The Mouse That Roared: Disney And The End of Innocence by Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock sets a new standard for the study of Disney and popular culture. It offers new lens to understand the merger between corporate power and corporate culture while unveiling the insidious educational force of pre-packaged culture. This brilliant book should be read by every parent, educator, and youth.
Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock's revised and expanded edition of The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence presents tools, key concepts and analyses, and the context to provide a critical pedagogy of all things Disney. The author's dissection of the Disney Empire shows that it is not only selling entertainment and related products but a way of life and value system that the authors critically unpack. This is a valuable resource for all parents, teachers, and those interested in cultural studies of contemporary culture.
This book has expanded since 1999 (CH, Feb'00, 37-3408), just as the Walt Disney Corporation has. And, caveat emptor, mirroring the Disney empire's covert maneuvers to turn children into consumers, so, ironically, the publisher and the authors (both McMaster Univ.) would have libraries and scholars acquire this edition, which the publisher announces as 'thoroughly revised and updated throughout.' Alternating in tone between popular and pedantic, the book retains its provocative and compelling original stance: Disney wrote on children's tabulae rasae and shaped the cultural imaginations of several generations of American youth. But the authors include two new chapters, one on militarization and one on Disney's current global influence, which extends even to Shanghai. Giroux and Pollock's argument that Disney edits public memory, channels children toward desiring consumption, reconstructs historical narratives (even turning America into a theme park), and controls pedagogy continues to be worthy of debate, and the authors supply fresh and cogent illustrations (e.g., the Jonas Brothers, Pixar, post-9/11 culture) to bolster their claims. This screed against the monopolistic idolatry of Disney still commands attention. Recommended.
This book has expanded since 1999 (CH, Feb'00, 37-3408), just as the Walt Disney Corporation has. And, caveat emptor, mirroring the Disney empire's covert maneuvers to turn children into consumers, so, ironically, the publisher and the authors (both McMaster Univ.) would have libraries and scholars acquire this edition, which the publisher announces as 'thoroughly revised and updated throughout.' Alternating in tone between popular and pedantic, the book retains its provocative and compelling original stance: Disney wrote on children's tabulae rasae and shaped the cultural imaginations of several generations of American youth. But the authors include two new chapters, one on militarization and one on Disney's current global influence, which extends even to Shanghai. Giroux and Pollock's argument that Disney edits public memory, channels children toward desiring consumption, reconstructs historical narratives (even turning America into a theme park), and controls pedagogy continues to be worthy of debate, and the authors supply fresh and cogent illustrations (e.g., the Jonas Brothers, Pixar, post-9/11 culture) to bolster their claims. This screed against the monopolistic idolatry of Disney still commands attention. Recommended.
This book has expanded since 1999 (CH, Feb'00, 37-3408), just as the Walt Disney Corporation has. And, caveat emptor, mirroring the Disney empire's covert maneuvers to turn children into consumers, so, ironically, the publisher and the authors (both McMaster Univ.) would have libraries and scholars acquire this edition, which the publisher announces as 'thoroughly revised and updated throughout.' Alternating in tone between popular and pedantic, the book retains its provocative and compelling original stance: Disney wrote on children's tabulae rasae and shaped the cultural imaginations of several generations of American youth. But the authors include two new chapters, one on militarization and one on Disney's current global influence, which extends even to Shanghai. Giroux and Pollock's argument that Disney edits public memory, channels children toward desiring consumption, reconstructs historical narratives (even turning America into a theme park), and controls pedagogy continues to be worthy of debate, and the authors supply fresh and cogent illustrations (e.g., the Jonas Brothers, Pixar, post-9/11 culture) to bolster their claims. This screed against the monopolistic idolatry of Disney still commands attention. Recommended.
