The Four Color Media Monitor: Disney appears to be retiring Mickey Mouse as their mascot

Inside the Magic announced the Disney corporation looks like they're on the verge of retiring their most famous mascot after nearly a century since his introduction in the B&W Steamboat Willie cartoon, as a series of short cartoons broadcast on their TV channel concludes:

Although he is the official mascot of the company and one of the most recognizable images in the world, the mouse has not appeared in a full-length Disney film since Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (2004).

Combined with the Disney+ series shutting down, it almost seems as though the company is working to reduce the role of its most famous character.

Disney’s Copyright Woes

There might be a good reason for that. For years, the company’s hold over the character has been covered by the Copyright Term Extension Act, which prevented certain high-profile creative works from entering the public domain as per normal United States law.

This act has also been called the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” as it allegedly was pushed into legislation by the Walt Disney Company in an effort to maintain legal control (and profitability) over its chief asset.

However, even under the Copyright Term Extension Act, Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain in 2024, unless sudden Congressional action is taken. Considering Disney is already in quite a bit of legal trouble around the country (and with a particular state governor), the company might not be able to make it happen.

As such, it really seems like Disney is finally phasing out Mickey Mouse.

If so, it'll actually be for good ol' Mickey's benefit, considering the horrifically dark path the company's taken into woke territory over the past few years alone, catering to LGBT ideology in ways that were quite noticeable, and have since taken their toll on the company's finances. To date, they've shown no signs of remorse or backing off of their worst positions. Why must Mickey be directly part of a studio that's desecrated its legacy, and is also hurting Marvel comics? If public domain is Mickey's next destination, maybe somebody there will have a better idea how to handle him for the better. And if other cartoon characters like Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy are destined for the same, they could use more caring writers too. I recall a few years ago, a sick-looking cartoon short was filmed where it looked like a cruel joke with handcuffs was made at Minnie's expense. If that's what today's Disney animators think makes for genius "comedy", no wonder it's best for both mice to leave the company stables.

The specialty news site, however, is slipping into woke territory themselves when they cite what they say is reason to retire Mickey:

There are plenty of reasons to say goodbye to Mickey Mouse at Walt Disney World and Beyond. For starters, there’s a legend that it’s not even his true name. Disney World creator Walt had originally chosen Mortimer Mouse, then his wife changed it.

There are incidents where Mickey Mouse did blackface. Most reports suggest that he was basically a product of the Walt Disney Company learning from its time, calling it “the Furby of the ‘20s.’

Now hold on a sec. Just because even a few cartoon emphasizing blackface were produced, the poor little fictional guy should be condemned to the pop culture grave for an error made by his creators and writers? What idiocy, ditto the suggestion the whole naming issue justifies these steps. Yet another PC source plays along with the woke narrative, and even adds the following questionable line:

Another important thing is to consider the entirety of Walt Disney World and its willingness to change [...]

And did they ever, by pandering massively, as noted previously, to LGBT ideology at the expense of the children they've usually marketed to, pushing it all deep down the audiences throats. And this site won't take any of that into consideration, so much as they will strongly hint their approval of retiring Mickey stems more from Cancel Culture mentality, which has also affected several other cartoons they oversaw, including Peter Pan. If they don't have the courage to argue why the classics shouldn't just be shut away out of PC "considerations" then who are they to say they're fans of the studio?

So in the long run, based on Disney's destinations, that's why retiring Mickey is good for the mouse. And if Minnie and other classic anthropomorophs follow him to public domain land, they'll be lucky too. The Disney management's been such a disaster.

Labels: animation, golden calf of LGBT, history, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics

Glad to see Mickey won't be influenced by Disney anymore. Too bad Disney's too set in its woke agenda to try and change course despite it being painfully obvious they need to stop going for the agenda (worse, they're basically forcing anyone who DOES try to point out how they're failing because of the agenda to stay quiet, making them even WORSE than Budweiser in a sense. At least Budweiser fired the guys who came up with that disastrous marketing campaign and are actually making attempts at course correction). Sometimes I wonder why Disney's shareholders aren't trying to do to Iger what they did to Michael Eisner, heck, even Jeffrey Katzenberg to an extent.

On that note, think you can do a flashback review of the 1991 Beauty and the Beast? Only asking because I suspect that movie did more than anything else to directly influence Disney's current woke culture. Here's a couple of starting points, with Katzenberg being at the center of it all:

*https://www.cbr.com/movie-legends-revealed-the-feminist-origins-of-disneys-beauty-and-the-beast/
*http://articles.mcall.com/1991-11-22/features/2825583_1_beast-s-castle-fairy-tale-madame-gabrielle

You can also look up The Art of Beauty and the Beast, since that has more information on that bit, like how Katzenberg categorically rejected Jim Cox's take without so much as even bothering to list a reason for why he didn't want it, despite Eisner personally calling Cox at Mexico to expand it to a screenplay.

Posted by eotness | 3:06 AM

I'll give it a try, thanks for asking.

Posted by Avi Green | 7:00 AM

Thanks, and one thing you could note in the review is how they seemed to implicitly demonize good looks in a set up for the crap going on right now (Beauty is Bad in other words), the stuff that book Boobs of Steel alluded to. Like for example, the triplets that fawn over Gaston were depicted with excessively large breasts almost akin to Dead or Alive characters, arguably rivaling Belle in terms of outer beauty, and they're mocked as being bimboes (in fact, their official name I kid you not is in fact The Bimbettes), basically Belle's foils by default due to crushing on Gaston when Belle isn't even attracted to him, and we're obviously supposed to root for her and jeer them for that. Didn't help that, beyond crushing on the villain (with it being left unclear as to whether they were even aware of his more vile nature anyhow), they showed absolutely NO signs of actual inner ugliness despite technically being stand-ins for Belle's wicked sisters in the original story, unlike Gaston. Another factor was Beast, to a certain extent, as they gave his human form a plain appearance purely due to thinking the audiences would have preferred his beast form (even though the entire POINT was for him to restore his human form meaning if anything we should look forward to the latter). I think Shrek also adopted that same thing as well to its detriment ultimately (arguably made worse in that Fiona doesn't even get to become human again).

Oh yeah, and while not actually from the film itself, we also have some tie-in comics made by Disney (not Marvel, the other one, a prequel series more specifically) and... well, let's just say Belle REALLY doesn't come out like an angel in that despite the intent of the writers. For a good example: http://beautybeast.enchanted-rose.org/library/displayimage.php?pid=13702&fullsize=1 And this was back when she was an early teen (I'd say child, but one of the panels depicted her dwarfing over the other children, implying she was closer to her early teens than an actual child).

I'd probably suggest a lengthy blog entry, akin to the recollection of Gerard Jones' history with Comics in fact.

Posted by eotness | 5:02 PM

Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering about the comics:

Issue 1: http://beautybeast.enchanted-rose.org/library/thumbnails.php?album=100

Issue 2: http://beautybeast.enchanted-rose.org/library/thumbnails.php?album=124

Posted by eotness | 5:03 PM