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For those familiar with Giroux's work this book contains few thematic surprises. It was nice to note, however, that perhaps part of his motivation was the observation of his own son's reactions to the colonisation of their minds by the Disney megalith which adds the human touch. For those with an interest and in need of some evidence of the influence corporations with diversified media-come-cultural interests like Disney has this book certainly provides a rich source. In this respect, Giroux's critical approach to the Disney pedagogy sounds a clear warning for all who always knew there was something inherently malignant about Disney's (and for that matter other media empires) cultural products but could not quite put their finger on it. With this book the messages we once received as kids are made more lucid, revealing an ideological position of Disney that at once adheres to using images of the good society drawn from the past but doing this with a slight of hand to add to their financial bottom line. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically bad about a business making a profit, even a big one. One can even say that that is their moral duty, a point that Giroux could have made to add a bit more depth to our understanding of Disney's motivations. Indeed, a more rigorous deconstruction of the personalities involved in creating and perpetrating the Disney image would have likewise added to a deeper understanding of what make the business tick. What Giroux does get across, however, remains important nevertheless: that Disney uses nostalgic images and claims of innocence to (pun intended) whitewash the collective memory of past in order to capitalise on such fantasy to make money. The cultural implications of this, as Giroux continuously suggests, are significant. In this respect, a politics of whiteness, couched in innocence, overwhelms any countering of minority voices and resistance. In a similar way, he suggests that the Disney persona, where they want to be seen as a public service company, sits very uneasily with the practice of democracy especially given their own internal labour practices and the sense of democratic ideals portrayed in their cultural products (i.e. films such as Aladdin, Good Morning Vietnam and Pretty Woman). Indeed, it is the deconstruction of some the images in Disney films that offer the new reader in critical theory some good guidance in deconstruction. There is also an excellent definition/explanation of the term "critical pedagogy" (pp. 124-126) which all readers should find useful. As a book that describes the influence the media juggernaught it should hold some great interest for those who are concerned with the politics of whiteness/middle-class values (of a particularly American kind, granted, but then again aren't we all becoming Americanized?), citizenship, democracy and the construction of knowledge. As a contribution towards this understanding I commend Giroux's book to other readers concerned with such things. It is also an easy read and structured in such a way that if you have to put it down for a while you can come back and be reminded of things said previously if you read from where you left off. For the new reader I give it the 5 stars, but for those familiar with his work it is a 4 because the themes are quite familiar but it still has a spark that makes it a good addition to the bookshelf.
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