Giroux is an author of many books and articles on education, politics, and corporate influence. This highly critical examination of the Disney corporation explores the scope of influence that Disney has over the developing minds (and bodies) of children as it uses the facade of innocence and nostalgia marketing to promote consumerism over values such as reading and creative play, which are known to stimulate intelligence and social interaction better than the passive viewing of television and movies. Giroux asks us to reevaluate the seemingly innocuous animated Disney productions and theme parks, which focus on a safe, sanitized, middle-class white depiction of the American ideal, while promoting racial and sexual stereotypes in films such as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. He points out the hypocrisy (or is it irony?) of the feature WALL-E, which depicts Earth as a desolate wasteland despoiled by rampant consumerism and an overreaching mega-corporation, while at the same time promoting WALL-E robots, action figures, playsets, apparel, stationery, and other 'collectibles' in the real world. This updated and expanded edition (with the help of coauthor Pollock) includes a discussion on Disney’s focus on marketing toward the lucrative 'tween' segment, as well as two new chapters, 'Globalizing the Disney Empire' and 'Disney, Militarization, and the National Security State after 9/11.' Well researched and well written, despite the academic jargon.
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock survey this theme with abundant brilliance.
Disney is masterly at rewriting history to convey self-serving messages. . . . [Giroux] makes the link between the corporation’s use of 'imagineering' and the broad way in which many big companies (through advertising and other promotional material) do all they can to distort either the past or the present in order to make it more likely that people will buy their goods or services.
Financial Times - Peter Marsh
Giroux's warning that Disney's main interest is in turning the yonger generation into perfect little consumers remains alarmingly valid.
European Journal Of Cultural Studies
This volume presents an extremely readable analysis of what the Disney empire teaches children. It takes a comprehensive look at the implications of corporate domination of education culture for the democratic politics of culture, desire, and entertainment, without denying the delight that Walt Disney's creation provides, or suggesting that the company's theme parks and other products should not be enjoyed.
Henry Giroux’s pioneering spirit of inquiry never ceases to impress. Here he opens our eyes to the messages that consumer mass culture sends to our children, our schools, our homes. What you see is not what you get—read this book and learn what that is.
A must for everyone who feels uncomfortable with the actual commercialization of public culture. The dialogue between Giroux's analysis and the reader's discomfort creates interesting insights, especially in the position of the educator towards the signs and images of his own daily cultural environment.
Giroux's book would make an excellent supplemental text in a mass communication and society course and provocative reading for anyone who wants to see beyond the Disney facade.
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
Giroux's book is a must for parents and teachers.
It does contribute to a writing style that is both informative and easily accessible to nonacademic readerships. Moreover, this book's well-organized, highly readable, and carefully footnoted condensation of a large body of multidisciplinary research on both Disney and corporate culture in general makes it a useful text for both introductory and upper-level courses. Giroux's linking together of texts, practices, and institutions that are usually addressed separately makes The Mouse That Roared a thought-provoking addition to almost any popular culture course syllabus.
Giroux makes clear that Disney is an extremely important vehicle of education and deserves critical attention by parents, educators, consumers and cultural critics alike.
What Henry Giroux offers in his latest book is a take on the relationship between learning to become and the ways in which possibilities are constrained, channelled and directed by forces which lie outside what is normally recognized as the educational sphere.
The Mouse that Roared . . . by the eminent cultural critic Henry Giroux . . . is unusually balanced, conceding that Disney's products can be viewed different ways and recognizing the company's occasional good deeds before lowering the boom with an extremely disturbing array of facts gathered from widely disparate sources. . . . Giroux provides invaluable documentation of the company's exploitative labor practices abroad, its censorship of specific authors, its killing of particular ABC news stories and, most troubling of all, its recent efforts to exert influence over public education both within its planned community (Celebration, FL) and beyond.
