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The year 1996 marks the 30year anniversary of the death of Walt Disney. Nevertheless, the Disney name and the vision conceived by his company continue to permeate our culture. During his life, Walt Disney saw his creations rendered in movies, network television, books, comics, magazines, recordings, character merchandising, and his theme park Disneyland. That was only the beginning. In today's multimedia society, Disney images proliferate, as the Disney company has opened additional theme parks and entered the realms of cable television, videocassette recordings, CD-ROM, and cyberspace.

Although the Walt Disney Company has made its mark in many areas, its name remains intrinsically tied to animation. Beginning with Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animated film released with synchronized sound, the Disney studio has spearheaded new animation technologies and processes. Flowers and Trees (1932), the first one ever to win an Academy Award, was the first in Technicolor. With Three Little Pigs (1933), another Academy Award winner, the studio broke ground by animating three pigs who essentially looked alike but acted and moved distinctively in order to convey different personalities. In The Old Mill (1937), the Disney studio showcased its multiplane camera, a device that photographed up to six layers of images simultaneously, thereby creating visual depth and dimension; for that film, Disney won an Academy Award for best animated film, as well as a special Academy Award for the design and application of the multiplane camera.

All of those innovations paved the way for the first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which established animation as an art form and propelled it into a new era. In subsequent years, Disney's animation technologies and feature films continued to advance the industry: Fantasound (multitrack sound) in Fantasia (1940), Cinemascope in Lady and the Tramp (1955), Technirama 70 (70mm) in Sleeping Beauty (1959), Xerox process in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and the skillful combining of animation and live action in sequences of Song of the South (1946) and Mary Poppins (1964). In addition to overseeing technological breakthroughs, Disney introduced new approaches to animation. They included using the storyboard technique to plan a story efficiently and save costs; setting up a school for animators that concentrated on teaching realistic animation techniques, and promoting a stable of animated characters, most notably Mickey Mouse, that provided a ready reference for the growing Disney empire.

In the years following Walt Disney's death, animation at the company floundered. However, by the 1980s and 1990s the Walt Disney Company had embarked on an aggressive schedule of animated feature releases and again established itself as a pioneer in animation techniques, especially computer animation. Tron (1982) marked the first use of computer animation in a feature film. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), released under Disney's more adult Touchstone division, showcased Disney's advancements in combining live action and animation. In 1991, Beauty and the Beast, with its stunning, computer-animated ballroom scene, became the first animated film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category. Most recently, Toy Story (1995), a joint venture of Disney and Pixar, won the distinction of being the first fully computer-animated feature film.

Over the course of several decades, then, the Disney studio has remained a leader in animation technology and output and has had a major effect on the animation industry. Disney has set a standard, and even those studios that have created new forms of animation in reaction against the Disney style nevertheless acknowledge its importance.

The Walt Disney Company's ventures in film and television, while most pronounced in animation, are not confined to it. By the 1950s Walt Disney realized that the staggering costs of quality animation often meant a slow return on his investment, while more cheaply made, live-action films could turn a quick profit at the box office. This, combined with Disney's commitment to his theme park and weekly television show, triggered his attention to a diversity of live-action formulas, including comedies, adventures, westerns, nature films, and science fiction. While the Disney studio's work in those areas revealed nothing extraordinary, it expanded the Disney product and enhanced Disney's name recognition even further.

But all has not been perfect in the Disney world. While the studio has excelled technologically and commercially, its ideology has been attacked for failing to change with the times. The Disney vision-punctuated by fairy-tale love stories, benevolent nature, and classic American virtues such as hard work-remains essentially unchanged since Walt Disney masterminded it years ago. In the animated features, especially, Disney's product, often technologically dazzling, frequently has embodied a traditional formula, with stock characters and a predictable plot line, one that critics sometimes have taken to task for sexist or racist elements. At the same time, critics have slammed Disney for its aggressive merchandising strategy of flooding the market with Disney images until it seems "the Mouse" and his kin are everywhere.

Despite the conventional point of view-or perhaps because of itDisney products continue to sell, making Disney's influence an almost inescapable part of growing up. In the United States today more than 80 percent of homes have videocassette recorders, and Disney titles-which children, in particular, watch over and over again-rank among the top-selling cassettes. Disney's messages, which also come into American homes daily via cable television, are reaching a bigger audience than ever, as subsequent generations discover and reinterpret Disney's tales in new times and contexts. Media and cultural critics have been particularly mindful of this reality as they have explored the ramifications of the Disney vision for the audience.

