How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic

by Ariel Dorfman, Armand Mattelart

Overview

First published in 1971, How to Read Donald Duck shocked readers by revealing how capitalist ideology operates in our most beloved cartoons. Having survived bonfires, impounding and being dumped into the ocean by the Chilean army, this controversial book is once again back on our shelves. Written and published during the blossoming of Salvador Allende's revolutionary socialism, the book examines how Disney comics not only reflect capitalist ideology, but are active agents working in this ideology's favour. Focusing on the hapless mice and ducks of Disney, curiously parentless, marginalised and always short of cash, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart expose how these characters established hegemonic ideas about capital, race, gender and the relationship between developed countries and the Third World. A devastating indictment of a media giant, a document of twentieth-century political upheaval, and a reminder of the dark undercurrent of pop culture, How to Read Donald Duck is once again available, together with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745339795
Publisher:	Pluto Press
Publication date:	03/01/2019
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean American writer. His works include the Laurence Olivier award-winning play Death and the Maiden. Armand Mattelart is a Belgian sociologist and well-known as a Leftist French scholar. His work deals with media, culture and communication, particularly in their historical and international dimensions.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Fourth Edition - Ariel Dorfman Preface to the English Edition - Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart Introduction to the English Edition - David Kunzle Apology for Duckology
Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club 1. Uncle, Buy Me a Contraceptive... 2. From the Child to the Noble Savage 3. The Great Parachutist 4. The Ideas Machine 5. The Age of Dead Statues Conclusion: Power to Donald Duck? Selected Bibliography Appendix Endnotes

Editorial Reviews

"A handbook of de-colonization" - John Berger


"The book has a rambunctious humor that complements its polemical spirit . . . As Disney has evolved from an animation studio into a corporate behemoth—with theme parks, a cruise line, and content streaming around the world—How to Read Donald Duck and its charge of cultural imperialism rings all the truer" - New Yorker

From the Publisher