Disneyphobia

English

Etymology

From Disney +‎ -phobia.

Noun

Disneyphobia (uncountable)

1. The dislike of The Walt Disney Company.
   • 1982 September 26, Ray Washington, “And then there are those who haven’t been to Disney World”, in The News Tribune, Fort Pierce, Fla./Port St. Lucie, Fla., page B13:

     Harriette Hunt of Port St. Lucie traced her Disneyphobia back through the years. “I’ve never liked Disney,” Harriette Hunt explained.

   • 1991 November, Peter J. Boyer, “Katzenberg’s seven-year itch: Showtown superstition has it that Jeffrey Katzenberg’s winning streak at Disney is over, but the studio boss is determined to beat the odds”, in Vanity Fair, page 146, column 3:

     Add to these the writers who’ve seen their prices drop and their work “managed” beyond recognition, the directors who have been stripped of their autonomy, the agents who have been left sitting alone at the negotiating table, and the long list of litigants who’ve felt the heat of Disney’s legendarily voracious legal team, and you have a fairly large population of Disneyphobes. Last spring, the conclusion to a pair of brutal alley fights with the Muppets and Peggy Lee moved Disneyphobia from the back tables at Mortons into the mainstream of public opinion.

   • 1992 April 8, Alex Beam, “Eek! A mouse!”, in The Boston Globe, volume 241, number 99, page 19:

     Comments one French writer bemused by the outbreak of Disneyphobia: “We’ve never really forgiven the Americans for liberating us.”

   • 1995 August 11, “The Disneyphobes”, in Richmond Times-Dispatch, 145th year, number 223, Richmond, Va., page A14:

     Strange affliction, Disneyphobia — and not very flattering. The dark pronouncements about Disney’s purchase of ABC contain an element of condescension; Disney’s products have widespread appeal, making them easy targets for snobs. The company also enjoys considerable success, which attracts the enmity of liberals who resent winners because winners have no need for liberalism’s pet virtue: compassion.

   • 1997, Landscape Architecture, page 26:

     The issues of control and corporatism in community development that Beardsley raises deserve serious debate with less pop Disneyphobia and a little more historical professional perspective.

   • 1997 March 12, John Anderson, “When That Outwageous Bunny Was Bad”, in Newsday, volume 57, number 191, page B11:

     The 12-cartoon, 90-minute program, beginning Friday at the Cinema Village (22 E. 12th St., 212-924-3363, Manhattan), includes some truly outrageous racial stereotypes, sexist imagery, xenophobia and even Disney[-]phobia: “Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs” a parody of “Snow White,” has some terrific animation but is rampant with racist cliches.

   • 1999 October 26, Matthew d’Ancona, “Disney as the New Shakespeare”, in Ottawa Citizen, page A16:

     One explanation for the strength of this Disneyphobia is that the vast majority of film critics do not like movies that are not obviously difficult and complicated. […] A more general reason for Disneyphobia is that the middle class seems naturally inclined to the Stoic error that enjoyment is incompatible with edification.

   • 2001 December, Morris B. Holbrook, Marketing Theory, volume 1, page 139:

     Times Square, Disneyphobia, HegeMickey, The Ricky Principle, and the downside of the entertainment economy: it’s fun-dumb-mental

   • 2004 December 8, Susan Reinhardt, “Facing my fear: Doing Disney with the crowds”, in Asbury Park Press, page 18:

     I had all but made peace with my Disneyphobia until one day last week while wandering through Target hunting a bath mat. […] a hoss of a woman screeched into her cell phone, rattling the lamps in the light fixture aisle. […] “[…] we thought we’d run on down to Disney for a few days. […]” […] She had uttered the worst word possible: Disney. I fear it like a child scared of spooks under a bed. We have lucked out in the Disney department, thanks to the fact that Myrtle Beach, S.C., has Lazy Rivers and plenty of stucco’d and plastic wonders to entertain the children. […] Even in my in-laws do Disney every other year or so, and they’re almost 100. How come they can withstand 11 hours of driving that boring old highway fighting traffic, then checking into a crowded motel packed with obnoxious parents and hacking children?

   • 2005 August 30, Susan Reinhardt, “Football game injected me with a dose of culture shock and an eye full of hoochie-coochie”, in Asheville Citizen-Times, page D1:

     The entire experience was more overwhelming than a case of Disney-phobia. I’d just as soon hit four theme parks than ever return to a high school football game where rivals are playing and the teens are out en masse.

   • 2008, Liberty, page 1:

     Jon Harrison copes with Disneyphobia

   • 2018, Jonathan Gornall, How to Build a Boat: A Father, His Daughter, and the Unsailed Sea, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN:

     But now I think I’ve found a particularly disturbing and personally resonant reason for my Disneyphobia. About ten minutes into Frozen, there’s a crucial and decidedly dark plot twist, when Anna and Elsa’s parents, the king and queen of Arendelle, board a sailing ship. In a startlingly graphic ten-second sequence, the ship is caught in a violent storm, overwhelmed by towering waves and dragged under. Small wonder she doesn’t want ‘to sink to the bottom of the water’. Who can blame her? Curse you, Mickey Mouse.

Antonyms

• Disneyphilia

Related terms

• Disneyphobe