Why Can't Disney be "Cool?"

[€uroMeinke]

So I’ve been playing some of the cool Disney CDs I picked up at Tokyo Disneyland, and I’m just struck by how cool they actually are. Chanson Edomalá is a compilation of Disney and Disney inspired songs remixed and produced by Dimitri from Paris, this thing is true Swanksville, but nowhere to be seen in the States.

I also picked up the two Mosh Pit Disney CDs and have been grooving to them as well. I can’t believe Disney doesn’t market these here. Is the Disney brand so antithetical to “cool” in the US, that Disney doesn’t even bother?

It just seems a shame.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I hope I'll hear some of those tracks in someone's home, or perhaps on someone's podcast. *cough*

As for the "cool" factor of Disney in the states-- there seemed to be a revival of retro Disney images that started last year. There was a "couture" line (Bambi Couture?) of tees and memorabilia that could be found in various trendy shops around town. It seemed like every celebrity was sporting a vintage Mickey shirt.

It may be square for some of the youngsters in their quest for unthemed roller coasters, but I think that the various octopus-legs of the company is appealing to a broad range of people. Cute punk girls bedecked in safety pins. Stars of screen and stage. Hipsters. They're all sporting Disney these days. I think the company's missing the boat by not marketing the Bossa Nova et al.

[€uroMeinke]

I suppose the Shag linkage is a good sign - it'd be nice to see them develop their brand a bit instead siphon the life out of it. Perhaps we are at another turning point?

[Matterhorn Fan]

What? Disney's not cool?

That explains so much about my life.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I suppose the Shag linkage is a good sign - it'd be nice to see them develop their brand a bit instead siphon the life out of it. Perhaps we are at another turning point?I think so. Disney seems to be acknowledging the adult market in better ways all the time.

[mousepod]

Disney has been slowly testing the waters here in the States. The recent CD release of the Bossa Nova stuff is a good example (required listening for all swankers). I paid close attention to the merchandising going on in Japan this time around, and I think the fact that Tokyo is so much more youth and fashion conscious than any American city probably plays a big role in the Disney "coolness" factor. I would hazard a guess that more hip Japanese folks are aware of Disney's presence on the runways last season than us Americans - and that tends to filter down to the the stuff they get in the "regular" shops. Hell, I saw a $300 Dolce & Gabbana "Beagle Boys" t-shirt in the Shinjuku Don Quixote store. The merchandising going on in the parks here is a step in the right direction - retro-wear, cool music reissues thanks to Randy T... now it's a question of spreading the word. I try to do it with the 'pod... hopefully someone at the Mouse will get the message.

[Not Afraid]

You said just about what I was thinking, MP. The awareness and popularity of Disney characters and concepts in Japan is astounding - for all ages.

In the US, Disney tends to find one or two things that are cool and work for the target market then overmarkets it. As much as I love Shag, it is becoming ubiquitious. What's needed is variety for the US market to build that comsumer spending (although, with the 50th stuff, I'm doing quite a bit of that). I think they're learning, but they need to keep going. It is a hopeful sign that they are recognizing and marketing to the adult but still hip market.

[Ghoulish Delight]

There's a large disconnect between Japonese coolness and American coolness. NA's current sig is an excellent demonstration. Kawaii=cute. And cute is eminently cool in Japan. It's both common and cool for guys to carry cute stuffed animals. Disney fits right in with that. In the US, cute is most definitely not cool. It's "girly" and "childish". It's a difficult task for Disney to bridge that gap.

[surfinmuse]

MousePod mentioned this on an earlier podcast, that the general American market is less daring, at least when it comes to re-arranging songs/music from the Disney canon. "Arrangment" isn't even quite an adequate nor accurate description; stuff like the Disney Bossa Nova are more re-conceptions of the originals, that pay homage but yet effortlessly and sincerely carve out their distinct style. In a word, no cookie-cutter pop.

