THE REAL

TRUTHS OF

Written by Monica Carollo, Holly Gilbert and Stephanie McMillan

The Walt Disney Company later known as Disney, is an American multinational diversified mass media         company, headquartered in Walt Disney Studios,       Burbank, California, United States.  

It is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diver‐sifying into live‐action film production, television, and travel. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Dis‐ney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, music, publishing, and online media. In addition, it has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flag‐ship family‐oriented brands. 

 

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The great world of Disney! Princes and princesses a fantasy wonderland full of dreams and hope. Disney is a great figure and role model for young children. While Disney may receive a lot of criti-cism for scandalous race portrays and imagery, there is no doubt that there are many positive effects these films have on children even today. The issues of expres-sion, equality, safety, hope and self-acceptance are all issues covered by Dis-

ney films that will benefit your children. In the movie Wall-E it shows the importance of helping the environment and shows kids environmental awareness such as planting trees and the risk of over consumption. Many movies such Aladdin and the Lion King shows children the importance of being yourself and knowing that people will like you for who you are not what you pretend to be. In Disney movies they use male and female heroes in movies which demonstrates equality. Many Disney films give a good interpretation of female empowerment to young girls. These Disney movies encourage kids to believe and hope. Disney is not just about movies, there are many other elements of the company such as Disneyland. Disneyland is a global enter-tainment theme park located in a number of countries around the world but the original Disneyland is located in Anaheim, Cali-fornia. Disneyland was designed and built under direct super vision of Walt Disney himself. In 1998, the theme park was re-branded Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the larger Disneyland Resort complex. Walt wanted to build a tourist attraction adjacent to his studios in Burbank to entertain fans who wished to visit. Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone a number of expansions and renovations. After a huge achievement with Disneyland Walt decided to open Disney California Adventure Park which was built on the site of Disneyland's original parking lot and opened in 2001. Disneyland has a larger cumulative attendance than any other theme park in the world, with close to 600 million guests since it opened. More people have walked through Disneyland's turnstiles then any other park on the planet. In 2011, 16.14 million peo-ple visited the park, making it the second most visited park in the world that calendar year. Disneyland will continue to be a great success and one day will become the worlds most visited theme park in the world. These theme parks create a fun and happy place for families to share together and for children to fulfil there dreams and hopes. Disney creates toys for children to enjoy and play with and make them feel like they are apart of the magical world of Disney. All the merchandise from Disney is made from good quality products and is very sustainable. Disney Channel has there own website which allows fans from all around the world to explore more about their favorite shows and learn more about Disney. Disney channel hosts many contests that involve prizes. This attracts more viewers and gives a positive image to Disney as it shows generosity. Disney offers a show on ice called Disney on ice. This creates a massive tourist attraction for all and is known to be one of the best children's shows on ice. Disney operates in over 43 countries worldwide including America, Japan, France and China.

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Sweatshops aren't the only concern for Disney as more issues have been raised such as religious welfare and animal welfare.

Religious welfare groups, such as the Catholic League, have spoken out against the release of material which they and others found offensive, including vehement protests of the Miramax Films features Priest in 1994 and Dogma in 1999. Disney was forced to push back the release date for Dogma due to the controversy surrounding the movie, and eventually sold the distribu-tion rights to Lions Gate Films.

Animal welfare groups have criticized Disney for there care and procedures for wild animals at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, and for using purebred dogs in movies such as 101 Dalmatians. Animal rights groups claim movies with purebreds create an artificial demand for purebreds from people who may not be prepared or temperamentally suited for the animals.

An environmental management plan for a zone of Great Guana Cay, in the Abaco Islands, criticized Disney for poor manage-ment of a 90 anchor tract of the island. Disney particularly developed but then abandoned the place. Disney left hazardous mate-rials, electrical transformers, and fuel tanks, and also for introducing invasive alien plants and insects that threaten the natural flora and fauna of the island. This created a bad influence on their company and effected the natural environment.

Disney Channel has also been criticized for programming that has pulled away from the characters that the network’s parent company, The Walt Disney Company was founded upon: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. The marketing strategy makes the programs on Disney Channel geared mainly towards pre teen and teenage girls. For example Hannah Montana and Jessie.

There have also been theories about Disney having sexual innuendo or references hidden in some of their animated movies, in-cluding The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin. Several Disney films contained subliminal messages and sexual im-agery.

Overall Disney is being criticized for destroying Communities, Child Labour in sweatshops and subliminal messages

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Disney sweatshops have been an issue for quite a long time, but have now fi-nally been revealed to the public. In a Disney sweatshop in China there has been use of child labour using children as young as 14 years old. The staff are forced to do 3 times the amount of over-time allowed by the law. The workers are working in harsh environments where they are mistreated by managers. In China there have been claims that a woman committed suicide after being continually screamed at by her bosses.

In these sweatshops there are very poor ventilation and concerns about chemicals and negligence of occupa-tional health. Employees paid by fac-tory to give misleading answers dur-ing audits and they were fined for failing to hit targets. Due to this Dis-ney has been accused of human rights violations regarding the working con-ditions in these factories.

If you would like to support this cause visit www.facebook/disneysweatshops/support.com.au or follow us on twitter (Stop Disney Sweatshops). Also if you would like to support a child go to www.supportachild@disney.com.au

Vote now weather or not Disney movies are a bad influence

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