I decided to wait a bit before commenting upon the whole "Disney acquires Marvel" thing. I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to it, I will admit, and I scowled and fumed a bit. But I decided not to go off half-cocked. I thought I'd wait a while, read some articles, and let it settle into the old brain somewhat.
Okay, here's the thing. I'm not an avid researcher of things Disney. I don't scour the internet looking for information that will support one view of Disney or another. Despite that, however, I seem to have developed a mental picture, both of Walt Disney the man and Disney the corporation, that is not particularly appealing.
Why do I have the impression that Walt Disney was a racist? Why do I have it in my head that he was interested in what the Nazis were doing in 1930s Germany? Why do I have the sense that Disney employees are overworked, underpaid, and subject to near-tyrannical rules and regulations?
Did these notions just appear unbidden in my head? Have I been reading the wrong websites? Have the opinions of many ill-informed readers and writers simply overwhelmed our current zeitgeist?
Or is there something to it? Read the rest of this entry »
