In doing so, it corporatizes public space and limits the avenues of public expression and choice. Disney does not have the power to launch armies, dismantle the welfare state, or eliminate basic social programs for children. As one of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world, Disney works endlessly to promote cultural homogeneity and political conformity while waging an ongoing battle against those individuals and groups who believe that central to democratic public life is the necessity of democratizing cultural institutions, including those of the mass media. Disney's threat to civic life comes from its role as a major communications industry capable of exercising harmful and damaging amounts of corporate power and ideological influence over vast segments of the American cultural landscape. Revulsion is good.
Revulsion is healthy.
Each of us has limits, unarticulated boundaries of taste and tolerance, and sometimes we forget where they are. Without sleaze, the yardstick shrinks at both ends. Team Rodent doesn't believe in sleaze, however, nor in old-fashioned revulsion. Square in the middle is where it wants us all to be, dependable consumers with predictable attitudes. The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America's values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company, and not the other way around.