I’ve come to amass a lot of respect for Floyd Norman Floyd Norman over the last couple of month’s and when you read a quote like this, you know he speaks the truth.
Over the years, Disney has morphed into a massive marketing and distribution company chasing quarterly earnings rather than thrilling audiences. Would Walt be happy with his company today? You already know the answer to that one.
While I also have a great deal of respect for Floyd Norman, I’m personally hesitant to put things in such stark terms. The days when I eagerly swallowed anything that the Disney Animation Studios put out are long behind me. But at the same time, I don’t believe that Disney has done nothing but pursue profit since Walt died, since the 1990s, or even in the past couple of years. Did Disney change after Walt passed away? Of course. That’s the challenge for any studio that relies heavily on a single person to provide overall direction and vision: what do you do when they’re gone? (Not to discount the part all the Disney artists played in making Disney animation what it was, of course.) Maybe Walt would not be pleased if he could see the company he founded today, but I’d be willing to bet that he wouldn’t want to burn it to the ground and start over from scratch. Their are bad and good aspects of what Disney is today.
This is true Sara, but what I think Floyd was getting at was that in Walt’s time, there was much more focus on creating great art for the sake of it. Sure he had to make a profit, but I think he realised that good quality films would stand him better in the long run. Today the company is the same as any other, they see films as products rather than art and churn them out accordingly. I mean, c’mon, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2? You can’t say that was made for the sake of making a great film.
I suppose I could expand more on the topic, but I’m wary of going too far. When involved in artistic medium like animation, a balance has to be struck between making great creations and managing the business side of things. I suppose Walt would have leaned more towards the art side of things with the (presumable) assumption that they would stand the test of time whereas the company as it stands now leans the other way, chasing the quick buck.