Unsurprisingly, it is Black South Africans who come to experience Disney much later than other groups in South Africa, with a reported average age of 10.3 years at first contact, as compared with 4.6 years for White, 4.25 for Coloured and 3.2 for Indian students.
Furthermore, the proportion of African students who indicate 'little contact' with Disney remains relatively stable through childhood, teen years and adulthood Gust over 60%).
White students on the other hand, display a much more intuitively normal process of diminishing contact with Disney as they get older (from 50% who cite lots of contact in childhood through to 18% in adulthood). In the case ofIndians and Coloureds, the small sample sizes militate against any firrn conclusions, but there does seem to bea tendency for both groups to have early contact which tails off, as they grow older.
In terms of liking/disliking Disney, it seemed appropriate to draw conclusions on the basis of dividing the original seven point scale into one with two poles, liking and disliking (dispensing with the important nuances because of the small number of questionnaires).
African students,while not displaying the same degree of'liking', sustain this liking for much longer. Starting with 61% in childhood through 61% in teen years, it falls to 54% in adulthood. Indian students are not far behind this pattern, starting off at 75%,sustaining this through the teen years,and falling to 50% in adulthood. Coloured students demonstrate a much sharper decline, with 78% liking Disney in childhood, 67% in teen's years,falling to
33% in adulthood. White students show the sharpest decline between childhood (72%) and teen years (54%), levelling off to 44% in adulthood.
From a gender perspective, itisclear that women have the most contact with Disney,and they remain ahead of men even as contact diminishes with age. A similar configuration can be found when looking at student's reports of how much (and when) they like Disney.
Women (as children, teens and adults) consistently fmd Disney more likeable (78% in childhood, 68% in their teens and 54% in adulthood) than men, who are about 15% behind at each stage.
The most accessed Disney products are Disney films (98%), across all race groups, closely followed by video rental, books and comics (78%), and TV Shows (70%). For African students, access to film (91%) is followed by comic books (74%), books (65%),TV Shows and magazines (56%), and video rental (44%). White students on the other hand have all accessed films,and high proportions have accessed video rental (86%),books (80%), comics (76%) and TV Shows (74%). There are significant differences between groups in terms of some of the other Disney products available. For example,Indian students fmd the educational products,magazines and video games more appealing than any other group. Least popular is the Disney home page, with only 12% of students having visited it (although two-thirds of the visits have been made by male students). In terms of merchandise, Indian students own the most Disney products, with toys (88%), Mickey watches (50%) and other collectibles (63%) being the most popular. African students are the least likely to own such products, no jewellery and only half having owned a Disney toy.A
significant proportion of all groups have owned Disney clothing (all groups above 60%). All Disney merchandise is more popular with women than with men, clothing being the most popular merchandise for both sexes. As one White female student responded when asked about what Disney means: "Cartoon characters,fantasy, fun.Everyone has heard of it.
Everyone has a Disney product!"
Coloured and White students are strongly in agreement with the idea that Disney is uniquely American (78% and 72% respectively), whereas only 35% of Africans and 38% ofIndians agree. There were a large number of non-responses to this question, which is also
significant: 30% of Africans,25% ofIndians, 11% of Coloureds and 8% of Whites left the question unanswered. Interestingly,a significantly higher proportion of women agree that Disney is American (71 %) as opposed to 51% of men. A high number of non-responses were again encountered in this question (22% of women, lO% of men).
Adjectives,which 75% of all race groups believe are promoted by Disney, are: family, fantasy, fun, good over evil,happiness and love/romance.There are no significant
differences in the degree to which these groups subscribe to these adjectives, except in the case of love/romance where African students (78%) are about ten percentage points behind their colleagues in other groups.
In the other adjectival categories where there is no overwhelming unanimity, such as bravery, imagination, magic and optimism, the tendency is for Indian and White students to score Disney high on promoting these attributes,while African students (and to a lesser
extent,Coloured students) are 10-15% more conservative in their willingness to identify Disney as promoting them.
The adjectives (statements) which are most uneven in terms of student's willingness to identify them with Disney are: physical beauty (where all groups were in two thirds agreement,except Coloureds,of whom only half were prepared to acknowledge Disney's role in promoting this attribute); respect for difference (where less than half of African students,nearly 90% of Coloured students, and just over 60% of White and Indian students felt that Disney promoted this value); technological progress (where Whites were equally divided on promoting and discouraging, Coloureds and Indians nearly two thirds in favour of Disney promoting, and African students overwhelmingly in support of Disney promoting this idea); work ethic (where less than half of African and White students,and nearly two thirds ofIndian and Coloured students believed this value was promoted by Disney).
While there were no adjectives that all groups identified as being discouraged by Disney (except for racism, see comment below),there are those that are viewed in markedly different ways. The value of individualism, for example,which Indians (75%),and Coloureds (67%) and Whites (54%) believe is promoted by Disney, is seen as being
discouraged by the majority of Africans who responded to the question. This would seem to resonate with Thomas Oosthuizen's comment,that,"our own research reveals the
importance of society for blacks (sic) as far exceeding that ofthe individual" (1995: 46).5 It
5See the interesting debates around whether or not Africans have a different'world view', encapsulated for example,in the term ubuntu, in Makgoba (1999).
is noteworthy that there were a high number of 'not applicable' responses to this question, but it is not clear why so many people did not answer this question.
Patriarchy,too, is seen as being promoted by just over half of the Indian and White students, whereas over 30% of all students see this as a descriptive which is not applicable to Disney.
Patriotism, too,is not unequivocally a value recognised in Disney products, with nearly 40%
of students feeling that it is a value that is not applicable. Racism is generally seen as being discouraged by Disney, but the scores for this descriptive are almost outweighed by those which see it as not applicable.
Viewing these adjectives through the gender prism reveals that more women students see Disney promoting bravery, family, fantasy, fun, good over evil, happiness, imagination, love/romance and magic than do their male counterparts (although the rates for both sexes are high). More men students feel that Disney promotes optimism, individualism, respect for difference and technological progress, although the scores in all of these except optimism are much lower generally than for the descriptives above. While both sexes agree that Disney promotes physical beauty and discourages racism, the response rates are interesting:
in the former,more women (71%) than men (61%) support this characterisation of Disney, and in the latter, the response rates for discouraging racism and fmding the descriptive not applicable are virtually the same. The adjectives of patriotism and patriarchy are scored more highly by women, although in both cases there is not a clear majority of students who support the idea that Disney promotes them. Finally, while half the women students believe
that the idea of a work ethic is not applicable to Disney,a good majority of men believe the notion to be promoted by Disney.