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Research Questions

What were Walt Disney’s views on Cold War politics?

How did he illustrate these views?

What motivated / encouraged / influenced him?

Did he have a choice? (Communist censorship and The Hollywood 10)

Were his actions / art fear driven?

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Walt Disney’s Cold War Activity

House Un American Committee (HUAC)

The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals

Disney staff labour strike (1947)

Promotion of capitalism, family unity, strict immovable gender roles and individualism within story morals.

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‘Disney as an educator’ (Giroux, 1999)

Targeting children: ensures the continuance of Walt Disney’s American-centric, capitalist ideals (Giroux 1999: 120)

Critical judgement suspended (Ibid,1999:90).

Children understand Disney’s projections as truths (Ibid,1999:90).

Conversation starters within families about Disney topics.

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Case Study 1: Make Mine Freedom (1948)

‘It’s all races, creeds and religions..’

‘Freedom to work in the job you like’

‘Freedom to own property and to vote’

‘Protection against cruel punishment’

‘Freedom to worship God your way’

‘IT IS THESE FREEDOMS WHICH HAS MADE AMERICA STRONG’

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Case Study 2: Goofy in Cold War (1951)

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ehZ414mH90

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Analysis: Targeting the Parents

Metaphors: the cold virus (the communist invader.) The pills (gunshots, explosions, atom bomb)

Puns: Goofy ‘catches a cold’...‘gave her the cold shoulder’...’the cold is nothing to be sneezed at’

Happy ending (hope): ‘The cold must run its course’

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Analysis: Targeting Children

Familiarity: Goofy, childrens’ icon

Humour: extremes of hot and cold

Storytelling narrator

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‘We Just make the pictures, and let the professors tell us what they mean’

Walt Disney

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Bibliography

Byrnes, L. (2016) Know Thyself: Individualism in Cold War America and Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club, Wyoming University, available online:

https://repository.uwyo.edu/honors_theses_16-17/15/

Date of access: 10/4/19

Giroux, H., A., (1999) The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, Rowman &Littlefield Publishers Inc: USA.

Tuchman, B., (2018) Disney and the Cold War. Available online:

https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/sections/research/disney-and-the-cold-war