Celebrate Disney magic with a Kodak moment sponsored by AOL

A few days ago, my mom, inspired by a television advertisement for today’s DVD re-release of… A few days ago, my mom, inspired by a television advertisement for today’s DVD re-release of “Bambi,” posted on her blog about the days, “when the [release of the] next Disney animated feature was the biggest thing in the world” for our family.

It’s true — many of my childhood memories are Disney-related. The first Disney movie I owned was “Cinderella.” Following that purchase, I spent more time eagerly counting down to the releases of new Disney films in theaters and on VHS than I actually did watching those films. I quickly accumulated a large Disney collection that, “Cinderella” aside, consisted of films and picture books based on films such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” “The Lion King” and “Pinocchio.”

In fact, as a 3-and-a-half-year-old, I found myself completely obsessed with the long-nosed Pinocchio, a “crush” that was originally spurned by my viewing of the Disney film. After watching the cartoon, I insisted on being read every single version of his story, including the original, written by Collodi. I dressed up as Pinocchio for Halloween one year, and I constantly made my mother act out his story with me. Naturally, I would play Pinocchio. She would be stuck acting out all of the other characters.

For three years in a row, I took trips to Disney World with either of my parents. It’s probably sad or sick to say that some of my best childhood memories are rooted in Orlando, Fla., but it’s true. For as strange and ethereal as Disney World may be, it truly managed to suck this tourist into its world of “magic” for the duration of her stay.

I soon grew out of my Disney phase. My time became consumed by other books: the Babysitters Club, then Sharon Creek, then Francesca Lia Block. I began to buy products related to my new obsessions: dolls, videos, etc. I transitioned from being a Disney fanatic and became an ideal target for these other, new marketers.

In her blog post, my mom notes that Disney “drifted out of our consciousness, except to be occasionally labeled as a tyrannically hegemonic corporation led by a demented despot trying to shove its manufactured ‘Magic’ down the entire world’s throat.”

Marketers understand that the many memories we share with those who are close to us are rooted on the consumption of their products — there’s a good reason we talk about “Kodak moments.” They realize that they need to keep grabbing consumers at the right time before they move on to another memory builder.

Disney is not the only marketer that plays the emotional strings of families and individual consumers alike. Kodak’s marketing strategy was driven by the notion of saving memories as photographs. Now, America Online tells us that we bond with one another by sharing these photographs with one another over e-mail, and DSL and cable Internet providers assure us that it’s better if the process goes faster.

Despite our current opinions of Disney and other marketers targeting children and teen-agers, my mother concludes her entry with this final statement: “I wonder if parents of young children these days are going through the same well calculated cycle of Disney marketing and merchandising that I went through when Claire was little. Was I — were we — the victims of some evil empire? Maybe. But we had a hell of a lot of fun and, I would dare say, still have a good deal of great memories that were purely Disney produced.”

E-mail Claire Donato’s evil empire at ced10@pitt.edu.