—Exploring Disney's teeth-grinding issues Part 1

Once a genuine, sweet artistic studio, now Disney is a multi-billion dollar industrialized corporation relying on unsalvageable remakes and sequels. Yes, that is the question. Is Disney still salvageable? Perhaps. So today let's dive into the many areas in which Disney went wrong, but also possible strategies that might just save their company.

How exactly has Disney changed on the whole? Here is a quick background coverage on Disney's history: Basically, Disney started out as an innovative, genuine and original art studio recreating fairytales (and notably originals such as Mickey Mouse). Their first movie ever, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves took a massive risk corporately as the first full length movie division ever made, but it became an unmissable classic with art-defining themes such as innocence, purity and love.

Disney's following cartoons were nothing less, and they all became classics such as Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid. Then in 2010, Disney released perhaps their most iconic, game-changing movie ever: Tangled. The first movie to ever be made by Disney using modern CGI techniques, it became an instant hit. But even though it defined Disney's golden age, it would also prove to be Disney's downfall. Because this is the milestone at which Disney stopped concentrating on artistic value and instead began to prioritize mainstream cash-grab, abandoning their quintessential watercolor style forever and focusing on technique instead of substance.

After that you know the story. In a desperate scramble to salvage their reputation, Disney purchased multiple popular film studios such as Marvel and Star Wars. Since then they have stopped taking risks at all and concentrated instead on creating sequels and live-action remakes, resulting in quite a handful of flops such as Moana 2, Princess Diary 2 and yes, the unforgettable Snow White. Now in 2025 Disney has descended into an industrialized empire concentrating on mainstream cash-grab and clickbait, with their main problem being their altered goals: once they valued artistic beauty, now they prioritize media currency flow.

As I'm sure you surmised, one of the largest reasons for Disney's downfall is their swerve of marketing attitudes and prioritizations. How exactly did they self-destruct so flawlessly? I believe the answer lies in two aspects: their surface persona and their inner corruption of ideologies.

When I'm talking about surface persona, I'm referring to their marketing images: their trademark cartoons, hero merchandise and paladin colors/objects that help people make natural associations to Disney when they see them. (E.g. associating green with Charlie XCX, expresso with Sabrina Carpenter, that awesome plinky music from the Harry Potter movies to Harry Potter.) In Disney's case, it is the dreamy blue and purple colors found in the background of casting that mark them as Disney, along with their castle motif that signifies beauty, hope and innocence. Until…it didn't. Disney was a symbol of hope, innocence and love, often viewed as an escape into another idealized world. But Disney's change from gentle stories starring love into harsh, realistic ones about "girl-bosses" have dented their original marketing aim, and destroyed their natural association to softness, love and purity. Instead, now Disney acts as an overly enthusiastic anti-feminist who has the entire wrong idea of feminism, barging along the routes of "political correctness" and still managing to reinforce racial and social stereotypes. If Disney's trademark feeling of purity, love and gentleness that comes into everyone's mind when they think of it is gone, then what is there left but feeble, one-dimensional princess-like characters with bare quirkiness?

---

Putting that aside, another destructive aspect of Disney's is their inner corruption of ideologies. It isn't a secret that Disney has become more industrialized over the years, but just lately have I begun to realize how deep that corruption ran. Despite innovative artists, skilled managers and morally correct employees, the main executives and CEOs of Disney have set a train of mainstream cash-grab into motion, and it is unstoppable now despite the protests of netizens. Once Disney had beautiful values of creativity, innovation and quality, replaced by money-hungry fever dreams of unearned popularity.

A huge part of Disney's industrialized metamorphosis can be seen from their princesses—or more specifically, how those princesses changed. As I said in the beginning, there was a time when Disney princesses did not evoke goosebumps of horror on my arms. Oh, the good old times. Now I want to scream every time a shallow princess comes onto the screen, if not only because of their ridiculous doe eyes. Their personalities are so incredibly flimsy as to be disposable: since Tangled, there has not been one princess who isn't quirky, or dorky or ridiculously stupid. "Quirky" defines those princesses, which to be entirely honest, makes me grind my teeth. Breaking news, guys! Characters are made out of desires, hopes, fears, social interactions and past memories, not quirkiness! Sadly, Disney has forgotten that. If that isn't enough, amidst the gentle, natural colors of Disney cartoons that are replaced by harsh, wacky ones, the depths of princesses have descended as well. I don't think the executives of Disney understand how the first Snow White was a symbol of beauty, love and innocence, because symbolism has been ditched in princesses ever since Tangled, resulting in unlikable women defined by one word. You guess it, "quirky". And can we just take a moment here to talk about how princesses pose in Disney movies? I get that Disney is desperate for merchandise, but let's just say the poses set people a little bit on edge.

And that concludes Part 1 of Disney's problems. I would love to condense both parts into one article, but that would be too long and a bit tiring to read. So wait for Part 2 coming soon, in which I will explore how Disney's concept of love has changed, analyze a couple of Disney flops, and propose my own solution to Disney's problem. Keeps your eyes out!

P.S. Do me a favor and don't watch Snow White the remake.

← Back to Blog