Why is Disney content so important to you, do you think watching a specific brand of movie/show is _that_ enriching to your child's life?
Disney's attitude to selling to children is toxic IMO. But perhaps if you fully inhale you actually do start to get happier by just buying the latest movie franchise tie-in toy, made of cheap plastic using exploited labour?
You make some good points, but I don't think you have had a 2 year old.
It's not about enriching their lives, or encouraging their development by moving them away from material things...yet. Those goals come a little later.
My kid is actually 1.8, I was rounding up. He likes Moana and watches it every day. He can say ~15 words. The movie's chicken and recognizing songs he has heard before result in pure joy.
He likes to watches the Mickey Mouse club and also likes to point out the characters he recognizes. This is intellectually rewarding to him, because it is at the absolute edge of his abilities.
But I think like you. Disney is evil. When he turns 5, I will throw a brick through the TV and hand him a copy of WALDEN. For now, I'm fucked, at the mercy of a vicious corporate Mouse.
I'll make an argument that has nothing to do with the quality of disney's entertainment or disney's ability to give value to your child in the form of happiness/lessons.
Being a human being is a social experience. If all of a kid's friends watch disney movies and have disney toys, there is an opportunity to connect with his friends. There is also the opportunity to feel excluded, to miss out on experiences and discussions with his friends. I remember quite fondly how excited me and my friends would get talking and arguing about Star Wars and Indiana Jones in the sandbox.
Disney's attitude to selling to children is toxic IMO. But perhaps if you fully inhale you actually do start to get happier by just buying the latest movie franchise tie-in toy, made of cheap plastic using exploited labour?