Friends, blog readers, we need to talk.
It is time to take a stand against the devil with mouse
ears.
The Walt Disney Corporation has gone completely out of
control. In the past eight years, it has bought Pixar Animation Studios,
Marvel, and, its most recent prize, Lucasfilm Ltd. It is also, as we speak, in
the process of acquiring Studio Ghibli (Ghiblicon.blogspot.com), the Japanese
animation studio behind the movie Spirited
Away, much beloved by me, and, I’m sure, by anyone who saw it.
Our childhoods have been bought out by this now soulless,
money grabbing machine.
The question is, however, what are they going to buy next?
I say this because the Walt Disney Corporation has become
the Blob, eating everything in sight and with no signs of stopping.
The original mission of the man Walt Disney was to bring
happiness to people with his company’s animated movies. Now, however, its only
mission is making money.
We can no longer tolerate this. We, as consumers, need to
limit the money we give the company.
The obvious objection to all this, as I understand it, is this
may cause Disney to eliminate jobs. I don’t want to put people out of work,
either, but Disney will probably do that anyway, whether it needs to or not.
Following
its purchase, Lucasfilm laid off the entire internal development staff at video
game company Lucas Arts, “some 150 people” (kotaku.com), which was included in
the Lucasfilm acquisition. The statement about the layoffs is as follows:
“After evaluating our position in
the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development
to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader
portfolio of quality Star Wars games,” read a statement issued by Lucasfilm.
“As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization.”
(wired.com)
The Disney corporation had no reason to lay off the
LucasArts staff. There was no need to minimize the company’s risk, since Disney
has no risks to take. It is like killing 150 ants from a colony that controls
the world’s sugar population, because they weren’t collecting as much sugar as the
colony would like, but didn’t necessarily need.
Now, it isn’t that achievable to stop giving Disney money
completely, but we still have to own up to the fact that we created this beast.
That’s right. We’re the ones who gave Disney our money. We can still make
conscious decisions to mitigate our contributions. Let’s look back to the
controversy surrounding the redesign of Merida, the princess from Pixar’s Brave. “The L.A. Times reports -- and IGN has independently
confirmed -- that ‘according to a Disney representative on Wednesday, the image
of Merida that sparked this maelstrom is part of a limited run of products
including backpacks and pajamas. But images of the original Merida will also be
available on consumer products.’
Don’t buy Disney’s backpacks and pajamas.
Every dollar that you spend is a vote for the kind of world
you want to live in. I don’t want to live in a world where one megacorporation,
powered by our complacent consumerism, buys out everything that made my
childhood special. I don’t think that’s what anyone else wants, either.
