I’ve wanted to go into the film making industry for years. I was raised on classic movies from the Disney renaissance, and even today, I count Lilo and Stitch as one of my favorite films of all time; all that being said… the stranglehold Disney is starting to exhibit on the entertainment industry chills me to the bone. 

Disney recently acquired the entirety of 20th Century Fox. The buyout places the intellectual property owned by Fox atop the ever growing hoard of content Disney is sitting on, which, as of the writing of this article includes: Marvel Studios, Lucasfilms, Pixar, ABC Studios, National Geographic, ESPN. And that’s not even mentioning the classic properties we associate with the Disney brand, and their immensely successful theme park line with locations all around the world; as of 2019, they are worth over 130 billion dollars.

All of this comes in addition to the recent release of Disney Plus, Disney’s attempt to take a bite out of the digital streaming pie. The company has begun to pull their content off of other streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu in order to force consumers to their own platform in a well calculated bid to turn a greater profit. This shift has even caused collateral damage; shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones that Disney produced in partnership with streaming services like Netflix. Disney doesn’t seem to care about that though. Artistic integrity and friendly collaboration have been thrown out the window in favor of a bottom line.

Many who defend the Disney-Fox merger seem willfully ignorant of its overall significance to the creative freedom of the individual: “So what? Disney makes good content, and the consumer has spoken with their dollar.” The problem with this mindset is that it purposefully shoves aside the foundations of personal choice upon which our democracy is built. If any one company were allowed to buy out all of its competitors, the consumer would have no choice but to buy their product. It would be like placing a ballot before a voter with only one eligible candidate, creating the illusion of choice.

This all demonstrates an all too familiar creep towards monopolization, one of the most significant downsides to late stage capitalism; one which the U.S government refuses to properly regulate. In general, a monopoly is considered an organization that controls a large majority of a certain business, in this case, the entertainment industry. The problem here is that despite its huge control over the mountain of intellectual property under its belt, it’s hard to really define a “majority” in the entertainment industry. If you’re simply looking at the box office numbers, it’s hard to deny Disney’s supremacy. Four of the five highest grossing films of the year were made by Disney, and even the fifth highest – Spiderman: Far From Home was produced with creative heads of Disney at the helm. However, it is difficult to label Disney a monopoly while significant competitors such as Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures are still around.. Normally, such a sentiment would fill me with hope, but the merger between Disney and Fox shows that even the toughest of competition can be turned into another asset for the house of mouse with a single business deal… and,well, lets just say the future isn’t looking too bright.