Disney's cultural controversy: petition to trademark Día de los Muertos

 

Can you imagine if Disney had trademarked the word "Christmas?"  Or "Easter?"  Or "Halloween?"  This seems like a silly and completely unrealistic question to even consider, but in May of this year Disney filed a petition to trademark "Día de los Muertos," a hispanic holiday celebrated on the first and second days of November which honors the lives of family members and friends who have passed away (Rodriguez).  Disney's petition was inspired by a film they're making about Día de los Muertos (Rodriguez).  This hispanic community, understandably, was in an uproar about Disney's petition, and one hispanic cartoonish drew the rather terrifying image of Mickey Mouse above (Alcaraz).  The second week after filing the petition, Disney withdrew its application, but claimed that it was due to a title change in the film, not the backlash of the latino community (Rodriguez).

While the people of the hispanic community think that Disney is trying to trademark a part of their culture, I have a hard time believing that Disney would be so silly as to try and do that.  I think Disney's action was likely an effort to protect themselves from being sued after the release of their new movie.  Every company has to file to trademark the name of a product before releasing it so that they don't get in trouble later for using something that they didn't have the rights too.  This is probably what Disney was doing here, but, unfortunately, due to the nature of the petition, it did not reflect well on the company.  Luckily for Disney, I think they did a pretty good job of keeping the publicity of the petition scaled down, as I found it in the news by chance when I was searching for Día de los Muertos.  Hopefully this event will not damage the success of the movie, which should be interesting, as they are trying to make a children's movie about the "Day of the Dead," two things that don't usually mix well.

Works Cited

Alcaraz, Lalo. "Walt Disney, Inc. wants to trademark ‘Dia de los Muertos’ (toon)." Pocho. Pochismo, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://pocho.com/walt-disney-inc-wants-to-trademark-dia-de-los-muertos-toon/>.

Rodriguez, Cindy Y. "Day of the Dead trademark request draws backlash for Disney." CNN. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/us/disney-trademark-day-dead/index.html>.