101–110 of 301 posts
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Keeps Apple out, too.
How does it do that? Disney has had a reasonably friendly relationship with Apple due to Steve's presence on both boards. Now that he's gone that might weaken, but he had a long time to win hearts and minds over there.
Jar Jar Binks and Donald Duck. How fitting.
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Pretty much all of them seem fairly consistently "pro establishment". Sure you'll see a lot of inconsistency in left vs right wing politics coming out of most companies in this class, but the underlying message is pretty damn uniform.
Uniformity is comforting. The alternative is challenging. These are billion-dollar properties: they survive based on mass appeal. What's the mass media property that doesn't capitalize in some way on the status quo? What are you really asking for here? A version of Mulan where the heroine dies in a hail of arrows? The Suite Life With Zack And Cody's Meth Habit? Even The Daily Show only works as entertainment because…
I suppose you could say I am stretching the meaning of "agenda". Non-deliberate messages, which most of the "pro establishment" stuff probably is, probably doesn't really qualify as agenda now that I think about it.
> I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. This is effectively Lucas' slow decent into retirement; he's not actively directing Episode 7 but instead consulting. Say what you want about the movies and franchises, ILM and Skywalker Sound are gold standards created by a tech visionary.
I hope they are doing the Thrawn trilogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrawn_trilogy
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You need to get excited. The creative folk at Pixar and Disney have been killing it in comparison to what's come out of Lucasfilm lately. Watch The Pixar Story (streaming on Netflix: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Pixar_Story/70083532?l... ), and tell me you're not more comfortable with Star Wars in their hands then in Lucas'.
Ok. Point made. But if this ends with JJ Abrams doing a "reboot" of ANH where Han is a genuinely nice guy and Greedo was just 'misunderstood', I shall be very put out.
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Therefore, it should be noted that they directly, or via tacit gatekeeping, have a huge amount of influence on our public dialog and cultural messaging.
Marvel, Pixar, LucasArts, ABC, ESPN, A+E, Disney Channel, and associated merchandising. I'm not sure how much "control" over our "public dialog" this really implies. I'm the parent of two very normal middle aged children and, while they're certainly exposed to some of this IP, I'd contest that it has much "influence" over them. Google has much more control over our public dialog than Disney does.
Disneys dialog is present, right beneath our noses.
Best link to relevant episode: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_Wars#section_5
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Uniformity is comforting. The alternative is challenging. These are billion-dollar properties: they survive based on mass appeal. What's the mass media property that doesn't capitalize in some way on the status quo? What are you really asking for here? A version of Mulan where the heroine dies in a hail of arrows? The Suite Life With Zack And Cody's Meth Habit? Even The Daily Show only works as entertainment because…
Don't get me wrong, if I were in charge of those companies I would be a fool to try to run them any differently. All I am saying is that whatever the reason (be it deliberation, market forces, or something else entirely) these companies are capable of putting out a consistent message, provided you look at it from a certain perspective. I suppose you could say I am stretching the meaning of "agenda". Non-deliberate me…
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Don't get me wrong, if I were in charge of those companies I would be a fool to try to run them any differently. All I am saying is that whatever the reason (be it deliberation, market forces, or something else entirely) these companies are capable of putting out a consistent message, provided you look at it from a certain perspective. I suppose you could say I am stretching the meaning of "agenda". Non-deliberate me…
Sure. I'm just suggesting that this may be a variant of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Media companies don't drive the consistency of the culture; they simply feed on the enormous latent drive to comforting conformity that's hardwired into our species.
Jar Jar Binks and Donald Duck. How fitting.
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Marvel, Pixar, LucasArts, ABC, ESPN, A+E, Disney Channel, and associated merchandising. I'm not sure how much "control" over our "public dialog" this really implies. I'm the parent of two very normal middle aged children and, while they're certainly exposed to some of this IP, I'd contest that it has much "influence" over them. Google has much more control over our public dialog than Disney does.
I was personally deeply shocked recently, when I sat with my children as they were watching the animated Iron Man series at their grandpas house. This was on Sunday morning TV. The episode was about other 'bad' characters stealing Iron Mans suit. I was alarmed when the dialog turned explicitly to talk of Patents and how evil it was that they were infringing Iron Mans designs. As I continued to watch it dawned on me t…
(i) Millions of kids saw that episode and went on to pirate movies and music anyways, because kids don't really derive their ethics from cartoon series, just like you & I aren't secretly animated by "Knowing is Half The Battle" from G.I. Joe. (http://www.joeheadquarters.com/joeendings.shtml)
(ii) The particular message you're suggesting Iron Man is "propagandizing" is so anodyne that it was the subject of a whole episode of Arthur on PBS.