Walt Disney and the Facsimile of Reality

An essay detailing the benefits and drawbacks of Walt Disney's affect on animation, and childrens' fiction and cinema. The author outlines how Disney the man and the corporation revolutionalized childrens' entertainment and animation, with the unexpected drawback of wounding traditional folk tales and mass-marketing childhood to create a shared experience as consumers.

In many respects, the purpose of such traditional folktales--to prepare children for impending adulthood and responsibilities--gets degraded and turned on its head, as the original stories become commercialized and are sold to children as generic feel-good morality tales with the broadest appeal possible.