Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Walt Disney, El Grupo, and Latin America or Dorfman and Mattelart Redeemed!

One of the most influential texts to have scarred my synapses is How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dormfan (he of Death and the Maiden and much, much more) and Armand Mattelart--it's a paradigm-changing volume that augured the beginnings of Cultural Studies and did a very good job outing how Disney comics were used to scapegoat and undermine the Left in Latin America. Walt y el grupo, a new documentary (hit the graphic below for the link), promises to reveal much about the intrigues between Washington, Hollywood, and Latin America during World War II. Some of this is documented in the Orson Welles' chapter of Tex[t]-Mex. Gracias, gracias to our West Coast correspondent, Marc Garcia-Martinez for sending in the tip!

1 comment:

  1. film looks interesante. god, i love talkin smack on disney about as much as i love taserology.
    http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-disneyworld-company.html
    meh--not his best, and not race-related, but fun (as always) anyway. Many classic Baudrillardian moments, such as:
    --------------------------------------------
    "Spectacular Inc.," as Guy Debord would say. But we are no longer in a society of spectacle, which itself has become a spectacular concept. It is no longer the contagion of spectacle that alters reality, but rather the contagion of virtuality that erases the spectacle. Disneyland still belonged to the order of the spectacle and of folklore, with its effects of entertainment [distraction] and distanciation [distance]. Disney World and its tentacular extension is a generalized metastasis, a cloning of the world and of our mental universe, not in the imaginary but in a viral and virtual mode. We are no longer alienated and passive spectators but interactive extras [figurants interactifs]; we are the meek lyophilized members of this huge "reality show."
    -------------------------------------------
    you'll appreciate the last bit on dimensions, too.

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