Analysis of Donald Duck comics

[deckerd@agcs.com]

> Apart from being a Disney comics fan I am also in my third year of a 
> media degree here at the University of Plymouth (UK). While reading 
> one of my text books over the weekend (Key Concepts in 
> Commuinication) I came across an interesting book listed in the 
> 'Relevant Texts' section: 
> 
> 'How to Read Donald Duck by A. Dorfman and A. Mattelart, New York, 
> International General.'
> 
> It says that the book is an analysis of Donald Duck comics with 
> reference to social and political subtext.
> 
> Has anyone read this book? Is it still in print?
> 
Oh. That book. It was originally published in Chile about the time of
the Allende government, and is a Marxist analysis of Disney comics,
particularly their influence in the Third World. Dorfman and Mattelart
saw Disney comics as some kind of capitalist plot to keep third world
countries subservient to imperialist countries by planting Bad Ideas
in the masses' heads. Dorf and Matt's solution seemed to be sealing
Chile off from foreign influences and making sure the media only
planted Good Ideas (i.e., theirs) in the masses' heads. The English-
language edition of the book at least has a long introduction by an
American scholar though himself a leftist and sympathetic to the
book's thesis knew something about Carl Barks and how comics are
produced in the real world. The book created a minor stir some years
ago when Disney tried to have its import into the US banned because
of its extensive unauthorized use of Disney art reproductions. I'm
not sure how the legal action came out, but the book was occasionally
seen on the racks at your favorite "progressive" bookstores for years.
Whether it's still in print or not, I don't know. Since Disney is 
thriving 
all over the globe (well, maybe not in that field just outside of 
Paris...)
and Communism seems to be headed for the dustbin of history, it hardly seems 
relevant nowadays.

However...I had an unnerving experience on an airplane a few years
back. I was working on a foreign Disney translation for Disney Comics
and suddenly became aware of something Disneyish playing at the edge
of my peripheral vision. I looked up and saw that the college girl
sitting next to me was reading a copy of "How to Read Donald Duck."
It seemed like an awfully weird coincidence. The girl and I got to
talking and it seemed that she had no particular interest in Disney
or comics per se, but had been assigned that book by some professor
in a mass communications class. I pointed out that the book was
hardly an objective study of mass communications in Chile, but written 
by a couple of Communist activists with an eye to discrediting opposition so 
they could hijack the media for themselves and impose their own
brand of thought control, but the girl just seemed bewildered. Her
professor wouldn't assign a book unless it was okay, would he?

The book is worthless as a study of its nominal subject, but it's an
interesting curio, a collector's item of a sort.

But it brings up an intriguing thought. Karl Marx vs. Carl Barks. And
it seems to me I just read a foreign Disney story where it was evident
that "Brutopia," Barks's all-purpose stand-in for the Cold War adversary,
has since turned into a democratic nice-guy country.

--Dwight Decker