A sweeping history of Disney’s rise to cultural dominance that pulls all the skeletons from the corporate closet and playfully decodes the hidden political messages in all of your favorite childhood movies.
In The Extended Universe, Vicky Osterweil takes us on a quest to discover the black magic by which Disney has successfully made its image synonymous with not only youthful splendor, but pop culture itself. Their “imagineers” have made it impossible to reflect on the wonders of growing up without immediately thinking of Disney's movies, Disney's amusement parks, and various other bits and bobs of related Disney merchandising. What Osterweil unearths are reactionary political commitments and maleficent legal maneuvers—from fighting to protect the patent on the COVID vaccine, to breaking early efforts at an animator’s union—so cartoonishly evil they would make one of Walt's own animated villains blush.
Along the way, Osterweil braids together Disney's corporate history, an economic accounting of capitalism's dependency on IP, and deeply engaging (and not entirely unsympathetic) analysis of some of Disney's most famous movies, including Snow White, The Lion King (animated and live action!), Black Panther, and more. The result is an entertainingly woven and convincing case that Disney's entire business model has been built upon a ruthless and fanatical defense of intellectual property rights—from Steamboat Willie to Infinity Wars and beyond!
-
Praise for In Defense of Looting:
"Osterweil debuts with a provocative, Marxist-informed defense of looting as a radical and effective protest tactic...a bracing rethink of the goals and methods of protest."
―Publishers Weekly
"A reflection on violence as a form of social protest that can lead to social change."
―New York Journal of Books
"[In Defense of Looting] is as much an argument for the possibilities of a riot as it is a reckoning between history as it happens and history as it is read.... [Osterweil's] readings of history lend the book its exhilarating quality and make anything seem possible."
―Frieze
"In Defense of Looting is a clear and damning indictment of the origins and evolution of property rights, race, and policing in the United States. Ultimately, Osterweil demands we not only overcome the respectability politics animating our desire for 'peaceful protests,' but that we ambitiously work to abolish the racial capitalist logics at the heart of American empire."
―Zoé Samudzi, coauthor of As Black As Resistance
"In engaging and accessible prose, Vicky Osterweil lays out an intellectual defense of looting that is as thorough and compelling as it is necessary and revolutionary. The history here is alive and vital, and Osterweil's grasp of it pushes any reader who has doubted the legitimacy of looting as a political action to search deeply and reconsider their position."
―Mychal Denzel Smith, author of Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream
"With the right ideas at the right time, Vicky Osterweil has given us a powerful tool for resistance in the 21st century. In Defense of Looting could change American politics forever."
―Malcolm Harris, author of Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials
"A passionate, in-depth study of one of history's most radical-and reviled-forms of direct action. In clear, precise prose, Osterweil lays bare the racialized settler-colonial roots of policing and property in the US, outlines the possibilities of militant resistance, and emphasizes the necessity of Black and Indigenous liberation. In Defense of Looting is a bracing and necessary read, written with great care and radical hope. As Osterweil herself says, 'The future is ours to take. We just need to loot it.'"
―Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell
"In this book the act of looting is the starting point for challenging the conventional beliefs around people, property, and justice. How we treat looting, whose acts are considered looting, and what is looted frame essential interventions in understanding uprising. The stakes are not of 'stuff,' TVs, and clothes; they're about ourselves and our communities. Whether at the policy level or in our personal daily politics, the historical insights and moral clarity of this book illuminate a way forward from the real crimes that structure our society."
―Ayesha A. Siddiqi, writer and emeritus editor-in-chief of The New Inquiry