Donald Duck and American Hegemony

By far the most interesting reading/film this week is Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, “From the Noble Savage to the Third World”. Disney movies have long been on my radar for American hegemonic agendas. Disney has reached all corners of the world. Whenever I visit my relatives in Argentina, they ask me if life in America is like in the Disney movies. These movies send messages around the world of what it looks like to live the American Dream and perpetuates the American mission to bring freedom and democracy to uncivilized, undeveloped nations around the world. It also instills ideas of the "undeveloped" world in the American population. Themes of the exotic, the foreign, the stupid, and the uncivilized are consistently characteristics of the people living in the settings taking place abroad. Donald Duck is one of the most extreme examples. Donald is a racist capitalist, exhibiting characteristics of greed and imperial attitudes.

Dorfman and Mattelart quote the Polynesian natives who imitate Donald, “You save our lives. . . We be your servants for ever.” to which Donald responds, “They are natives too. But a little more civilized” (159). This quote makes the direct connection between servitude and civilization. To be civilized means to be obedient, docile subjects of the foreign power. The natives are seen as being stupid, malleable people that could not understand the complexities of a modern civilization and are thus in eternal debt and dependent on foreign intervention. Their most convincing argument is on page 159. They  describe the time Donald went to "Outer Congolia" to save Scrouge's business because his stock was falling. This example eerily resembles how neoliberalism has been functioning for the past, say 50 years. Scrouge's business represents corporate interest in foreign countries for resources and labor to optimize profits. Donald represents military intervention to coerce the government to structurally change economically and politically. Donald gets rid of the king of "Outer Congolia", makes himself king, and rules until: "The king has learned that he must ally himself with foreigners if he wishes to stay in power, and that he cannot even impose taxes on the people, because this wealth must pass wholly out of the country to Duckburg through the agent of McDuck.". Donald's purpose was to assure the alliance of the foreign country of many riches in a unilateral relationship with the states that favors corporate interests. The relationship continues in a dependent trap in which the foreign nation gives monetary aid or resource, in this case, food. In return for their obedience. Disney may seem like innocent child entertainment taking place in imaginary locales. However, It perpetuates American interests and exacerbates the narratives used to colonize and degrade foreign nations.