ask Not What Disney Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Disney

Reading/listening to the Minow’s Speech I’ve looked real hard at today’s TV and how broadcasting overall should have changed for the better. The points he brings up are timeless, in my mind. Broadcasting is the most powerful voice in the world he quotes, “It must ring with intelligence and leadership…be aware of the world.” He also refers back to Gov. Collin’s speech, “public interest must have a conscience…build character, citizenship, and intellectual stature of people.” In today’s society we basically see no of these factors in television. Even newscasts are becoming a comedic performance and full of useless graphics and crawls that don’t mean anything. I would say TV today doesn’t help us build character or how to better ourselves as people, but rather brings out and talks about people who have failed in life in hopes that we’ll learn from their mistakes (I guess). You could be learning more information about the Iraq situation and then see a crawl that says Brittany Spears in back in rehab, or J Lo named her twins Walker and Texas Ranger…who cares. I get a kick out of watching old 50’s TV and how they can be relatively related to present day shows, but a little more “classy.” Minow talked about bringing back the 50’s style shows, but that will never happen (very farfetched).

As for the Disney piece, I found it amazingly interesting. Walt had a good thing going on and the whole idea of “total merchandising” was genius. Disney movies are seen as being acceptable to all ages, and parents have no worries about purchasing any of their products for their children, or even themselves. TV seen by ABC then can be seen all throughout TV today, in the way it targeted families rather than adults. Kids are the ones watching TV for long periods of time, so why not have shows relating to them, but also make the shows appeal to parents as well. I do kind of find it funny how Disney brings back old movies to DVD with enhanced features making them appear to be timeless classics, in which they are. My buddy brought up the fact he bought the original Aladdin on DVD like a month ago at the bar we were at and you’d be amazed how many people know the lyrics to “It’ A Whole New World” (now that’s what makes a classic a classic).