A New Kind of Cinderella Story
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Time honored traditions are changing at Disney Entertainment corp. An upcoming sequel to their animated movie Robots features edgy and sometimes adult themes the media giant previously avoided, such as safe sex and erectile dysfunction. It's part of a new project designed to change the company's image to appeal to modern audiences.
"Times have changed," says executive Vice President of marketing, Ken Garmit, "and so have our viewers. When Walt first established Disney it was in a world where families all sat and ate dinner together every night. Today's viewers grew up with microwave ovens and iPhones and that's played a significant role in shaping our culture and changing our values."
Garmit went on to say that Disney's demographic has changed over the years. What was once a staple of family values in every home has slipped from the focus of mainstream attention. In today's market the strongest demographic for Disney is homosexual men, age 24 to 60. Stock holders have been unhappy in recent years with this market loss. Executives hope that changing the company's image will bring more viewers back to their movies.
"We started doing this with the original Robots movie," says Garmit, "Focus groups indicated image as the primary reason for our slipping market. Today's movie goers felt that we were out of touch with the American public, a relic of a bygone era. We realized that people today are disenchanted with the corruption we're seeing in big corporations like Enron and Halliburton. So we decided to create a relevant and modern sci-fi show about an evil corporate empire and a young entrepreneurial hero who routes the corruption and returns the company to its former glory." Audience response was lackluster. "It didn't exactly backfire," Garmit says, "but viewers saw it as just more of the same kind of message we've been presenting for years. So we know that changing our image is going to be a real challenge, but we're confident we can do it. We see a need and we're going to fill that need!"
So here's the real story. A while ago I published a comic strip featuring another robot... specifically a parody of the old Sorayama fembot paintings. Folks on DeviantArt loved it. When I posted it over on Threadless it was a whole other story... Wow that was controversial. Apparently a number of folks over there felt I was really out of line for "objectifying women". I'm not sure, maybe they didn't realize it was a joke. But someone asked how I would feel if it had been an image of a male robot. I think they assumed I would have been offended. ;) I wouldn't, but it got me thinking -- I guess if I had objectified women then to be fair, I'd have to also objectify men. So I give you Cog Sure. :)
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