Disney and the Dialectic of Desire: Fantasy as Social Practice

Description

This book analyzes Walt Disney’s impact on entertainment, new media, and consumer culture in terms of a materialist, psychoanalytic approach to fantasy. The study opens with a taxonomy of narrative fantasy along with a discussion of fantasy as a key concept within psychoanalytic discourse. Zornado reads Disney’s full-length animated features of the “golden era” as symbolic responses to cultural and personal catastrophe, and presents Disneyland as a monument to Disney fantasy and one man’s singular, perverse desire. What follows after is a discussion of the “second golden age” of Disney and the rise of Pixar Animation as neoliberalnostalgia in crisis. The study ends with a reading of George Lucas as latter-day Disney and Star Wars as Disney fantasy. This study should appeal to film and media studies college undergraduates, graduates students and scholars interested in Disney. Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction: What Is Fantasy? (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 1-41 Capital, Crisis, and the Rise of Disney Fantasy (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 43-66 Walt Disney, Snow White, and the Trauma of the Real (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 67-104 Disney Fantasy as the Discourse of the Other (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 105-142 Disneyland and the Perversity of Disney Fantasy (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 143-174 Disney, Pixar, and Neoliberal Nostalgia (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 175-211 Conclusion: The Empire Expands—Star Wars as Disney Fantasy (Joseph Zornado)....Pages 213-254 Back Matter ....Pages 255-260