There are two of the definitions of ambivalence in the Oxford English Dictionary:
Psychoanalysis and Psychology. The coexistence in one person of profoundly opposing emotions, beliefs, attitudes, or urges (such as love and hate, or attraction and repulsion) towards a person or thing.
and
In general contexts. The condition of having contradictory or mixed feelings, attitudes, or urges regarding a person or thing. Also: the condition of being undecided about a viewpoint or course of action, or of being unconvinced by the merit of something; the state or fact of being contradictory or inconsistent.
Although I am hesitant to have any powerful feelings for any corporation (I talk about this is in my recent blog post The Animosity Towards BigX), unfortunately with Disney my ambivalence leans towards the former.
For example, I love the show The Mandalorian. Watching it became a touchstone evening for my wife and me throughout CoVid Times on Thursday nights—something which we talked about both in anticipation before and in analysis after-classic shared experience.
However, when I look at Disney with my more critical eye, I often find things that are quite disturbing.
Consider the book Our Friend The Atom (pictured above), published by Disney in 1956 (in conjunction with an animated show of the same name) to laud the benefits of nuclear energy. Although the book starts off well—with some fairly strong physics and a who’s who of physics, (including Lisa Meitner, who had been bypassed for her contribution to the discovery of fission in favor of Otto Hahn), the latter part of the book is saccharine in its praise of atomic energy. Consider the two following passages:
With the device of the reactor we hold the atomic Genie under safe control. He comes forth at our beckoning. He promises to grant us three wishes. The decision is ours. What should we wish for? What do we need the most…?
An atomic blast is a deadly threat; it is also a regrettable waste of energy. Heat and radiation are precious things—valuable assets to our civilization, better used for creation than destruction.
This is propaganda in its highest form, especially when we consider it is supplemented by the beautiful artistry of the Disney animators. (Also, these passages are doubly worrying when we consider that the author of these words is Heinz Haber— a prior physicist of the Nazi regime during WWII, brought to the US under the umbrella of Project Paperclip.) What in the world was Disney thinking?
So there it is. My ambivalence towards Disney laid bare. Is it resolvable?
I doubt it, but I do think it is valuable to define it and name it.