Disney as a Spokesman

During/after class today Dr. Croce and I had a discussion about a passage in Watts' book on page 361-363. This passage is the introduction to the chapter about Disney and the "culture industry". Dr. Croce claimed that Watts had alluded to Walt as "a spokesman for consumerism". Truly, the passage reads "... he had been serving as an enthusiastic salesman for the new consumerism." This is followed by a recounting of a radio interview by Walt during which he said "... the modern proliferation of home appliances, electrical gadgets, and automobiles should make every citizen 'stand up and cheer for the American way of life.'" Only the last part of this statement is actually a quote from Walt, and it points more towards a general stance that the increased consumerism in America in the 50s was a positive thing.

The sections leading up to this also don’t really point towards Walt being overly supportive of mass consumerism. The first paragraph on p. 361 is just about the increase in leisure time after WW2 and the Great Depression. The subsequent paragraph detailed a Wall Street Journal article that just pointed out the Company’s capitalizing on the increased leisure. The next paragraph talks again about Disney’s ability to make profits on increased leisure, and then the following two paragraphs talk more about the increased leisure and consumerism in general. This is when the sentiment about Walt as a salesman comes in, and it really does only say that he was pushing the “American way of life”.

The final paragraph of the section does start to move towards Walt selling entertainment as a product “as important as food, shelter, and a job”, but Watts doesn’t ever actually imply that Walt was anything other than a businessman pushing his product as best he could in as many areas as he could. He capitalized on the economic boom felt in America in the 50s, and he got into leisure time activities such as vacation and television right as they were hitting their stride. Yes, these things took advantage of the economic situation of the 50s, and it can be said that they exploited the emerging leisure culture, but Walt was a “family” man and America was his family. He sold primarily to this group of people and his support of the “new consumerism” mentioned on p. 362 was not an endorsement of all consumers participating in rampant spending, but instead that Americans should embrace their new consumerist lifestyle and economic prosperity by buying into what his company was selling.