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The Walt Disney Company: How They Are Re-Writing Their Own Narratives

Disney Channel is just one of many highly successful and influential subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company . For decades, The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries have shaped the cultural landscape, creating concrete ideas about race, gender roles, class, sexuality and sexual orientation for people of all ages, offering a new company and its products (usually networks and their TV shows) to society at each age demographic stepping stone. The Walt Disney Company’s habit of maintaining its power and influence as well as its core ideas and values through this process of reinforcement at every possible turn had become an integral part of culture for the U.S. and countless nations around the world. Anywhere in the world that The Walt Disney Company can access, has undoubtedly been shaped by it, whether this is consciously recognized or not. This is not to say that The Walt Disney Company has been the sole influencer around the world of societal opinions, many pre-existing gover...
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Inaccurate and Seemingly Not Improving: Disney Channel Representations of Class

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Disney Channel approaches class stiltedly, interweaving a less obvious but still omnipresent depiction of the American Dream, creating clear divides between racial and economic classes, but ignoring depictions/ groups that they don’t value, and glamorizing those that they do, consequently creating a similar value system for their audiences. One of the prevailing, yet most unnoticed, problems with many TV shows across networks is the creation of an unrealistically wealthy environment. Disney Channel is not exempt from this. They positively showcase the hardworking middle class, while depicting them as far wealthier than they are/ should be considering their backstory: a letdown for children when they grow up to realize how difficult wealth accumulation can actually be, as well a false marker of ultimate wealth success that can stunt those who would go farther. From shows such as  Good Luck Charlie  to the more recent,  Stuck in The Middle , large families are depicted...
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Step By Step: Disney Channel Representations of Gender

As hard as Disney Channel may try -or may appear to try- they are still struggling to create accurate and balanced representations of gender. For the purposes of this post I will not explore too deeply the intersectionality of racial representation and gender representation on Disney Channel beyond the fact that they have instituted numerous female leads of non-white or biracial heritage, but have given them more traditionally white backgrounds, negating many of their diversity goals, by erasing a lot of people's cultural identities. I will, however, explore topics such as the implementation of more female leads, the reasoning behind it and the impact Disney Channel has had and will continue to have on gender stereotypes and representation. As “Disney Channel primarily [has] a female audience”(1), it makes sense that Disney Channel would focus on developing shows that would appeal more so to young girls than boys. That is not to say that young boys would not be interested in ...
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Imperfect but Improving: Disney Channel and Representations of Race

           Upon examining the current lineup of Disney Channel shows, one would rightly conclude that there is more racial diversity than ever before, with many shows featuring biracial and/or non-white protagonists. However, one would also observe upon further examination, Disney falling back on certain racial stereotypes within those seemingly progressive, "post-racial" narratives, highlighting the true nature of Disney Channel's modern representations of race as improving but imperfect.            Over recent years, the Disney ABC Television Group (DATG), the sector of the Disney Company that directly governs Disney Channel, [has shown] its diversity interests through its implementation of the Creative Talent Development and Inclusion department.(1)          It has continued to display its interest in diversity by implementing shows such as K.C. Undercover, Stuck in The Middle, Andi Mack ...
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