Re:Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.
by tptacek on Tuesday October 30, 2012 @05:10PM
(#4719636)
Uniformity is comforting. The alternative is challenging. These are billion-dollar properties: they survive based on mass appeal. What's the mass media property that doesn't capitalize in some way on the status quo? What are you really asking for here? A version of Mulan where the heroine dies in a hail of arrows? The Suite Life With Zack And Cody's Meth Habit? Even The Daily Show only works as entertainment because it has mass entertainment to feed off of.
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Don't get me wrong, if I were in charge of those companies I would be a fool to try to run them any differently. All I am saying is that whatever the reason (be it deliberation, market forces, or something else entirely) these companies are capable of putting out a consistent message, provided you look at it from a certain perspective.
I suppose you could say I am stretching the meaning of "agenda". Non-deliberate messages, which most of the "pro establishment" stuff probably is, probably doesn't really qualify as agenda now that I think about it.
Sure. I'm just suggesting that this may be a variant of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Media companies don't drive the consistency of the culture; they simply feed on the enormous latent drive to comforting conformity that's hardwired into our species.