However, I know visiting Disneyland is a privilege. As a previous blog post discusses, the difference in average household income between metro and non metro areas has increased by nearly 30 percent since 2016. Given the rising costs of attending Disneyland or Disney World, families from metro areas are better situated to afford the trip.
Yet, Disney’s influence isn’t confined to physical theme parks. The company owns or has a stake in a plethora of companies including: ABC, ESPN, National Geographic, FX Networks, Hulu, Pixar, Marvel, 20th Century Studios, Lucasfilm, A&E Networks and Vice Media. This monopoly allows Disney to influence and control media narratives.
But, as discussed in a previous blog post, nearly 25 percent of rural Americans lack access to high speed broadband internet, a higher number compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. As such, those who can access media owned by Disney likely skew more urban and suburban.
Therefore, overall, Disney likely speaks to a largely suburban and urban audience, and thus can mold audiences’ perceptions of rurality.
The company, begun by Walt Disney, originally reflected the more small town, rural values of Walt’s childhood. Although born in Chicago, Walt spent years of his childhood on a farm in Marceline, Missouri, which today has a population of 2,123. As such, when Walt began The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, many films centered on Mickey Mouse in rural America. In fact, Walt Disney described Main Street, USA, which is how all visitors enter Disneyland, as a typical small town in the early 1900s. Indeed, the street was inspired by Walt’s time in Marceline.
But, as the world expanded and urbanized in the latter half of the 20th century, so too did Disney. Around the time Disneyland opened in 1955, 64 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas, compared to 83 percent of the population now. In line with the demographic change, Disney has created more movies and shows set in cities. And, audiences have responded favorably. Today, for example, two of the highest grossing cartoon Disney movies are Incredibles 2 and Inside Out 2: the former taking place across multiple large, fictionalized cities and the latter in San Francisco.
While less frequent, however, Disney has not stopped depicting rurality. Thus, it is important to consider how a primarily suburban and urban audience views and understands these depictions in the 21st century.
While not nearly as high grossing as Incredibles 2 or Inside Out 2, one of the more obvious displays of rurality is Disney Pixar’s Cars, the 2006 movie about anthropomorphic vehicles. In the film, Lightning McQueen, a race car, gets stranded in the rural town Radiator Springs. One of the protagonists of Cars is Tow Mater, described as a tow truck with buck teeth and a Southern accent with a hillbilly twang.
The inspiration for Tow Mater came from a real life man, Douglas “Mater” Keever, a construction superintendent living in Sherrills Ford, North Carolina. Cars director John Lasseter struck up a friendship with Keever at Lowe’s Speedway in 2001. He met him on what locals anointed “Redneck Hill,” the place hardcore fans camped out to watch races. When they first met, Keever introduced himself as:
Mater . . . tuh-mater, but without the tuh.Lasseter faced a creative block during development of the movie, before remembering his interaction with Keever. He called him in the middle of the day, asking if the Cars team could use his name. Keever happily agreed, and even made a brief cameo in the movie. In fact, his exact introduction to Lasseter became Tow Mater’s introduction to Lightning McQueen. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Keever stated:
You don’t know what Pixar has done for Mater. They’ve taken a poor old country boy and got him involved in something awesome . . . They paid me for my name, and for me to come out there and record my parts and stuff. They really looked after Mater. Paid for my mo-tel. They really bent over backwards.While Disney paid Keever for contributions, we don’t know the exact amount. Thus, it’s hard to gauge whether Keever was fairly compensated for inspiring one of the most beloved characters in Cars, a movie that grossed over $240 million. Plus, Disney further capitalized on Cars’ popularity by building a real-life Radiator Springs for Disneyland.
Additionally, some label the character Tow Mater problematic, arguing he’s a stereotype of low class, rural white people. A Daily Yonder article entitled “Speak Your Piece: Hollywood’s Rural America is a Scary Place” opens with the simple question:
Why does Hollywood think rural America is either ridiculous or evil?Tow Mater is no doubt ridiculous, and it's hard to know if urban and suburban audiences laugh at him or with him. Or, if Cars successfully conveys deeper themes about rural communities. But, perhaps the most weight should be given to the fact that the rural man who inspired Cars likes the movie. Additionally, Cars tells a story about two strangers from different backgrounds who form a strong friendship, a beneficial message for a primarily suburban and urban audience.
