I'm Disney Selective

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

21 Oct 2006 03:10 PM

It floored me recently to be engaged in a conversation with another parent who loathed all things Disney. Her children didn't watch the Disney Channel. They didn't have Disney products. They didn't go to Disney films and they didn't recognize Disney anecdotes. I mean seriously - how can you not love all things Disney?

Grace agreed to a conversation with me about this phenomenon recently provided that I did not use her real name nor the names of her children. Grace is a 35 year-old mother of three. Her children are ages 9, 8 and 5. She and her husband have been married for more than a decade and all of her children are in public school, with her youngest having started kindergarten this year.

The following is my interview with Grace about her anti-Disney stance and where it came from.

Me: Good morning and thank you for taking the time to talk to me about your feelings on the subject of all things Disney. Let me start by asking, did you grow up watching Disney films?

Grace: Oh, my parents took me to see some of the Disney movies when they were in the theater. I was a teenager though when they began their revival - you know with The Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast.

Me: Did you ever take a trip to Disneyland or Disney World?

Grace:I vaguely recall a trip to Disneyland when I was very little, but the most I remembered about that was riding on the teacups and then throwing up afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great places - just far too commercial and it's hard to not appreciate the fact that you can spend thousands of dollars a year just on Disney alone and they know it.

Me: What is your objection to Disney, then? Is it the money? Or the types of movies or shows or something else?

Grace: Actually, it has more to do with the way Disney dominates the child's imagination. I read this quote once that said Disney is to childhood what Microsoft is to computers - and I hate Microsoft - so you can imagine how I felt about it. When my son (age 9 now) was born, it seemed like every other present we got had some Disney logo on it. When I was growing up, Disney was interesting, but they didn't saturate every corner of my childhood.

Disney seems determined to become to childhood what Microsoft is to computing: the default operating system for the juvenile imagination

Me: Can you give me some examples?

Grace: Saturday morning cartoons. On Saturday morning, you got up and ran in the living room to turn on one of the network channels and you watched a host of different cartoons from different outlets. Nowadays your options as a parent are to have Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel - PBS is trying to keep up, but even what they offer is pretty limited

Me: Was it a conscious decision to eliminate Disney from your children's lives?

Grace: Actually, yes - we talked about it at length. Occasionally, we will take the children to see a film, but we won't take them to see it just because it happens to be a Disney film. Disney shouldn't and doesn't own the rights to dominate the imagination and in the last few years, DreamWorks has actually put out several movies that my kids prefer - like Shrek and Shrek 2. But then - there's the Pixar films like Toy Story and Cars - those are very popular with my kids too.

Me: So you will go see Disney films, because Pixar and Disney are partners and now Pixar is owned by Disney.

Grace:Yes, but we don't buy into the marketing and we don't pick up the multitude of items that come out just because they happen to have the logo on it. One of my daughters' really, really wanted a pink television for her room last year because she'd seen the Disney princess television and when my husband told her would she be happy with any television or did she just want the pink one because it was pink - she said she just wanted a television. We discussed it and bought a regular television for her room so they could watch movies in there since she and my youngest daughter share a room. The pink television is great, but Disney's name goes on it and the price tag leaps by a $100.

Me: I don't mean to press a point, but you're not really anti-Disney so much as you are anti-commercialization?

Grace: I'd say yes to that - but in the last couple of decades, Disney has taken commercialization to a ridiculous level - we have some friends who literally decorated their homes out of Disney catalogs and their children don't own any toys that didn't come from a Disney store or Disney line - there's just a lot more out there and if we didn't take the stand that we do - chances our, our children are going to miss out on a lot of other opportunities because we're staring down a narrow Disney corridor to only their products

Me: I can't really disagree with you there, though I am a Disneyphile myself - on the other hand, I also like lots of other stuff that has nothing to do with Disney.

Grace:But I bet if you had to pick between Disney and somewhere else - you'd rather pick the Disney, right?

Me: More than 50% of the time.

Grace:And more than 50% of the time, I wouldn't. So - I'm not anti-Disney - let's just say I'm Disney Selective.

Me: Thanks for taking the time to be Disney selective with me today.

Grace: Absolutely and thank you for asking me.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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Jaime Egan (2178) 21 Oct 2006 08:32 PM

That's really interesting. My daughter's life is pretty Disney-saturated, especially since she has recently chosen to watch Aladdin at least three times a day. I can't imagine not having Disney around, but it's cool to hear a different perspective. Thanks.

Lisa P (24013) 21 Oct 2006 08:44 PM

I have to take issue with Grace's statement on 'Disney dominating the child's imagination'. If a child isn't given quiet time without outside stimulus then they won't use their imagination. Too many parents just plug in their kids to the TV in the morning and then unplug them when it is time to go to bed rather than limiting their movie & television time. My husband and I discussed long ago that we would buy all of the classic Disney children's movies as well as any new Disney movies that we felt were appropriate for our son. Just because we buy all the movies doesn't mean that our son is plugged in to them for 12 hours a day, nor does it mean that we buy all the backpacks, lunchboxes, stuffed toys and action figures that go along with each movie.

That doesn't make us anti-Disney. Geez! That's just responsible parenting! You can't blame Disney for parents making poor choices.

Heather Long (16954) 22 Oct 2006 04:39 AM

Thanks for the responses. Actually, what I got from Grace on this is that she doesn't want all the toys, the clothes, the bed clothes, the house decorations and the vacations all themed or planned around Disney -- I have to admit, we've got a heavy Disney saturation and I don't think it hurts my daughter's imagination but I guess from the outside, where Grace stands on it, she does see it as limiting. But thanks for the great comments!