The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life [Paperback]

Steven Watts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

The Magic Kingdom sheds new light on the cultural icon of "Uncle Walt."  Watts digs deeply into Disney's private life, investigating his roles as husband, father, and brother and providing fresh insight into his peculiar psyche-his genuine folksiness and warmth, his domineering treatment of colleagues and friends, his deepest prejudices and passions.  Full of colorful sketches of daily life at the Disney Studio and tales about the creation of Disneyland and Disney World, The Magic Kingdom offers a definitive view of one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Although the Disney studio was hailed as a dream factory, there was plenty of hard work and hard-nosed business deals behind the facade. Drawing on interviews and research from Disney archives, Watts shows how Disney and mid-America influenced each other, from the birth of the animation empire, through the "libertarian populism" of the Fifties film, TV, and theme-park efforts, to Walt's untimely death in 1966. Other topics include Disney's pioneering role in business "integration" (using one side of the business to promote another side), his idealization of small-town life, his contagious creative enthusiasm, and his growing conservatism and abiding contempt for unions. Whether selling World War II to an anxious home front, lifting spirits in the Depression, soothing America's Cold War fears, or catering to the new leisure and consumer society, Disney had a unique rapport with average Americans. Portrayed as neither devil nor saint, Disney emerges as a human and sometimes sympathetic figure. This lively, witty, and insightful study is likely to become a standard. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. [Two other Disney biographers in recent years have accused the Disney family of attempting to undermine criticisms of him; for a more critical appraisal see Marc Eliot's Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince, LJ 5/1/93.?Ed.]?Stephen Rees, Levittown Reg. Lib., Pa.
-?Stephen Rees, Levittown Reg. Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Today's Disney entertainment empire might rephrase Watts' subtitle to read "Walt Disney IS the American Way of Life" as part of its seeming dedication to crafting sanitized versions of aspects of the American ideal and then selling the bejesus out of them. Watts' biography of the creator of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy examines Disney's role in the creation of American consumer culture and his and his company's successful commercial feeding of that culture's voracious entertainment appetites. The book, Watts says, exemplifies "something of a hybrid genre: part biography and part cultural analysis, an anatomy of Disney's productions as well as an anatomy of their consumption." Fully referenced and forcefully and cogently argued, it does an excellent job of tying together all the facets--artistic, commercial, and personal--of the Disney saga. "Walt Disney has been, arguably, the most influential American of the twentieth century," Watts concludes. This valuable, unique book about him will be greatly valued by fans, cynics, and semioticians alike. Mike Tribby --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 568 pages
• Publisher: University of Missouri (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826213790
• ISBN-13: 978-0826213792
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( D ) > Disney, Walt

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The First Balanced View of Walt Disney, August 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Hardcover)

As one critic noted recently, Walt Disney's career has inspired either hurrahs or sneers. The folks at Disney have authorized or even manufactured a whole series of haigiographies. As for the opposing camp, it has its own sacred text, Richard Schickel's THE DISNEY VERSION, which not just not a haigiography, but a blanket attack on both the work of the Disney studio and the fans of the films they produced.

But there has not, until now, been a serious book about Disney and his mouse factory. Steven Watt's combination biography/cultural study accomplishes this task without either ignoring the real warts on Disney's character or sinking into eye-glazing cultural-studies babble (at no time does he accuse Disney of "phallocentricity," which is a singular accomplishment in and of itself).

Walt Disney began as something of a liberal populist, became a decided conservative, and in his later years became a great believer in the sort of social engineering that both the liberal and conservative establishments seemed to be rather enthusiastic about back in the 1960's, expressed in his original plans for EPCOT, a planned community where everything would be clean and safe and happy, whether that's how people wanted it or not . . .

Certainly that's how Disney wanted it. Disneyland and Disney World seem expressions of his desperate desire to create a place where the lonliness and misery of his childhood couldn't find him, or anyone else. Certainly, the parks are among the most well-ordered and polite imaginable, thanks to the work of his artists and engineers. There are those who find this horrifying, an effort to reduce visitors to passive, unthinking consumers of spectacle and merchandise, putty in the hands of the Disney Company and their corporate cohorts.

Most importantly, he reminds us of the fact that Disney was not just the name of a media super-company, but the name that meant joyous, wildly-imaginative screen entertainment, an explosion that took years to go off, but shook and delighted American society, both mass and class, from November of 1928 until the late months of 1941. A tough animator's strike in 1941, which he regarded as a personal attack on his beneficence (which was rather capricious and never really extended to the inkers and painters in the firm), helped begin the process which made Disney into a rather reactionary figure (although not a race-baiter or as hateful as many Hollywood right-wingers). It also broke up his original group of animators, and the films were never quite the same after that. But those 13 years produced some of the true masterpieces of popular entertainment, and that should never be forgotten.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Biography of Walt Disney Hands Down, September 25, 2003

By 

K. Bruce "Wedway" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Paperback)

Easily the best biography out there on Walt Disney hands down. It will never be topped. It neither kisses his hiney as Bob Thomas' studio sanctioned biography does, nor does it discount him as merely a low brow populist (as Richard Schickel did), nor lies about him as some sort of communist spy in order to sell books. Not only is this biography even handed, but Mr. Watts makes brilliant connections between Walt and his time that no other biographer had the insight to do. This is a fair, balanced, well organized, incredibly entertaining biography that really brings the real Walt Disney to life. Steven Watts is a genius biographer.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Walt Disney would have approved it!, June 11, 2003

By 

Nikola Raguz (Dubrovnik Croatia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Paperback)

I have read 4 biographies about this man ("An American Original," "The Disney Version," Mosley's "Disney's World: A biography," Eliot's "Hollywood's Dark Prince") and now I realize that I should have acquired this book before, so I wouldn't need to read all of the above stated books.
This book provides Walt's personal story, studio development, good and bad critics, Disney's place in history and his shaping of American culture. It is not biased, but gives a balanced view on a man and his company. It made me believe in this book, since I was very sceptical towards "truths" written in other Walt Disney biographies. In those, Walt was portrayed as either a perfect person, or a villain of the 20th century.
The Magic Kingdom is the balanced truth and the best biography of a man that shaped American culture without a doubt.