I was in the Disney store the other day and was shocked to see Wall-E crap everywhere. Then it hit me, that Wall-E, especially from a company such as Disney, was a $180 million insult to the average Disney product buyer.
Think about that. Who is the average person you see wearing a t-shirt with Pooh on it? This doesn't apply to souvenirs from Disney World, only those shirts purchased at Target or Wal-Mart. That's right. Fat, stupid, trash. I'm not saying that all people who wear these shirts are fat, stupid, and trashy. I'm only saying that a higher than normal number of people who wear these shirts fulfill those three characteristics. Don't even get me started on people who wear stuff with Warner Bros. characters on them.
And I can only hope that Disney realizes the irony of walking into a Disney store and being able to buy disposable garbage that will likely end up in a dump within a few months with the fucking Buy n Large logo on them!
In fact, I'm sure they recognized that, which may account for the relative dearth of Wall-E products in comparison to other Disney movies. For example, on Amazon, a search for Wall-E and then toys results in 294 products, of which about half are actual Wall-e products. Monsters Inc. nets 305, with a little over a third being Disney products. Disney Cars lands an impressive 1,260, with about 75% being for the movie. 532 for The Incredibles. Disney Princess barfs up an amazing 2,585, with almost every item being a Disney product.
1 comment:
@Midgard:
I didn't miss the point of Wall-e. I didn't even say what the point of the movie was in my post. All I said was that the movie was, intentional or not, an insult to many would-be Disney product buyers.
I was also saying something that had nothing to do with the movie itself, but its marketing. Namely, the movie warned of a future where disposable consumerism devastates the planet, and this warning took the form of the Buy n Large company; an obvious poke at Wal-Mart.
I then just pointed out the irony of having a logo representing that warning plastered on disposable crap at a Disney store.
I also don't consider myself a bigoted fool/tool. While it's just my observations, I rarely see people wearing said Disney/WB characters on t-shirts that couldn't be classified as white trash. Well, white trash in my neck of the woods.
More importantly, even Disney's own marketing data confirms that most Disney branded product buyers are from low-income SES brackets. Again, I'm not saying people who don't earn a lot of money are trash, only that most trash don't earn a lot of money. This is why Disney has multiple tiers of branded products, ranging from high-end dolls, games, and figurines that are sold in places like Macy's and theme parks, but have cheaper and cheaper goods running down the SES ladder. All the way to the bread and butter sales of products to low-income people.
And where do a majority of those sales happen, again at the target of the Buy n Large parody, Wal-Mart. So my point was that Disney, which is more a marketing and merchandising company than an entertainment company at this point, made a movie that derides wasteful consumerism, and mocks people for being fat and disconnected from the world, then sells consumer garbage to the very people the movie was ostensibly attacking.
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