…The problem isn’t that Disney makes stories based on folktales, though. Honestly, I don’t think the problem is even the copyright. (Though that sure doesn’t help.) The problem is that Disney has the brand recognition and the deep pockets to freeze out anyone else who tries.
I know, it’s a subtle distinction. I’m going to use dolls as an example, because Special Interest Hell. Bear with me for a second.
A while back, Mattel made a doll line called Ever After High. Ever After High had a gimmick- it was a doll line based on fairy tales, but instead of being based directly on the fairy tale characters themselves, it was based on their children. This meant that they could create iconic and memorable designs for the characters without being accused of ripping off Disney’s designs.
This is an original “basic” Ever After High doll:
The dolls are almost fully articulated- they have 360 degree head rotation, articulated shoulders, elbows, wrists, and knees. Their costume designs are complicated, often featuring multiple layers of fabric and lots of accessories. Each doll came with a stand, a hairbrush, and a bookmark that told their “story”. They retailed for $16.99.
The dolls came in two factions: “Royals” (the children of heroes) and “Rebels” (the children of villains). Each one had a backstory and a motivation, and they had an accompanying webseries that told those stories.
(I swear there’s a reason I’m going into Excruciating Detail.)
Even though I didn’t like the sculpts… Ever After High was a pretty good doll line, and it was moderately successful. It brought in 53 million dollars- not nearly as much as Barbie, but still a decent profit.
… Disney didn’t sue Mattel for this. Copyright never got involved. But they didn’t need to sue. They did two things that killed Ever After High dead.
The first was that they took the license for the Disney Princesses away from Mattel and gave it to Hasbro. Since that’s, obviously, a big money-making license, that was a pretty nasty punishment.
But the other thing Disney did, the thing that I think was what properly killed Ever After High… they massively expanded the merchandising for Disney Descendants.
…Now, it looks like Disney Descendants was already in the works when Ever After High started coming out. I don’t think Disney got so OMGSCARED of Ever After High that they made a product directly to compete with it. And I can’t say anything bad about the movies because a) I haven’t seen them and b) I think @bpd-dylan-hall will kill me.
But the two franchises share some notable similarities- they’re about the teenage children of fairy tale characters, who are split into two factions: “hero” and “villain”. They’re very ‘modern’, with colorful hair and flashy, iconic designs.
This is a basic Disney Descendants doll:
I own both Ever After High and Descendants dolls, and I gotta say: the Descendants are way lower quality. They’ve got almost no articulation- just wrists, hips, and knees. They don’t come with a stand or many accessories. Their costumes are much simpler, and most of the designs are screen-printed on. They’re not crap dolls, don’t get me wrong, and I like their sculpts more than EAH- but by comparison, they’re not very good.
But that made one important difference: The Disney Descendants basic doll retailed at $12.99.
Now, riddle me this: if you’re the parent of an eight-year-old girl who loves dolls, which are you more likely to get: the high-quality expensive doll with a lot of small parts she’s likely to lose, or the cheaper one with a brand name on it that you recognize?
Disney was able to massively undercut the competition. Mattel couldn’t keep up. They made cheaper versions of the Ever After High dolls -they went for $9.99 or so, they’re absolute garbage, and collectors and kids both hated them.
Mattel hasn’t officially canceled Ever After High. But the show’s not coming out anymore, the dolls aren’t on shelves anymore, and we haven’t heard anything about either since 2017. Disney won, and they won hard.
If Disney didn’t have the kind of money they do, if Disney didn’t have the kind of clout they do, this wouldn’t have happened. I mean, sure, all doll lines end eventually, that’s the way of the world, but Disney deliberately undercut the competition. Depending on how much dolls cost to make and ship, they might even have been making them at a loss.
But Disney could afford to do it because they’re Disney.
The only time anyone’s ever really been able to successfully make a fairy tale franchise without getting shot down by Disney was Shrek, and that’s because Disney didn’t want to touch the aeShrektic with a ten-foot pole. They were scared they’d ruin their image. Any other time anyone does anything with fairy tales (or princesses, or talking cars, or talking fish, or pirates, or…) Disney can make their own version and sell it at a loss, driving their competitors out of business. They have more money than God. They can afford to lose money on one theme park, let alone one toyline or one movie.
The problem with Disney is that it’s a monopoly. and like any other monopoly, Disney can freeze out anyone who tries to compete with them. I think if you trustbusted Disney- left them with their animation studio and maybe their theme park division, but took away Pixar and Marvel and ESPN and all their television outlets and all the other crap they own- they’d have a harder time undercutting everyone else. you’d see more stuff based on folklore and fairy tales, and it’d have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of being successful.
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