In 1996, the city of Anaheim took on a $500 million bond, in part to build a parking structure for the Walt Disney Company. The city leased the lot to Disney for $1 a year and let Disney keep the tens of millions in revenue even as the city was struggling to care for its citizens. Over the next two decades the company was granted a billion dollars in subsidies and tax breaks from Anaheim.
As shareholders and top executives reaped the rewards and viewed this as a golden era of profitability, Disney employees often had to work two jobs or liveg out of their cars, just struggling to stay afloat.
“The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” takes a critical look at Disney as a stand-in for the rest of corporate America. What’s particularly notable about the film is that it was made by Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt and granddaughter of Roy, who co-founded the company.
Abigail Disney has long been a social activist, both as a philanthropist and a documentary producer. “American Dream” was inspired by a Disney worker who reached out to her about the company’s low pay. But Disney, whose massive wealth comes from the company but has no active involvement, goes two steps further this time. She co-directs but she also places herself center stage on camera, challenging herself and viewers to see her family business for what it really is.
“Abby has been talking about inequality and saying, ‘Tax me more,’ while working for systemic change for decades,” says co-director Kathleen Hughes. “The minute she started hearing from workers and learning what was going on she started tweeting about the issue. Then she wrote an op-ed and testified before Congress. We made this movie because we can’t talk about it enough.”
The film is not only filled with the heart-wrenching stories of families on the brink but it notes that Bob Iger’s compensation at $65 million was 1,424 times the median employee’s salary while 55 years ago Roy Disney, including stock options, made 78 times the lowest worker’s pay.
But the Disney Company is a stepping stone here for a larger problem and the directors show how the wealthy and powerful began systematically pushing changes in culture and then legislation, weakening labor unions and workers’ rights while promulgating an everyone-for-himself mentality and the notion that more government is always a problem.
Their favorite cut in the film is when it goes from Republican congressmen calling Abigail Disney a Marxist while declaring that America’s entire workforce was benefitting from this recent era of prosperity to Disney employees going to a food bank to survive.
Disney spoke by video recently about the film and the issues it tackles. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. The film really uses the Disney Company to examine the history of corporate greed and wealth inequity in the last half-century. Did you think about that bigger picture from the beginning?
I understood all that history before Ralph ever messaged me. But he took what I knew in the abstract and had been working on as a philanthropist and rubbed my nose in the fact that it was right in front of me writ large in this company that embodies this whole problem. I’m sure Sigmund Freud would have a lot to say about why I was pretending it had nothing to do with me and my family. It was very hard to come and face it. And that’s why I decided to make this film.
Q. Your film notes that Harvard Business School’s motto used to be “Make a Decent Profit — Decently.” Is there a way to get back to CEOs who serve their company and society as much as their shareholders?
My grandfather fought with the unions and probably would have done something horrible if he could have but he couldn’t because unions were powerful but also because public opinion and societal norms and the government held him back. Norms were shifted very deliberately by a desire to build a more pro-business culture emphasizing and praising the highly individualistic view of how people should make their way in life.
When Michael Douglas gets up in “Wall Street” in 1987 and says “greed is good,” they cheered, Gordon Gekko was the villain but all of those stock traders and equity people thought that was the best thing they’d ever heard. The norms had shifted so radically that a villain could be mistaken for a hero.
]The men who are running companies now — and they are mostly men — came of age during the heyday of [free-market guru] Milton Friedman. They were given moral cover by this mantra that if businesses do well then everybody does well, so shares are the only way to understand success and they should privilege share price over everything. They were saying to themselves they were doing good for society by doing well for their companies.
But we now know that’s demonstrably not true. They can’t get themselves untangled from this ideology and we need a fresh generation of people with a different set of principles: that a company is nothing without humans and humans should be their highest priority and that requires a radical shift in the way we structure business and social norms and regulation.
Q. What do you say to people at the bottom of the ladder who often seem to vote against their own economic interests?
I want people to look at it plainly. Take politics out of it, just look at where we are, look at who has what and who doesn’t and why. Let’s just talk about what an economy is for and around whom should it be arranged. The rules of this game are now written for the powerful and the wealthy and we need to rethink that.
Q. You can’t take politics out of it. Sure Democrats curry favor from corporate donors, etc., but it was Republicans that tried shutting you down and branding you as a socialist and it’s their policies that so clearly favor the wealthy and powerful?
I have to laugh when they call me “socialist” because it’s an attempt to reduce an incredibly complex history to a catchphrase and not even one that’s apt in this situation. There are so many adjustments we could make short of socialism to make this a better, more fair system.
The right wing has consciously and systematically disempowered every entity in the government that could push back on corporate interests. We need to rebuild those structures.
Q. Does the recent success of the Amazon union and the efforts by the Biden administration give you hope in that arena?
Marty Walsh being appointed Labor Secretary was heartening because he is clearly pro-union.
We need to make sure the government steps in and defends everybody’s interests and not just the interests of management and shareholders.
The agreement they helped reach between the railroads and the unions was massive — conditions were heinous and conductors and drivers are going to be so much better off because of this. It looks to me that this administration is walking its walk and supporting the unions when they negotiate in good faith.
Q. Were you nervous about putting yourself and your family on screen, that you’re putting a target on yourself?
It’s terrifying. You can dismiss a woman by saying she’s seeking attention or by saying she’s crazy. Say what you want about me as a person but talk to me about the substance. I’m right about this. I’m just right. And if I’m right, what kind of Disney princess would I be if I didn’t stick up for the little guy?
