The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales (2022)
(Abigail Disney, Kathleen Hughes, US 2022, 87 min., DCP)
“Don’t let Mickey Mouse become a rat.” Dorothy Parker’s slogan from the 1941 strike by Disney animators refers to the ongoing struggle of Disney’s cast and crew as they advocate for increased wages: “Magic Doesn’t Pay the Bills." With 220,000 employees, eighty-two billion dollars in revenue and gross profits of over twenty-eight billion dollars, The Walt Disney Company refuses to pay its workers a living wage and laid off seven thousand of them to cut costs. Abigail Disney, great-niece of Walt Disney and granddaughter of Roy, felt conflicted about the labor practices of the company she was benefiting from and decided to investigate, co-directing this film with Kathleen Hughes.