Credit: DisneyThe Walt Disney Company has just celebrated 100 years of bringing magic and wonder to its audience, but some say it needs to “lay off the legacy” if it wants to last another century.
Both the company and the Walt Disney Animation Studio have thrived on an engorged nostalgia factor, it’s practically built into their functionality. However, lackluster releases and dwindling box-office numbers are symptoms of an ailing brand with an uncertain future. While a modern world without the influence of Disney is unrealistic at best, the studio’s direction seems questionable.
Amidst a sea of live-action remakes and struggling new animated features, the studio is treading water in the entertainment department. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently made a statement about Disney’s creative direction, and heads are getting ready to roll.
“I’ve worked hard since I’ve been back to reminding the creative community who are our partners and our employees that that’s the objective… And I don’t really want to tolerate the opposite.”
Many would say that Disney is relying too much on modernizing their old IP, and now it’s starting to bite the company in the butt as a result. Is nostalgia really to blame, or is it the studio’s over-reliance on Disney’s “good ol’ days?”
Nostalgia Hurts and Helps Disney Animation
Polygon’s Petrana Radulovic explains the situation at Disney Animation brilliantly in her recent article, and she makes several good points about Disney’s lack of direction. One of Walt’s maxims was to “keep moving forward,” but it seems as if Disney has forgotten how to do so.
Radulovic writes,
“While living in and echoing its own past has been profitable for Disney, it isn’t sustainable. And ultimately, harping so hard on its own glory days is pretty antithetical to Disney’s legacy. In order to move forward, it needs to shed the nostalgia — or at least not make it the company’s primary selling point.”
Inside the Magic has written several articles about the double-edged sword that is Disney nostalgia and Radulovic’s assessment of the studio’s progression and regression echoes that idea, but there also needs to be a balance. The article also goes into detail why Disney’s legacy was truly about trying new things, another subject we’ve covered, but at what point should the classic meet the modern?
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The author brilliantly answers this question when she writes,
“But nostalgia is a potent ingredient, and it works best in the Disney recipe for success when it’s on the side: in celebratory shorts, theme-park parades, and collectible merchandise. Not when it’s the main offering. For most of the past century, Walt Disney Studios was a movie studio first, and a storefront, streaming service, and theme-park empire second.”
Nostalgia is best when served as a side dish, and not an entree. As Radulovic points out, Disney has become much more associated with a brand of a bygone era than a movie studio, and it’s time for a refocus.
That’s not to say that nostalgia isn’t still important for its existence. As demonstrated with the phenomenal Once Upon a Studio (2023), Disney is still the powerhouse behind much of what we’ve come to know and love about the animated medium.
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Disney’s audience doesn’t need another remake, an alternative reimagining of a fairytale princess, or a new musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda (as fun, desirable, and inevitable as that would be). Both Disney and its consumers need and want what the studio has done best for the past 100 years, tell new and exciting stories through animation that take us all away to a world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.
Inside the Magic reached out to Radulovic for further commentary, and will update if a response is given.
Are you over the Disney nostalgia? Tell Inside the Magic what you think in the comments down below!