Given the ubiquity of Disney, there recently has been a corresponding ground swell of Disney writings, both scholarly and popular. In the past few years alone, several books on Disney have appeared, among them Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince (1993), by Marc Eliot; Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America ( 1993), by Stephen Fjellman; Walt Disney: A BioBibliography (1993), by Kathy Merlock Jackson; Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons in the Sound Era (1993) and Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom (1994), both by Eric Smoodin; Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1994), by Russell Merritt and J. B. Kaufman; Disney and His Worlds (1995), by Alan Bryman; Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Walt Disney World (1995), by The Project on Disney; and From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture (1995), by Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells. Recent Disney criticism has followed a few established directions: biographies of Walt Disney, investigations into a particular film or films, studies of the theme park phenomenon, and cultural analyses.

The last of those is crucial. As the Walt Disney Company solidifies its position as a media powerhouse, accompanying its film releases with attention-getting promotions and trying to break already phenomenal boxoffice records, it becomes ripe for scrutiny and places itself squarely in the center of controversy. It is the responsibility of media and cultural critics, then, to make sense of the Disney message and its influences.

The articles in this theme issue take on this task. As expected, the majority of them address Disney animated features, but other, less-popular Disney genres are included as well. Covering a wide spectrum, the articles were chosen to reflect Disney's diverse media products, popular and critical responses to them, and, most important, the interplay between Disney and culture, particularly over time. At the center of this chronologically arranged collection is the realization that Disney's stature and world view invite controversy, which underscores cultural tensions and ambivalence.

The articles begin with A. Waller Hastings's "Bambi and the Hunting Ethos," which addresses allegations that the 1942 film contributed to an antihunting sentiment in the United States. It provides a textual analysis of the film, describing how the hunters in Bambi actually violated ethical hunting practices, and offers insight into the usage of the loaded term "Bambi-lover."

It is followed by "The Audience in the Wilderness: The Disney Nature Films," by Margaret J. King. In this article, King discusses a lesser-known area of Disney filmmaking: documentaries. Using cultural analysis, she explains how Disney's True-Life Adventures tapped into concerns of the 1950s, particularly regarding nature and the frontier, and she ties them to our environmental consciousness today. She also shows how the nature documentaries, which anthropomorphize animals, fit into Disney's oeuvre, embodying many of the same themes as his fictional works.

In the next article, "`Be Sure You're Right, Then Go Ahead': The Early Disney Westerns," J. G. O'Boyle discusses another little regarded area of Disney's film and television output. He combines his own boyhood recollections of Disney westerns with a well-developed discussion of Disney's vision of the frontier, dovetailed with the sensibilities of the baby-boom generation.

The next article, Ronald E. Ostman's "Disney and its Conservative Critics: Images versus Realities," addresses the questions everyone has been wondering about: Are there really subliminal, sexual "embeds" in recent Disney animated releases, and if so, how did they get there? His analysis sheds light on the day-to-day process of animating, as well as on the allegations and mindset of Christian Right organizations that have put pressure on Disney to remove what they claim is questionable material from its briskly selling videos and laser discs.

The last article in the Disney theme issue is "Redesigning Pocahontas: Disney, the `White Man's Indian,' and the Marketing of Dreams," by Gary Edgerton and myself. It considers the expressed intentions of the Pocahontas filmmakers and measures them against the text of the film, giving particular attention to race and gender. The article concludes with a survey of the mixed responses to the film and suggestions for using Pocahontas as a springboard for other explorations into the study of history and Native American images.

Collectively, the articles in this issue are neither a celebration nor a condemnation of Disney. Instead, they offer a balanced perspective into the pervasive Disney product and its cultural context.

I would like to thank editors Mike Marsden and Jack Nachbar for the opportunity to edit this theme issue and for their help along the way. I also appreciate the direction and encouragement I received from associate editor Gary Edgerton and the patience and organizational abilities of Lisa CulpNeikirk, who oversaw the editing and production process. Finally, I am grateful for the cooperation and commitment I received from the contributors to this issue. Working with all of them has been fulfilling and instructive.