New York Press - Jonathan Kalb
Giroux is an author of many books and articles on education, politics, and corporate influence. This highly critical examination of the Disney corporation explores the scope of influence that Disney has over the developing minds (and bodies) of children as it uses the facade of innocence and nostalgia marketing to promote consumerism over values such as reading and creative play, which are known to stimulate intelligence and social interaction better than the passive viewing of television and movies. Giroux asks us to reevaluate the seemingly innocuous animated Disney productions and theme parks, which focus on a safe, sanitized, middle-class white depiction of the American ideal, while promoting racial and sexual stereotypes in films such as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. He points out the hypocrisy (or is it irony?) of the feature WALL-E, which depicts Earth as a desolate wasteland despoiled by rampant consumerism and an overreaching mega-corporation, while at the same time promoting WALL-E robots, action figures, playsets, apparel, stationery, and other 'collectibles' in the real world. This updated and expanded edition (with the help of coauthor Pollock) includes a discussion on Disney’s focus on marketing toward the lucrative 'tween' segment, as well as two new chapters, 'Globalizing the Disney Empire' and 'Disney, Militarization, and the National Security State after 9/11.' Well researched and well written, despite the academic jargon.
Aims to expose the cultural manipulations of global corporate capitalism, as embodied by the Disney Corporation, and its allegedly malign effects on children and families. Giroux's contention is at once fecund and ironic, and deserves a thorough examination.
The Times Literary Supplement
One of America's boldest critics. . . . Giroux's is a voice to which we would do well to listen.
Times Higher Education Supplement
Lost in the vast wilderness of 'Disney studies?' Henry Giroux’s stunning meditation on what the Disney empire teaches children is like having a compass in the enchanted forest. Like all of his work, he never wanders from his ultimate course: a radical democratic vision. Anyone who hopes to challenge the Imagineering of America and the world and promote an educational culture free of corporate domination must read this book.
Henry Giroux has led the way in contemporary cultural studies in insisting on the need to address the critical question of the effects on children of cultural production and representation. Giroux links the cultural messages promoted by Disney Inc. to the corporate economy, exploitative, and exclusionary practices it at once represents and pushes. In doing so, he faces squarely and analyzes uncompromisingly the implication for democratic politics of culture and desire, education and entertainment, representation and responsibility that most critics fail to register, let alone face.
An absolutely fascinating book about our children and commercial culture! A brilliant, lively, and complex analysis by one of the most interesting public intellectuals in the United States—and one that is remarkably fair-minded. Giroux does not deny the real delight that Disney brings our children. What he questions, really, are the ‘uses’ of delight—and, at a deeper level, the misuse of innocence. All in all, a freshly written, unusually invigorating book that even fans of Mickey Mouse will find compelling.
Henry Giroux has long been known as one who relishes digging into the meaning behind everyday social phenomena. That's what makes his exploration of Disney Corp.'s influence—reported in his book The Mouse That Roared—so intriguing.
The larger point of The Mouse That Roared is a warning not just about Disney, but about a public culture in which the will of the people is increasingly represented and/or dictated by the fight for market share among huge corporations.
The Mouse that Roared . . . by the eminent cultural critic Henry Giroux . . . is unusually balanced, conceding that Disney's products can be viewed different ways and recognizing the company's occasional good deeds before lowering the boom with an extremely disturbing array of facts gathered from widely disparate sources. . . . Giroux provides invaluable documentation of the company's exploitative labor practices abroad, its censorship of specific authors, its killing of particular ABC news stories and, most troubling of all, its recent efforts to exert influence over public education both within its planned community (Celebration, FL) and beyond.
Disney is masterly at rewriting history to convey self-serving messages. . . . [Giroux] makes the link between the corporation’s use of 'imagineering' and the broad way in which many big companies (through advertising and other promotional material) do all they can to distort either the past or the present in order to make it more likely that people will buy their goods or services.
Henry Giroux doesn't deny Disney's ability to delight us, but he does debunk the notion that the entertainment offered by the 'world's most influential corporation' is just innocent fun. Analyzing the messages sent by Disney through its movies, merchandasing and attractions, he convincingly demonstrates how insidious the company's portrait of the United States—as white, suburban, middle class and heterosexual—can be.
Readers awed by the broad power of Disney Company should read this critical examination.
[Giroux shows] the danger of the Disney perspective, the vitiating of the impulse to participate in and to question the fundaments of human society and aspirations, suggesting as it does that American civilization has so arrived that its de-individualized participants need only to kick back and enjoy the fantasy of the moment.
