Stereotypes In The Movies: A Life Of Walt Disney

Born to Elias and Flora Call on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, Walter "Walt" Disney later moved to Marceline, Missouri, where he began drawing and selling pictures to his neighbors, family and friends. American Experience, in a documentary episode dedicated to Walt Disney, outlines the disparity between the exuberant young Walt and his withholding, domineering father through a home movie which showed Disney and his parents’ painfully uneasy exchanges while he was interviewing them on their anniversary. Hence when Disney is quoted saying "I'm going to be everything he (his father) isn't," there's a striking frame of reference for the strict character who stirred the adult Disney to crave all the whimsicalities he was denied as a child. In 1911, his family again moved to Kansas City, where he developed a fascination with trains and got a summer job with a railroad company, selling snacks and newspapers to travelers. At that time, his love of trains seemed like a childish fixation, but it soon translated into his work through the 1928 release of “Steamboat Willie,” a short
Children weren’t as interested in fantasies and fairytales as they once were. Viewers, previously limited to American kids, expanded internationally into children and adolescents alike with various racial and ethnical backgrounds. As it experienced immense success and popularity, Disney had to make room for immense restructuring of its content. Then came the rise of multi-cultural, progressive characters such as Mulan, Jasmine, Merida, Kuzco, Mowgli and Tiana, that mirrored not only the diversity of English-speaking spectators, but also the evolution of societal gender roles. Moreover, Disney started increasingly releasing live-action movies, sitcoms, and animated TV shows to appeal and relate to their young audience, and has since abandoned the production of animated feature