. Disney films are truly for the passive audience.
Because we have learnt to expect specific genres and products from Disney, Disney's culture has become standardised. There isn't really anything they can offer to the 'individual' and the products they make don't present any material that is challenging or particularly cultural for consumers. They do kind of offer a small sense of pseudo individualisation to some consumers in the way of minority groups but even they aren't really buying into something that offers them a voice for individuality and they often almost become the 'token piece' of the film.
Disney's main aim is to make money and they have succeed on a grand scale. It's a corporation that is ever growing and a franchise that's already been going for 87 years and one that I'm sure will continue for another 87 and beyond.
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