Disney Fantasy as the Discourse of the Other

Abstract

The notion of Disney studio’s “golden era” functions today as an ideological point de capiton, or what Lacan defines as “the point in the signifying chain that grounds signification,” but always retroactively (Evans 1997, 149). The point de capiton refers to a specific nodal point at which the sliding chain of signification, difference, and non-determination coalesce into a network of structured meaning as if sewn there by a button designed to quilt stuffing in place so that it holds its shape. Chapter 4 advances readings from a Lacanian perspective of Disney’s “golden era” films, including Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi, while tracing Walt Disney’s own traumatic grief and guilt related to the death of his mother as an emotional and psychological watershed for the growth and development of Disney fantasy. Walt Disney’s turn towards political conservatism correspond to the “golden era” years as America’s chief purveyor of fantasy. Whatever sympathy he may have felt for the working man was swept aside in Disney’s anger at the employees—Communists, according to Disney—who had gone out on strike and all but destroyed the studio he had so long struggled to build. But Disney and his studio would survive the animators’ strike, the failure of Fantasia and Bambi at the box office, and World War II. After the war, America was ready for Disney fantasy entertainment, happy to participate in a fantasy as social practice that enacted, celebrated, and normalized Capital’s parasitic relationship to desire.