Whether Disney’s more modern approach to rurality necessitates celebration, criticism, or a mix of both, is a tricky question. I don’t have a clear answer. But, even as a potential Disney adult, one thing is clear to me. With great power comes great responsibility. Given Disney’s immense power, we should ask tough questions to ensure the company provides positive representations of marginalized communities.
6 comments:
I remember cars (and controversially, cars 2) were some of my favorite movies growing up. I especially liked Tow Mater (and another rural character, Doc Hudson)—but I'd be lying if I didn't admit this caricature shaped my early understanding of what it meant to be 'rural'. To be completely blunt, I liked the character mainly because he looked stupid and sounded funny. As a kid, I didn't really know what stereotyping was, and it wasn't until I was a little older that I started to see what was problematic about the character. I guess this demonstrates your point about disney negatively shaping urban perceptions about the rural. Growing up in the suburbs, my two earliest reference points to rural American culture were probably Tow Mater, Foghorn Leghorn, and Yosemite Sam—all could probably be characterized as having similarly problematic elements to their character (though all are undeniably iconic).
Amazing post, Sophie. I recently rewatched Cars and definitely noticed a lot of urban stereotypes about rural people/places coming into play. Your sentiment about how movies like Cars have the potential to bring urban and rural people together. I didn’t know that Mater was based on a real person, and this made me think about how many things in Hollywood are based on people who have been historically marginalized. Specifically, a lot of music ideas were originally created by Black artists. A link to this can be found here: https://www.cracked.com/article_28216_black-creators-who-got-their-material-stolen.html. The fact that Disney has profited so much from the ideas/lives of rural people and people of color is definitely something that we should talk about more often and people should be compensated for.
Tow Mater was a favorite where I grew up- and I never really thought about it until now. While I didn't grow up in the most rural area, it wasn't the most urban either, and there were a ton of farmers and farmers children where I grew up (Fruita Monument, where I went to high school, has the largest FFA chapter in the state). The question posed by that Daily Yonder Article "why does Hollywood this rural people are ridiculous or scary?" reminded me deeply of how I feel people talk about rural areas-particularly Appalachia. I have known plenty of people who would laugh at someone being scared of going into "the city" be scared about the idea of going to a small, poor, rural area. It always seemed to me to be sides of the same coin-people from different worlds being scared to see the economically disadvantaged of the other.
This was an interesting read! I certainly second the concern that Keever may not have been fairly compensated given the incredible amount of money Disney made off his character, but hopefully that’s not the case. I’m also not convinced that Tow Mater is a completely harmless depiction of rural people. Although I have not watched the movie in several years, I remember Mater as providing slapstick comedic relief rather than providing meaningful insight into the rural experience. Your point that most Disney movies are not set in rural areas is also one I never realized before, but is definitely true. I really cannot think of another super popular Disney movie set somewhere like Radiator Springs, although there must be more.
As a child, I didn’t think of Tow Mater as anything more than a comedic relief character. However, I can understand how Disney profited off the character’s exaggerated rural characteristics. Specifically, the second movie takes place in different cities where Tow Mater is depicted as a “fish out of water” with his loud table manners and lack of worldly knowledge. The entertainment industry should be more mindful of how certain caricatures can be harmful.
I, like many other commenters, had not considered how the portrayal of Mater affected my perception of the rural and people who live in those spaces. This also makes think of how games that depict/simulate rural living and farming have grown in popularity. I think a lot of that media leads people to believe that rural life is completely wholesome and relaxing while the reality many rural people face is incredibly different (poverty, crime, drug addiction etc.) This made me think of how important it is to be cognizant of stereotypes and how places and people are portrayed in the media, whether good or bad, as they hugely impact peoples' perceptions.
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