#DidYouKnow #DisneyFact #DiaDeLosMuertos
TIL that Disney had the audacity to try and trademark the beloved Mexican holiday “Dia de los Muertos” for their own merchandising purposes! 😱 They even had the nerve to request exclusivity on education, entertainment, and *drumroll* “frozen meals consisting primarily of pasta or rice” 🍝🍚 Seriously, Disney? 🤯
For those who may not be familiar, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a centuries-old Mexican tradition that honors and celebrates our departed loved ones. It’s a beautiful and colorful holiday filled with love, remembrance, and joy! 🌺💀💖
Just imagine the scene: families gathering to decorate altars with vibrant marigolds 🌼, offering favorite foods and drinks to their ancestors, and even painting their faces in stunning sugar skull makeup 🌈✨ It’s a magical moment that has been passed down through generations, and Disney thought they could just swoop in and commercialize it! 😡
Can you imagine going to a store and buying a Disney Dia de los Muertos toy or seeing it featured in one of their movies? It just wouldn’t feel right, would it? 🚫❌
Luckily, the people spoke up and fought against this copyright claim. After facing widespread backlash, Disney decided to withdraw their application. Phew! 😅 The power of the people, right? 💪🙌
So let’s remember and honor Dia de los Muertos for what it truly is: a significant cultural celebration that deserves respect, not commercialization. Let’s keep the magic of this cherished holiday alive with love, traditions, and genuine appreciation. 🎉🎶🌺
#RespectCulturalTraditions #NotForSale #DiaDeLosMuertos
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/may/08/disney-trademark-day-dead-festival-pixar
This is gross and colonizing behavior. How weird is it to try to take away something from a culture that wasn’t even yours in the first place?
Death. The happiest place on earth.
God, corpos are the worst. Can you imagine what a dick you have to be to try and trademark a holiday like Dia de Los Muertos or taco Tuesday. But seriously, culture, all cultures, are not up for trademark. They belong to the people.
That phrase has dozens of active trademarks, fwiw.
> Disney has dropped attempts to trademark the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead festival for the purposes of a new Pixar animated film following angry online protests.
>
> Critics took to social media after it emerged that the studio was applying to trademark the term “Dia de los Muertos” for merchandising purposes. Disney-owned Pixar’s film about the famously macabre November celebration was announced in April last year. It does not yet have a title but will be directed by Toy Story 3’s Lee Unkrich.
>
> In its trademark applications, Disney wanted exclusive domain for goods including “fruit-based snack foods”, “Christmas-tree ornaments and decorations”, “decorative magnets”, “non-medicated toiletries” and “frozen meals consisting primarily of pasta or rice”, as well as for education and entertainment purposes. Anger was sparked among the US’s Mexican-American community, for whom the Dia de los Muertos festival is a popular and colourful occasion on which to remember and honour ancestors. A combination of the Roman Catholic All Souls’ Day with indigenous Mexican beliefs and practices, the festival often sees families decorate the graves of relatives or build elaborate shrines at their homes.
>
> Lalo Alcaraz, a Mexican-American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip La Cucaracha, tweeted: “On the offensiveness scale, it seems awful and crass, as the words ‘Dia de Los Muertos’ aren’t just some brand name but a holiday.”
>
> “Has anyone else heard anything about this? It has to be a hoax! How can you trademark a cultural tradition?” tweeted Kathy Cano-Murillo, an Arizona-based artist and author who incorporates Day of the Dead designs into her art.
>
> Disney later issued a statement suggesting it had been decided to change the title of the film, and would therefore no longer be pursuing efforts to trademark the term. “As we have previously announced, Disney-Pixar is developing an animated feature inspired by the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos,” the statement read. “Disney’s trademark filing was intended to protect any potential title for our film and related activities. It has since been determined that the title of the film will change, and therefore we are withdrawing our trademark filing.”
>
> Pixar’s Day of the Dead film is one of a number of new movies with more adventurous themes that the company hopes will turn around its fortunes following the lukewarm response to recent efforts such as Cars 2 and Brave. It is also planning a film based inside a young girl’s mind titled Inside Out. Prior to those films the firm will release sequels to Monsters, Inc (Monsters University, due in June) and Finding Nemo (Finding Dory, due in 2015) as well as a movie set in prehistoric times titled The Good Dinosaur (2014).
Fuck Disney.
Dia de los Mouses
The outrage of this is based mainly on people not understanding how trademarks work. I’m not a lawyer, but from what I understand trademarks are exceedingly narrow. They often require you to go so far as specify the font you’re using in addition to the context.
