How Disney Explains Nostalgia
After some reflection on the subject and the way the Internet (and other digital technologies) have fundamentally changed our lives, I’ve started to think that in many ways, life was better in the past. At least from a U.S. perspective - I can’t speak to the experience of people who live in countries that actually care about their citizens.
By “ancient places”, I don’t mean the time of the Roman Empire, mind you. Instead I’ll talk more about the 1980s and 1990s. Even if I wasn’t old enough to live through that time, it still seems relevant for this purpose, as there are plenty of people still around today who did experience this era.
First of all, I’ve noticed that people are generally less informed about current events than they were in the past. To some extent, this is self-evident; if more Americans knew what the hell was going on, Donald Trump would never have won the 2016 election, let alone the 2024 election. Trump might be the most egregious example of people here voting against their own best interest, but he isn’t the first.
This is no coincidence. With the proliferation of Internet-based news sources, whether they be digital versions of the New York Times, blogs like this one, or conspiracy channels like Infowars, this has jeopardized the ability of physical newspapers to remain competitive.
And when you think about it, why should one go after a physical newspaper? They use paper, a resource that (for now) comes from trees being chopped down. But people being more environmentally conscious is not the chief reason why “traditional news sources” are declining. Simply put, they can’t compete with news sources that can be at your fingertips with no financial cost (though possibly a significant mental health cost).
America’s “news deserts” are disproportionately located in rural areas of the country. Much like food deserts, places that have limited options to purchase healthy food, news deserts have little to no access to information about events near them. (For what it’s worth, food deserts and news deserts frequently overlap).
It used to be that local politics was something people paid attention to. After all, it’s still commonly said that all politics is local. And I’ll admit that for as much as I follow national (and sometimes international) politics, I barely know what’s going on in my own city. And I’m far from the only one. By some estimates, a third of U.S. news outlets that existed in 2005 had shut down by 2024. And again, rural areas have been hit the hardest by this trend, because they are less likely to have the financial resources to sustain a newspaper.
Speaking of small towns, I recently watched a Wendover Productions video about the proliferation of stores like Dollar General. Now, Dollar General is technically not a dollar store - in fact, since the stuff you buy there breaks every so often, you don’t save much money in the long run. Terry Pratchett was right all along - it is indeed more expensive to be poor, especially in the USA.
But let’s talk about Wendover’s video. When he speaks here at 17:58, narrator Sam Denby states that “Main Street, USA” is in danger. The stock footage used, perhaps ironically, is of a thriving Main Street in a small American town.
Once upon a time, these Main Streets were thriving. Nowadays, the only small towns in the USA with thriving Main Streets tend to be affluent areas that 5% or less of the population can comfortably afford to live in, historic locations in New England where architecture has changed little, or places with lots of seasonal tourism. These three categories are not mutually exclusive; in many cases, one of them reinforces the other two.
Say what you will about Walt Disney as an individual, but I remember watching old Disney movies like Lady and the Tramp and The Fox and the Hound, both of which are set in small-town America. For people of all ages (and not just those cringe-worthy “Disney adults”), these films bring to mind happy memories, and one possible reason why occurred to me recently.
Movie poster for “Lady and the Tramp”. Image taken from the Film Art Gallery.
Movie poster for “The Fox and the Hound”. Image taken from Amazon.
The Wikipedia article for the former movie states that Walt Disney wanted the setting to be his childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri. Now, it’s been a few years since I watched Lady and the Tramp, and I’ve never seen the live-action remake. I probably never will. But that’s beside the point.
Anyway, from what I recall, the town featured in Lady and the Tramp (which may or may not be Marceline, Missouri) is a thriving place. There’s lots of local businesses for such a small town, such as a zoo, a dog pound, and of course the Italian restaurant that contains the movie’s most famous scene. I understand that Disney probably took some creative liberties and gave this fictional town (that may or may not be Marceline, Missouri) whatever the plot demanded.
Now, my Internet’s a bit spotty right now, so getting Google Maps open was a hassle. (Isn’t that another exhibit - if your Internet doesn’t work, you can’t do anything!) But I decided to look at Marceline, MO on that platform and see what it looks like today. Per Wikipedia, modern-day Marceline has a population of about 2,100 - very much a small town. And I want to be clear about one thing: Even if the people of Marceline probably didn’t vote the way I would have liked, I still don’t mean to insult them at all.
Google Street View imagery of Marceline, Missouri. It was taken in June 2023.
On second thought, Marceline doesn’t look like the best example. Given that such a prominent figure of the American entertainment industry grew up there, of course, it may be that it qualifies as a historic town. The town’s elementary school is even named after Walt Disney.
Sure, the buildings don’t look the shiniest, but the shops aren’t boarded up either. There are several restaurants that aren’t just fast food. The hardware store I found is a chain, but it’s not Dollar General at least. By small-town standards in the year 2025 (or rather, 2023, because that’s when the current Google Street View imagery was taken), Marceline’s downtown doesn’t seem too bad.
Another Disney movie that many look back on fondly was The Fox and the Hound. While many will talk about the fractured friendship between Tod and Copper, it occurred to me recently that the movie’s setting is in an idealized rural location. And I’ll explain below why that matters.
Screenshot of “The Fox and the Hound”, taken when Widow Tweed’s efforts to milk Abigail the cow go awry thanks to Tod. Image taken from IMDB.
In today’s iteration of American politics, particularly of some Midwestern states like Iowa and Missouri that have large rural populations, “supporting small farmers” has become a major talking point. Widow Tweed, who takes care of Tod the fox in that Disney classic, is a small farmer who maintains it all herself. She raises her own hens and milks her own cows, leading to the chaotic scene pictured above.
Needless to say, there’s not a lot of small farms anymore in America. Instead we’ve got Big Agriculture with their factory farms and massive meatpacking plants. Rather than a beautiful pastoral estate like the one Widow Tweed lives on, most farmers today work for a corporate giant. This article from Human Rights Watch, coincidentally published just months before the zoonotic COVID-19 pandemic began, discusses the conditions in greater detail.
The “TL;DR” is that working there is an awfully dangerous job. Lots of workers have chronic pain from the movements they are forced to perform. Many have sinus issues so bad that, according to one worker interviewed, they’re afraid to blow their nose for how much blood will come out. It’s an even more dangerous job than being a police officer in America, which is saying something given that we have more firearms than people. And the workers are disproportionately people of color and undocumented immigrants, because of course they are.
If The Fox and the Hound were set in the 2020s, Widow Tweed’s farm would likely not exist. At a minimum, it would be struggling to stay afloat, taking on plenty of water in the process. Someone should write a modern-day version of it - hell, maybe I’ll try my hand at it eventually. It’s not like I have anything better to do.
I’m not going to say that everything was perfect decades ago. Far from it. But I hope I’ve demonstrated a reason why many people look back on the past, particularly older Disney movies, with rose-colored glasses.
