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[-] culpritus@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_Donald_Duck

The book's thesis is that Disney comics are not only a reflection of the prevailing ideology at the time (capitalism), but that the comics' authors are also aware of this, and are active agents in spreading the ideology. To that end, Disney comics use images of the everyday world:

Here lies Disney's inventive (product of his era), rejecting the crude and explicit scheme of adventure strips, that came up at the same time. The ideological background is without any doubt the same: but Disney, not showing any open repressive force, is much more dangerous. The division between Bruce Wayne and Batman is the projection of fantasy outside the ordinary world to save it. Disney colonizes the everyday world, at hand of ordinary man and his common problems, with the analgesic of a child's imagination.

— Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, How to Read Donald Duck, p. 148

This closeness to everyday life is so only in appearance, because the world shown in the comics, according to the thesis, is based on ideological concepts, resulting in a set of natural rules that lead to the acceptance of particular ideas about capital, the developed countries' relationship with the Third World, gender roles, etc.

As an example, the book considers the lack of descendants of the characters. Everybody has an uncle or nephew, everybody is a cousin of someone, but nobody has fathers or sons. This non-parental reality creates horizontal levels in society, where there is no hierarchic order, except the one given by the amount of money and wealth possessed by each, and where there is almost no solidarity among those of the same level, creating a situation where the only thing left is crude competition. Another issue analyzed is the absolute necessity to have a stroke of luck for social mobility (regardless of the effort or intelligence involved), the lack of ability of the native tribes to manage their wealth, and others.

[-] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

There's a Donald Duck comic I remember reading as a kid, where he joins a group of "flippists" and practices "flippism" a philosophy of making decisions via coin flip, taught by a bat, a literal fly-by-night con artist. I recall one of his nephews talking about "-isms" being just kind of bad in general, and the comic ends with the judge giving him a much harsher fine than normal because of how stupid he was being following this "flipism".

The comic is silly and fun, but it does reinforce a lot of ideas about how thinking outside the box is bad, and how anyone pushing a philosophy outside of the mainstream is a dangerous con artist.

this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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