Question 8

8. The video Mouse Trapped 2010 dealt with the aggravated and underpaid workers at Disney. The workers are aware that they are being underpaid and are living below the poverty line, however they continue to work there. The employee’s situation at Disney relates to cultural studies. “If does not assume that pleasure can be manipulated by or at least articulated to repressive forms of power and existing structures of inequality. And it recognizes that pleasures may themselves be repressive and regressive-for example those derived from relations of domination over the other groups in formations of racism” (Grossberg 634). Contrary to Mouse Trapped, in Mickey Mouse Monopoly they discuss Disney films and the stories they tell about race, gender, and class. The video also interviews several guests who are completely unaware of the mistreatment of workers and possible racism in the movies; therefore they continuously go to Disney and pay for an obnoxiously overpriced ticket. “But it does not deny that they are sometimes duped, that they are sometimes manipulated, that they are lied to (and believe the lies, sometimes know that they are lies)” (Grossberg 634). The political economy relates to this because it is a false consciousness. Disney is portraying itself as a friendly and accepting environment, however they are being reported for instances of race, gender, and class in their movies and their workers are also knowingly underpaid.