The Gothic Walt Disney

I remember that when I was growing up, one of my favorite movies from Walt Disney was Toy Story. I think that it's true that everyone can recite the song, "You've Got a Friend in Me" and remember Woody and Buzz.

Certainly, children weren't the only ones who were happy about the Toy Story movies back then. The Toy Story franchises have earned Disney about 8 billion dollars in profit from then to now.¹ What does this figure mean? Well, let me put it this way. In 2006, Disney purchased Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the very company that made the Toy Story, for 7.4 billion dollars in stock.² So, the money that a single movie generated is larger than the acquisition price for the entire company.

Now, teenagers are into a big frenzy about gothic and vampire items. It's true that this frenzy is nothing new; there were definitely some hardcore fans for "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," but now, it's much more than just a show. Following the saga of "Twilight" books and movies, everyone has been talking about the vampires. Why, then sudden popularity?

The Wall Street Journal writer Julie Steinberg wrote, "Sex plays a part, undoubtedly - today's pop culture champions infinitely virile vampires who resemble Abercrombie & Fitch models."³

"Vampires are innately antideath, so they hover in a permanent purgatory that eschews reason; they know how things started and how they might end. Thus freed from the constraints of mortality as well as morality, vampires can put our existence into perspective," continued Steinberg.⁴

Perhaps, all these were reviews to you if you were a hardcore Edward fan. After all, at this point in Facebook, there are 5,176,250 fans in the Twilight Saga and 1,499,646 fans in the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer (these two are the names of the Facebook fan pages).

And finally, Walt Disney, the company that emphasized the childlike image in its items - except couple of Marvel products - also decided to join the wagon for rather darker and gothic items. This decision partly came with the opening of the film "Alice in Wonderland" featuring Johnny Depp. It's a big change that Disney chose to make in the growing instability in our economic situations.

Not only did it change the theme of its items, but also it chose to target different consumers. In the interview with The Wall Street Journal, Andy Mooney, who is the Disney Consumer Products Chairman, stated that the buyers for "Alice" franchises will be people of 18 to 34 years old instead of the usual 6 to 11 years old.⁵

Bibliography

1. "Disney Invites 'Goths' to the Party" by Ethan Smith. The Wall Street Journal. February 19, 2010.

2. "Disney Nabs Marvel Heroes" by Ethan Smith and Lauren E. Schuker. The Wall Street Journal. September 1, 2009.

3. "The Lure of the Vampire" by Julie Steinberg. The Wall Street Journal. Novemeber 19, 2009.

4. Ibid.

5. "Disney Invites 'Goths' to the Party." See #1 for full citation.