I've picked up some (read: extravagantly too much) CDs at Disneyland Paris over the past few years, and I am constantly surprised (mostly pleasantly so), delighted, and at times simply blown away by the sheer depth and imagination of some of these arrangements.

The current crop of Disney Pop stuff (I won't name names, but I think you guys know what I'm referring to) pale in comparison, at least for my more eclectic-than-mainstream music tastes.

[€uroMeinke]

You know there is that Disney=cute thing going on in Japan, but there is much more. Music-wise, which is what prompted my post - there's definately some cool (and not necessarily cute) things going on.

Also characterwise, there were some cool, non-traditional images being used - Mickey smashing a guitar, was a popular one (Did we take a picture of that?). Nightemare before Christmas merchandise was also ridiculously popular, along with other Tim Burton creations.

I also saw Stich is promoted a popular "bad boy" character - perhaps that's what Disney needs. Afterall, Mickey did start out as a rather rakish mouse, then Donald took over the bad boy role.

Maybe amidst the Manga and Cos-play, the notion of "wholesome" cartoon characters isn't as prevalent allowing for both cute and cool.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yes, in Japan it goes beyond the cuteness. But it's the acceptance of cuteness in mainstream adult culture that allows it to, imo. First and foremost, in the minds of most Americans people, Disney=cartoons=cutesy=chidlish=instantly uncool. So even if a product with the Disney name on it isn't itself a kiddie product, it has that "stigma". In Japan, that's not a stigma, so they are free to use the brand in other ways and more adult markets.

[Not Afraid]

And remember the spotting of the "underutilized" characters in Japan? The "Coco Girls" were Daisy, Minnie and....Claribell! Of course, I went just a BIT nuts over a number of Three Little Pigs and Big Bad Wolf merchandise. Then there is Clarice in the Rockin' show (MP had to tell me who that even was! I thought it was Dale in drag.) How about the Ugly Duckling and Hiawatha children's merch?

They really work it in Japan and keep the variety high. It was VERY exciting.

Of course, we got some comments about our own homegrown Disney swag that we were sporting. One day, we had a scarf from DLRP, a shirt from WDW, a Shag Tiki shirt, a DL shirt and a Mickey shirt- plus the watches.

[mousepod]

While I agree that the openmindedness of the Japanese is helped by the fact that things like Manga and animen are absolutely mainstream (I'm going to avoid the term "cute", because I don't think that's how they see it) - I feel that Disney in the US perpetuates the "childish" and "cutesy" image itself, by its own narrow marketing strategies. Disney wasn't always this way, y'know. To quote Funkadelic: "If you don't like the effect, don't produce the cause."

[€uroMeinke]

Disney=cartoons=cutesy=chidlish=instantly uncool.

I agree this equation is likely at work in the US - but looking at the links, it kind of illuminates what's different in Japan.

First off the cartoon to childish linkage isn't there. Thank manga (and Hentai) for that. You know once upon a time (think Ub Iwerks) cartoons were adult pre-feature entertainment, somehow in our culture this evolved into a "kids only" medium. Perhaps Shrek and the works of Pixar are starting to broaden that pidgeon hole here, but we've a long way to go.

But I also have to agree with surfinmuse, outside the US, people are given alot more liberties with the Disney Cannon - which yields some rather interesting and provocative work that we rarely see at home.

[Not Afraid]

To quote Funkadelic: "If you don't like the effect, don't produce the cause."

Right on.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

First off the cartoon to childish linkage isn't there. That's what GD was saying.

[€uroMeinke]

That's what GD was saying.

Perhaps, but I find this component worth contemplating further. Is Disney, by virtue of being "Disney" condmended to eternal uncoolness in the American market? How is it that cartoons became the exclusive medium of children here? Is that the bridge that has to be gapped in order to make Disney Cool? Is Disney music necessarily "cartoonish?" Must Disney create or aquire other brands (i.e. Touchstone, Buena Vista, MiraMax, ESPN, etc.) in order to achieve a sort of Trojan Horse coolness?