The sole purpose is to prevent other vendors from trying to capitalize on consumer confusion by selling products that look the same.
if disney had its way, they would own non-expiring copyrights on everything, including character and story arch-types, the greek pantheon, holidays, story twists, etc.
disney fights like hell and over-reaches constantly so that they can still get ridiculous laws passed and extensions on copyrights that dont deserve it.
they would literally not just own specific characters, but TYPES of characters, and storylines.
disney can suck my fuckin balls, people should pirate everything disney just because they are pricks.
I will never forgive Disney for what it’s done to IP laws.
>”frozen meals consisting primarily of pasta or rice”.
They became (or tried to become) literally the very thing mocked in *Ratatouille*
Pasta???
Back in the Day, Walt Disney tried to buy the characters made by Francisco Gabilondo Soler. He refused saying the characters were for the Mexican Children. Walt Disney then made his own characters. Cri-cri was the original character by Soler he wrote a lot of children’smusic too. Walt Disney then made jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. And a lot of other ones he copied from Soler.
Instead, they plan to trademark Christmas™ and copyright Santa®.
Didn’t they also try to trademark “Hakuna Matata” (a common Swahili phrase) after The Lion King came out?
As a result of the backlash, Disney ended up hiring a bunch of their critics, like Lalo Alcaraz who’s mentioned in the article, as consultants to the film. They actually did end up making changes to the film, which you can see on the bluray extras (one example is switching the abuelas kitchen spoon for a chancla).
I mean, shoot your shot I guess. But God damn is that slimy.
It’s like when the fine bros tried to trade mark the word react
That is laughable. Why not trademark “Christmas”?
Wow. Disney’s greed has no bounds and I’m certain they’d be proud of that.
Ahh yes pasta
Disney sucks plain and simple. They are a cancer in the entertainment world. They ruined pixar, star wars, marvel, old Grimms fairy tales. Dont think they’ve ever had an original idea just retold old German horror stories tamed down for children. Then make 10 copies of the same story till they just started buying up entire franchises from people who can actually write.
Fucking GROSS.
In college, almost 20 years ago, I briefly convinced a friend Disney had bought the rights to Christmas. I say briefly because I said what I thought was an obvious joke but he believed it so I expanded on the premise for a few minutes until I burst out laughing.
This. THIS is cultural appropriation.
Oh Disney, you won’t be happy until *everyone* hates you.
If you make a product with the text “Loki” on it and upload it for sale online, it can and will get taken down.
Yes, the 1000+ year old Norse God is trademarked by Disney….
Don’t give this company money if you can help it.
How the most beloved brand managed to put itself in a position that people’s main reaction is F Disney.
They have burned their audiences, the nostalgia, their employees, and the goodwill built up over decades.
Corporations (mostly thanks to Republicans) are getting out of control. Pretty soon there will be only a handful of private companies who own everything and act as pseudo-feudal lords, destroying the planet we all depend on to enrich the few. It’s like Republicans took a look at the Russian oligarchy and became inspired by it.
This article is almost 10 years old but still, fuck Disney.
I don’t even understand what the full scope of such a plan is. It’s as if they view it as just some con they can buy out but then do what with exactly? Truly evil movie character levels of thought.
I can show you the world!
For a price.
There are a of people that don’t understand the difference between a trademark and a copyright in these comments.
For those who missed the context, this lead to Pixar’s movie “Coco” which is potentially one of their best of all time. Here’s a more recent article though about the linked article, a few years later, of course:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/did-disney-pixar-get-day-dead-celebrations-right-its-film-coco-180967286/
Christ, this vile, putrid company can’t collapse fast enough and take their contagion upon entertainment and the surrounding laws with them.
Fuck Disney and all of their old ass IP keeping them alive and relevant. Can’t think of a better reason why we shouldn’t protect IP for decades and that it should eventually be open source for all.
To be fair Mexico stole the idea for a Dia de los Muertos parade from Hollywood (Spectre, 2015)
Disney: “let’s sell a foreign culture that we don’t respect and then sue anyone who tries to do the same”
What a truly American company
Seriously Disney? Have you no shame? Fuck you disney
“You know what, while I’m here… why don’t you give me zapados, Frida Kahlo, just ‘Frida’ by itself, De La Cruz, the general shapes of guitars, oooo Alebrije that’s a good one aaaaand… xoloizt…xolo… Nevermind just give me ‘all Mexican dogs.’”
Disney Exec ordering at the US PTO.
To be fair, coco was a really good movie.