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Stan Lee dis but Walt disnae?

  
 
Sax
06:36 / 27.12.01
I admit it. I'm a consumer. I worship at the altar of Mammon. I spent eight hours in the Trafford Centre in Manchester last Thursday.

But I do take an interest in anti-capitalism and anti-globalisation, and from my reading it seems that the Disney group is one of the great Satans of the corporate world. I'm sure a lot of people here have expressed anti-Disney sentiments, and probably quite rightly. Has anyone here gone as far as to actively protest against Disney or boycott their movies?

My question - do you see much real difference between Disney and, say, Marvel Comics (or the corporation that owns it)? Are they guilty of the same transgressions? Would you "boycott" Marvel? Or is it just easier to boycott Disney because, hey, who wants to watch a movie about a young deer anyway?

I found the following statements on some anti-Disney website. Most of the statements can be adapted to accommodate Marvel as well. (Not purposely picking on Marvel specifically, I'm sure DC would fit just as well.)


1) Disney takes stories and legends from cultures and bastardises them (often by rewriting history or significantly changing the story line) for the lowest common-denominator North American all in the name of making pots of money; cases in point... Cinderella, Pinocchio

2) By turning stories from other cultures into Disney's own classics, Disney is homogenising cultures from around the world by Americanising them. This results in a servere loss of the great diversity of cultures that are present. Cultures are like species; the loss of any one culture is a weakening of the web of humanity;

3) Disney continues to portray main characters as size 10 Barbie look-alikes and macho, big-chested, Kens which only serves to perpetuate the notion that to be successful, we must all aspire to these stereotypes. While adults may be able to separate the myth from the reality, children cannot. These characters thus provide the basis for a child's notion of what one must be like to be successful.

4) Disney continues to stereotype animals in their productions. In their continual search to define good and evil, wolves and snakes are evil, kittens are cute and cuddly, and lions are still kings-of-the-jungle.

5) Disney has sucked most of North America, not to mention much of the free world, into buying their countless and worthless products by making kids (and their parents!) think that they must have the latest Disney crap just to be cool .

6) Disney World and Epcot have laid waste to many thousands of acres of natural habitat by converting them to intensively groomed and urbanised landscapes which require millions of litres of water, tonnes of fertiliser and pesticides, not to mention all the other artificial inputs just to prevent this fairyland from reverting to its natural state.

7) Disney is an all-too-typical huge multinational corporation which squeezes the little guy - their employees (ABC being a case in point), workers in sweatshops in developing countries - to make huge profits for their executives and their shareholders, essentially the elite.

Well, maybe the "stereotyping animals" doesn't fit too well, but most of the others.
Any thoughts?
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:16 / 27.12.01
What thoughts did you expect? Disney are fucked; Marvel are fucked. The whole point of so-called 'antiglobalisation' politics isn't to divide multinationals into good and bad, its a critique of the whole system. Major activist corporate targets are chosen, largely, for their symbolic value (or for specific reasons relating to specific practices, in which case the boycott actually has some chance of success), and given that most people have never heard of Marvel, it's not the most promising candidate.
 
 
Sax
07:25 / 27.12.01
Well, I was hoping for something other than "Marvel are fucked", especially as so many of us keep buying their comics when we look in horror at people who wear Gap trousers and Nike trainers.
 
 
Jackie Susann
08:09 / 27.12.01
Okay, I'm sorry, for some reason I am spoiling for a fight tonight... my point is that there's no reason to sneer at people who buy Gap pants or whatever, as if the point of politics was to feel superior to people. We all have to consume; the way the system's set up, there just aren't affordable, ethical ways to consume. It isn't a matter of picking the right-on brands and snorting at the kids in sweatshop labels, but doing something to force a change in the systems which foster and encourage sweatshops. Buy all the Marvel comics you want, or don't, but don't think that has a particular political value independent of the other things you do with your life.

Is that more helpful?
 
 
Sax
10:21 / 27.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
It isn't a matter of picking the right-on brands and snorting at the kids in sweatshop labels.

Unfortunately, I know people for whom this is exactly what politics and anti-globalisation means.
 
 
No star here laces
11:41 / 27.12.01
Ethics is not, should not and never will be a consumer decision. Simple as that. If you think that what you buy determines whether you are a good person or not, then you've been well and truly suckered by consumerism into thinking there is no other way to express your individuality and your beliefs.

And this applies to 'opting out' as well - buying all second-hand and living in a hut up a mountain. Fuck you, self-righteous hermits, you're burying your heads in the sand far more than a Gap shopper is - at least they have the guts to confront the real world head on.

To paraphrase Gandalf, you can't pretend you live in a world other than this one, but you can decide what you do with your time while you're in it...
 
 
Ethan Hawke
11:55 / 27.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:
Ethics is not, should not and never will be a consumer decision. Simple as that. If you think that what you buy determines whether you are a good person or not, then you've been well and truly suckered by consumerism into thinking there is no other way to express your individuality and your beliefs.


Bravo...I think this is a somewhat devastating critique of squatter/gutter punk types that they choose to avoid confronting: namely, by defining themselves by what they DON'T buy, they're still defining themselves by their relationship to commodities/the means of production etc.

There was an article in ( I think) the Atlantic Monthly this month by Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation". In it, he detailed the fact that once McDonalds demanded that more humane methods of slaughter/animal rendering in meatpacking facilities be used, (and in fact sent inspectors to verify this fact) their suppliers and the rest of the industry basically rolled over and acquiesced to these higher standards. If corporations can demand that their suppliers treat animals better, why not human beings?
 
