Walt Disney is the ultimate problematic fave

polygon.com:

The Walt Disney Company’s founder was an icon in his lifetime, enjoying sometimes unparalleled levels of personal fame. During his life, Walt was seen as the American dream made flesh: He came from nothing, yet built an entertainment empire. And his influence on Hollywood is outrageous even today. (Name one other studio executive immortalized as a hologram.)

Disney remains the namesake and the genial, smiling face of a company that, in 2019, was responsible for generating almost a third of all box-office sales in Canada and the United States. But in spite of the avuncular “Uncle Walt” character he put on for the public, he isn’t a universally beloved figure. Today’s pop culture associates his name with bizarre conspiracy theories, like being a Nazi sympathizer (not true) and a megalomaniac who was difficult to work for (reportedly true). But underneath the tales of frozen heads and antisemitism lies the truth: Walt was a complicated man who did some great things and some not-so-great things, and changed the course of history in the process.

A Century of Disney

Walt Disney is the ultimate problematic fave. He was an underdog with boundless ambition, passionate about the arts and education, capable of great kindness, and dedicated to making the world a better place. He also used his platform and his own prejudices to preside over decades of arguably racist and sexist entertainment that spread stereotypes and promoted toxic American exceptionalism. He’s an iconic figure shrouded in misinformation and legend, some of which was his own creation, the rest the result of tabloids, rumors, and outright lies.

The image of the affable, gentle patriarch was a cultivated one; Disney took on the Uncle Walt persona in the public