Black-ish takes on Disney

Black-ish is an ABC television show on it's third season. The show depicts the upper middle class Johnson family that struggles with trying to be a normal American family and a " traditional black family." The recent premiere of the first third season episode was about the Johnsons going on their first trip to Disney world-- the father Dre is especially concerned with making this the best family vacation ever since he didn't enjoy his own childhood Disney experience.

Of course they took a picture with Mickey.

My first question is how did Disney allow for Black-ish to incorporate the name and brand of Disney into its show? I mean, the choices are either that Disney was paid quite a lot of money by ABC and Black-ish or that Disney owns ABC and sponsored the episode itself. Either way, I think the depiction of Disney shows exactly how consumed America is with Disney-- particularly Disney World.

Dre believes that, in order for his family to have the BEST experience, he has to purchase the VIP package which reflects the American mindset of instant satisfaction. Throughout the episode, Disney is repeatedly stated to be the happiest place on earth and everyone is shown having a great time-- except the people in the general population line which promotes Disney's VIP package implicitly. The most obvious Disney promotion was in the mother, Bo, and the grandparents were having an awful time and attempted to return to their hotel and ended up falling in love with Disney before they could find the exit gate. Their "love" for Disney was expressed by them enjoying the parade and buying a ton of souvenirs at the gift shops.

Personally, I love Black-ish as a show, and, although this wasn't the best episode, I still enjoyed it. However, there were some heavy critics on the Hulu website where I watched it. People commented things like:

• "The worst episode they've ever made"
• "It's basically a 30 minute ad for Disney. I hate product placement."
• "It's like the '90's all over again back when Disney bought ABC. I wonder why they're at it again."

The question here is: Do people really hate Disney that much that it could ruin an entire TV series for them? Maybe Henry Giroux isn't the only bitter consumer of Disney. My personal opinion is that the TV show Black-ish is a satirical show about a family trying to live the best American family experience in general so going to Disney HAD to be included-- it's only right. It's not like they renamed the show to Disney-ish. People have to chill.