 
Jackie Susann
09:25 / 28.12.01
On the other hand, saying ethics isn't about consumerism easily turns into 'i can buy whatever the fuck i want and it doesn't matter, and i can still be a tedious right-on fuck AND feel superior to people involved in boycotts'.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
09:25 / 28.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
On the other hand, saying ethics isn't about consumerism easily turns into 'i can buy whatever the fuck i want and it doesn't matter, and i can still be a tedious right-on fuck AND feel superior to people involved in boycotts'.

I have boycotted Marvel in the past (during their horrid treatment of Jack Kirby and when all their books turned to shite) and still boycott certain creators who have personally screwed over creators, but for the most part, I think the current PTB at Marvel care about creators and their creations.

I could be wrong, tho.

But I'm not a boycotting type person, because when you get to the end of it, there is a reason to boycott ALL entertainment at some point.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
09:25 / 28.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:
Ethics is not, should not and never will be a consumer decision. Simple as that. If you think that what you buy determines whether you are a good person or not, then you've been well and truly suckered by consumerism into thinking there is no other way to express your individuality and your beliefs.


Zen for I Love my Adidas Trainers? I don't avoid buying from certain producers because I want to be a good person, I'm doing it to protest whichever way it is that they shit on the world. And since when has consumerism been even incidently about choosing. The main thrust of consumerism is to make you believe you have no choice but to buy their product.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:44 / 28.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Solitaire Rose:


I have boycotted Marvel in the past (during their horrid treatment of Jack Kirby...

kind-hearted fucker that ye are!!!

lissen jk was a cock. get over it. Stan Lee was/is the man. Don't believe the underdog shite.

ha ha

boom.

I boycott the Big Issue cos I don't want the cold little junkies supporting the Taliban or whoever.

I admit it.

I shop at Kwik-Save.
 
 
Sandy Haired Bruce Wayne
16:11 / 09.01.02
I wasn't going to post here, seeing as it is coming a little late in the game, but I don't want to muss up a thread in which this topic has come up.

I've avoided buying Marvel comics going on 8 years now. At first it was a boycott, but now it's just force of habit. I was in high school when Jack Kirby died, and I remember watching a sci-fi program called Prisoners of Gravity, and seeing the host of the show make an announcement, sans goofy host persona, concerning the death of the King. Then they showed an episode that dealt solely with Kirby. This was when the enormity of Kirby's contributions to the medium first truly struck me. I have that episode on tape, and when I was at the end of my rope in explaining the appeal of Kirby to my friends, I popped it in, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I kind of regret converting them, seeing as I now have to fight all my friends over Kamandi, OMAC and other Kirby quarter bin comics.

I digress. Remember, this was high school, so I took Kirby's treatment by Marvel in a very personal, irrational high school manner. I decided to boycott Marvel comics for a year. Another reason for this decision was just to see if I could do it, similar to TV turn off week. If Kirby hadn't died, and if I wasn't an unrepetant Marvel Zombie looking for a challenge, it could just as well have been DC who got the axe.

Despite the fact that I started my boycott for no good reason at all, I feel that it has done me a great deal of good. My interests in comics has widened to the point where I have a great deal of knowledge about the history of comics, including editorial cartoons, early 20th century comic strips, and European comic artists. I probably wouldn't have pursued these nooks and crannies of the comic world if I hadn't shunned Marvel.

I would like to add that this probably speaks more about me than it does about the effectiveness of any sort of boycott. I'm sure other people could easily seek out different material while still continuing their normal purchasing habits. And, of course, not many people are as interested in the full range of the medium as I am, and prefer to stick with what they know. Nothing wrong with that, as many people I know who read only one comic title they've read for years are the same people who have varied interests in other artforms. I myself am very narrow in my appreciation for music, for example, primarily because all my money is spent on comics.

So why am I still carrying on? I have a limited amount of funds and there's a great deal of material out there waiting for me. To give an example, one day I had a 20 dollar bill waiting to be spent on comic shopping. On my way to the shop I stopped off at a used bookstore and found a volume of Paul Conrad's editorial cartoons (I also saw two books by Raymond Briggs which I hope are still there). Fifteen dollars spent, I headed over to the comic shop and picked up Superman Adventures #57, both because I wanted some light entertainment, and to support my fellow Barbelithian. And I topped it off with a ridiculous fanzine called Comic Book Heaven. Twenty bucks spent, and not a Marvel comic in sight. The same would apply if I had 1000 dollars.

Lastly, I would like to point out that I have mellowed quite a bit. I read my friends copies of current Marvel comics, and I still purchase back issues, particualrly quarter bin comics. So, I am hardly still "boycotting" Marvel comics. I just don't buy them at full cost anymore. I don't feel any need.

Sorry that went for so long. Just one more thing to bring it back to the original purpose of the thread. I don't think Marvel is actively, publicly boycotted because it's so far off the radar. Disney owns companies. Marvel is owned. Besides, there are many people who have, and continue to, boycott Marvel. They just don't have the numbers or the voice, and so you've probably never bumped into them.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
09:12 / 10.01.02
So....Jack Kirby's treatment post mortem is far more important than the darker nations?

Thank God we cleared that up. For a second there I felt bad. Is this Orion-y?
 
 
Sandy Haired Bruce Wayne
09:12 / 10.01.02
I'm sorry, "darker nations?" Not quite sure what you're referring to. Could you please clarify?

Yes, my interest in Kirby largely started after his death. Up until that point I wasn't really aware of what was happening behind the scenes in the comic community. Despite the fact that Kirby himself could not benefit from any support after his death, his wife, and his legacy, could.
 
  
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