On the centennial of the founding of Disney and Warner Bros, this panel convenes scholars to discuss the telling or narration of Disney's religious history and media presence. Topics include Disney as American New Thought, Disney's transformation from a Midwestern Protestantism to a type of civic religion, and how the tropes of villainy are articulated within Christian paradigms of dualism.
One of the most famous quotes attributed to Walt Disney – “If you can dream it, you can do it” – is noteworthy not only because it succinctly summarizes Walt’s modus operandi for his company, but also because he never said it. That one can find this quote attributed to Walt on all kinds of merchandise only shows the easy elision of this manufactured philosophy with many Disney fans’ (and Americans’) self-understanding.
This paper, excerpted from a larger project, places this quote and the Disney legacy within the context of American religious thought. Drawing on examples from Disney’s stories, films, and parks, the paper argues that Disney is best religiously understood as a new form of American New Thought, bolstered by American Dream ideology and traditional Protestant virtues. To say Disney is religion is to acknowledge the way Disney braids together familiar American idioms, creating a distinctly American religious imagination.
This paper tells the story of how the Walt Disney Company’s first century moves from an implicit Midwestern Protestantism (though not the Congregationalism of Walt Disney’s childhood), to a mid-twentieth century civic religion. Ultimately, twenty-first century Disney is a panoply of spiritualities and cultures. Simultaneously, Disney as a brand has gradually become quasi-religious—deeply “religion adjacent”-- itself.
Walt Disney built no church on Disneyland’s Main Street. His daughter Diane said this was to avoid offending any denominations, to make it welcoming for all. In sublimating institutional religion and promoting “magic,” Disney began as an entertainment company but gradually became a secular religion. Disney is the most successful tradition of all because, while it emerges from Christian origins, they are sufficiently vague to expand infinitely-- and its stories are so pliable that they can incorporate every religion and no religion, all at once.
Disney effectively franchises the Christian tradition of kosmic kombat into a brand of “villainy” across animation and transmedia. Disney mythmakers stage their villains within marketable religious dramas like Fantasmic! and Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom – theme park attractions which, first, produce “stirring legends of the triumph of good over evil” and, second, reify Disney’s Christian-inspired brand of positivity. Disney’s transmedial extended universe allows defeated villains to resurface as foes kosmically tethered in kombat against Disney heroes – e.g., “The Rise of Scar” children’s playset from 2018. Inspired by the villain’s resurrection in the Disney Junior animated series The Lion Guard, this playset depicts the revenant-lion as a floating demon head of flame. Scar centers the playset flanked by plastic fire pieces, a snake devotee, collapsing bridge, and lava ball catapult. The commercial transformation of this villain demonstrates Disney’s popular celebration of kombat and the modern sensationalism of religion into media entertainment.