In 1996, the city of Anaheim took on a $500 million bond, in part to build a parking structure for the Walt Disney Company. The city leased the lot to Disney for $1 a year and let Disney keep the tens of millions in revenue even as the city was struggling to care for its citizens. Over the next two decades the company was granted a billion dollars in subsidies and tax breaks from Anaheim.
As shareholders and top executives reaped the rewards and viewed this as a golden era of profitability, Disney employees often had to work two jobs or liveg out of their cars, just struggling to stay afloat.
“The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” takes a critical look at Disney as a stand-in for the rest of corporate America. What’s particularly notable about the film is that it was made by Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt and granddaughter of Roy, who co-founded the company.
Abigail Disney has long been a social activist, both as a philanthropist and a documentary producer. “American Dream” was inspired by a Disney worker who reached out to her about the company’s low pay. But Disney, whose massive wealth comes from the company but has no active involvement, goes two steps further this time. She co-directs but she also places herself center stage on camera, challenging herself and viewers to see her family business for what it really is.
“Abby has been talking about inequality and saying, ‘Tax me more,’ while working for systemic change for decades,” says co-director Kathleen Hughes. “The minute she started hearing from workers and learning what was going on she started tweeting about the issue. Then she wrote an op-ed and testified before Congress. We made this movie because we can’t talk about it enough.”
The film is not only filled with the heart-wrenching stories of families on the brink but it notes that Bob Iger’s compensation at $65 million was 1,424 times the median employee’s salary while 55 years ago Roy Disney, including stock options, made 78 times the lowest worker’s pay.
But the Disney Company is a stepping stone here for a larger problem and the directors show how the wealthy and powerful began systematically pushing changes in culture and then legislation, weakening labor unions and workers’ rights while promulgating an everyone-for-himself mentality and the notion that more government is always a problem.
Their favorite cut in the film is when it goes from Republican congressmen calling Abigail Disney a Marxist while declaring that America’s entire workforce was benefitting from this recent era of prosperity to Disney employees going to a food bank to survive.
Disney spoke by video recently about the film and the issues it tackles. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. The film really uses the Disney Company to examine the history of corporate greed and wealth inequity in the last half-century. Did you think about that bigger picture from the beginning?
I understood all that history before Ralph ever messaged me. But he took what I knew in the abstract and had been working on as a philanthropist and rubbed my nose in the fact that it was right in front of me writ large in this company that embodies this whole problem. I’m sure Sigmund Freud would have a lot to say about why I was pretending it had nothing to do with me and my family. It was very hard to come and face it. And that’s why I decided to make this film.
Q. Your film notes that Harvard Business School’s motto used to be “Make a Decent Profit — Decently.” Is there a way to get back to CEOs who serve their company and society as much as their shareholders?
My grandfather fought with the unions and probably would have done something horrible if he could have but he couldn’t because unions were powerful but also because public opinion and societal norms and the government held him back. Norms were shifted very deliberately by a desire to build a more pro-business culture emphasizing and praising the highly individualistic view of how people should make their way in life.
When Michael Douglas gets up in “Wall Street” in 1987 and says “greed is good,” they cheered, Gordon Gekko was the villain but all of those stock traders and equity people thought that was the best thing they’d ever heard. The norms had shifted so radically that a villain could be mistaken for a hero.
]The men who are running companies now — and they are mostly men — came of age during the heyday of [free-market guru] Milton Friedman. They were given moral cover by this mantra that if businesses do well then everybody does well, so shares are the only way to understand success and they should privilege share price over everything. They were saying to themselves they were doing good for society by doing well for their companies.
But we now know that’s demonstrably not true. They can’t get themselves untangled from this ideology and we need a fresh generation of people with a different set of principles: that a company is nothing without humans and humans should be their highest priority and that requires a radical shift in the way we structure business and social norms and regulation.
Q. What do you say to people at the bottom of the ladder who often seem to vote against their own economic interests?
I want people to look at it plainly. Take politics out of it, just look at where we are, look at who has what and who doesn’t and why. Let’s just talk about what an economy is for and around whom should it be arranged. The rules of this game are now written for the powerful and the wealthy and we need to rethink that.
Q. You can’t take politics out of it. Sure Democrats curry favor from corporate donors, etc., but it was Republicans that tried shutting you down and branding you as a socialist and it’s their policies that so clearly favor the wealthy and powerful?
I have to laugh when they call me “socialist” because it’s an attempt to reduce an incredibly complex history to a catchphrase and not even one that’s apt in this situation. There are so many adjustments we could make short of socialism to make this a better, more fair system.
The right wing has consciously and systematically disempowered every entity in the government that could push back on corporate interests. We need to rebuild those structures.
Q. Does the recent success of the Amazon union and the efforts by the Biden administration give you hope in that arena?
Marty Walsh being appointed Labor Secretary was heartening because he is clearly pro-union.
We need to make sure the government steps in and defends everybody’s interests and not just the interests of management and shareholders.
The agreement they helped reach between the railroads and the unions was massive — conditions were heinous and conductors and drivers are going to be so much better off because of this. It looks to me that this administration is walking its walk and supporting the unions when they negotiate in good faith.
Q. Were you nervous about putting yourself and your family on screen, that you’re putting a target on yourself?
It’s terrifying. You can dismiss a woman by saying she’s seeking attention or by saying she’s crazy. Say what you want about me as a person but talk to me about the substance. I’m right about this. I’m just right. And if I’m right, what kind of Disney princess would I be if I didn’t stick up for the little guy?