|
Transnational film is most commonly defined as a film that is influenced and portraying the political, economic or cultural aspects of multiple countries within their films. Disney, as a corporation, has released many films that differ in location globally, telling the stories of known folk tales and historical events native to that particular country's culture. Pocahontas for example (Gabriel, 1995) based loosely on a true story of a Native American woman.
Figure 1 shows a map of where all the Disney films are set globally. It is evident that Disney has portrayed a vast number of cultures around the world within the films it produces, teaching it's audiences about these other cultures whilst embedding them in a heart warming fairy tale. It may appear that Disney has marketed itself as a transnational company through the large variety of locations, however although many of these stories originate outside of America, it can be argued that Disney have Americanized the characters, or at least the protagonists, in order to portray the ideology of American superiority, or the ‘American Hero’. For example, Aladdin (Clements, 1992) portrays the villain, Jafar as a typical Arabic man in traditional attire, yet Aladdin himself is more Americanized in his clothing and characteristics. In fact, Disney films have always been accused and criticized in terms of race and culture, portraying racist ideologies. A classic example is the Lion King (Allers, 1994), portraying the villain, Scar, as a darker lion with dark features, and the good lions with lighter features and fur.
Although set in foreign countries, is that enough for a film to still be considered transnational? Despite many of the countries the films are set speak different languages, Disney have made English the universal language of their films, making the target audience of these films English speaking countries, rather than the countries the films are based on. Other themes also have to be considered when analyzing how transnational the Disney Corporation is, such as the music, characters, and the Walt Disney Company itself.