Tag: Art

Disney Has An Identity Problem!

Posted on by CV Whitfield

Disney is being dragged down by the poor management of its executives and the leadership of their CEO. Bob Iger is a narcissistic megalomaniac. He doesn’t care about being the custodian of Walt Disney’s dream and company. He simply wants to use the company for his own personal gain. This is evident with the recent expose on how Iger backstabbed Bob Chapek. But that’s not my point here….

The company is now infested with DEI hires, college-aged activists and greed hungry millennials that want to be rich with very little work effort. If they weren’t working at the biggest entertainment company in the world, they would be TikTok influencers or Youtube personalities. And that’s not a compliment.

I remember a day when Walt Disney was still alive. I remember a day when Disney (as a company) invested time and money to protect its identity and intellectual properties. I remember the day when Disney Corporation would sue a grade-school teacher for painting a mural of Mickey Mouse on her classroom wall. I remember the day when Disney Corp. would not allow business to put product out before a street date and/or send representatives to inspect store displays and retrieve old signage. I remember when you could produce a movie about Cinderella or Alice; but if they even wore the same color blue dress, Disney would swoop down and have lawyers racing to file the lawsuits. Back then, Disney protected its stories and its characters.

Fast-forward to today. I don’t think Disney knows how to do this anymore. I don’t think they understand what it means to protect an IP or product. I don’t think their Imagineers know how to care about the classic icons and characters. Disney has an identity problem. Is it a company that wants to make money? by protecting its legacy and massive library of movies, TV, comics, cartoons and music? Does it want to continue its long legacy of telling classic stories children and adults love? You can take the old animated features and make them live-action but you have to make them look familiar. You have to make these productions standout out as Disney productions and just not a cheap knock-off or low budget public domain effort.

I could show this image to 100 people and 100 people would know this is Walt Disney’s classic Snow White.

Disney has a difficult and ambitious task to keep their stories from being smothered in clones or copy-cats. The original story of Schneewittchen by Brothers Grimm in 1812 is now public domain. The public domain status means that the story’s original elements, such as the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, and the concept of the Evil Queen and the seven dwarfs, can be used freely by anyone without needing permission or paying royalties. I could write a new version today and Disney couldn’t do anything about it. But what Disney does have the power to do: is protect this version!

So why would they produce this? Why does anyone at Disney think this new version looks or projects Disney as the image above it? To be honest, this looks like a K-mart knock-off. Nothing in this image makes me think Disney. The colors are not right. The digital dwarfs do not look like the animated versions. So why would any logical, intelligent Disney executive approve this and not have issues with it.

Are any of these images from the Disney Classic? Everyone would say NO!

There’s nothing wrong with new artistic interpretations of the classic story. The last two images are very beautiful and wonderful fresh takes on the classic fairytale. Yet none should be done if you’re trying to protect a very specific version nor wanting consumers to buy your merchandise and see your movie when it comes to a very specific representation of your product.

Disney has failed again. But in this case just on simple business aspect. Maybe new leadership is needed to remember that they aren’t in the business of creating ridiculous spoofs of their library but generating revenue and continued interest in the products that have kept Disney a household name for nearly 100 years….

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He works in mysterious ways….

Posted on by CV Whitfield

A beloved treasure of history and religion suffered major damage due to a fire on Monday. It was a heartbreaking day. I couldn’t function. I was stunned. I wrote about this yesterday.

As I watched the news and found other articles, I learned the current state of Notre Dame. It had entered a restoration process, the first major restoration in over a 100 years, to fix and repair the structure, ceiling and outside facades. The original restoration cost was going to be 100s of millions of euros/dollars. The church sought to get at least €20M – roughly $23M (thats million, folks) to start the process and begin work on restoring the Spire which was causing water damage to the timber roof. (This is the work that we see happening now) The cathedral struggled to find funding. In the end, the cathedral landed with roughly €6M (6.8M dollars). Nearly all of these coming from the Ministry of Culture. Since the French government owns the building, allowing the church to use it for free, I’m assuming this is why the Vatican wasn’t providing the money. The cathedral started a crowd funding program to raise the rest. The archdiocese launched Friends of Notre Dame to raise another €100M over the next ten years.

THEN! FIRE erupted from the Spire and the roof on Monday! We watched in horror as flames reached toward the sky. And as I wrote yesterday, I was amazed to see that most of the church survived. Some of the priceless windows and statues had survived. Yes, the roof was gone. Yes, there is massive water damage to furniture and floors. Amazingly, most of the vaulted ceiling survived as well. Now my point:

Remember when Norte Dame couldn’t find the money it needed to do the restoration? The price tag to fix it was maybe €150M? They were lucky to get €6M! Well, in the last 2 days, French Billionaires, Video Game Developers, French Government and citizens of the world have pledged over €500M! To rebuild! The generosity is amazing. Yet, it took a tragic and devastating fire to bring attention to a marvel of architecture and religious art in need of repairs. One of the donors, the French Government has pledged €20M – this was the original request yet settled on 6M! Yet now the government finds the funding. The new funding also begs questions of why did we let the building get this state? Why didn’t the Billionaires of the country support it prior to the fire? Was it done on purpose? Was it an accident?

Regardless…. one has to wonder, was it a message from God. Was this Devine intervention? I honestly have to place this in the category of:

HE works in mysterious ways….

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