Disney Makes the World Safe for 'Whiteness:' Fighting for the 'Post-Racial' Utopia in the Kingdom Hearts videogames.

• In Event: Is the “Post-Racial” the new “White?”

Abstract

The homogenizing effects of media globalization have often been countered with local cultural hybridity. Media corporations, however, can also produce cultural hybrids and create “glocalized” products. For example, the "Kingdom Hearts" videogames combine Disney characters with characters from the popular Japanese videogame series "Final Fantasy." While these games operate as cultural hybrids, they also represent Disney as a defender against the cultural homogeneity of media globalization. In these games, the Magic Kingdom functions as a post-racial universe where the threat to cultural diversity is visually represented as a blackness that threatens to erase whiteness.

Author

• Robert Brookey, Northern Illinois Univ