I don't dispute GDs claims, but I think there's far more to explore here than statements of assumed fact.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Is it comdemned forever? I don't know. But I think that is exactly the gap the needs to be bridged, and it's a wide gap. It may very well have been their own doing, but it's there none-the-less.

A perfect illustration of the difficulty they face is the Curse of the Black Pearl. Do you remember how much flack they got for that? Why? Because it was PG-13 and had the Disney name. Unheard of! Scandalous! By steadfastly adhering to the "family" image, it seems they've dug themselves a massive hole. It's such a battle to do anything with the Disney name on it in America that isn't for "families" (which, these days, means dumbed down for kids).

Back to Japan for a moment, I don't know if it's manga we have to thank for cartoons not being purely a children's domain, or the other way around. No, not everything Disney there is cartoony and cutesy, nor is everything that's animated cute. However, even in many of the most serious of animes, you'll see elemnts of "kawaii". And I would use the word cute. But, cute does not equate to childish in Japan, so it's not a big deal. So there's no issue going back and forth across that line, because there is no line.

[mousepod]

I think the point that GD makes about "mainstream adult culture" is correct. However, I think that Disney has a major hand in perpetuating the "Disney=cartoons=cutesy=chidlish=instantly uncool" equation in the minds of most American people. By marketing directly to kids and kids only for years, Disney has created an image for itself that most of us adult Disney fans have come to resent to a certain degree. Look at the various trailers for Nightmare Before Christmas - the film was originally slated to be a Disney release, but was switched to Touchstone before the release date by a studio with cold feet who had no idea how to market the darn thing. For several years, all of the cool NBC toys were Japanese imports. Once Disney realized what they had on their hands, Hot Topic, New Orleans Square and even the Haunted Mansion became prime locations for Disney to exploit a very hip movie.

The merchandising/licensing arm of Disney does understand that the brand has a certain hip cache - Fred Segal in Santa Monica has been a place to buy some upscale Disney stuff for the past couple of years - but it doesn't seem able to make the leap into the mainstream. It's almost as if marketing and merchandising are working against each other.

I consider myself a Disney fan who possesses a modicum of coolness - I'd like to see an effort on Disney's part to reach out to me and not just to the kiddies and tweens. I don't expect to see the Bossa Nova CD getting the same push as the Disneymania series, I'd just like to see some more adventurous marketing (like the cool "Chanson a la Mode" CD that € mentioned or the "DJ Digs Main Street Electrical Parade" CD I picked up last week - or the cool Mickey baseball cap, or the embroidered Minnie T-shirt, or well, you get the picture).

Maybe it's too much to hope for from the company that would rather show Raven reruns on the Disney Channel than acknowledge its amazing television heritage, but maybe, one day, the hipness that draws us all to the parks will spill over into real life once again.

[€uroMeinke]

I think that Disney has a major hand in perpetuating the "Disney=cartoons=cutesy=chidlish=instantly uncool" equation in the minds of most American people.

I definately agree with this. I guess I was just amazed that this doesn't seem to be the case in Japan, there was just so much cool Disney stuff there. It seems a shame that you have to travel to other continents to get it. I suppose I should take heart in knowing that at least it's being produced somewhere.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Disney definitely had a hand it in, but I think they did it because they could feel that they had to make a "one or the other" choice. And it started a long time ago with the softening of Mickey's edge. He used to be kind of an asshole. But they started to get a little image conscious as people began to question why the icon of a "family" company would have an attitude. Thus Donald was born, to offload that attitude from Mickey and turn him into the sickly sweet face of the company. That kind of got the ball rolling, and it's been going downhill ever since. To keep their family image, they felt they had to divorce themselves from anything borderline. And since families were their cash cow, they took any minor rumblings that soemthing wasn't "family friendly" pretty seriously and cut it our, rather then risk losing their base.

[€uroMeinke]

The "Family Friendly" filter has definately contributed to the blandification of Disney, but then I look at Pixar and see something both "Family Friendly" and "Cool," so the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.