A review by jason_pym
Disneywar by James B. Stewart

2.0

A tale of the obnoxious dregs of upper management at Disney from the 1980s on, their annual bonuses and spats. This is before the Harvey Weinstein scandal, but he makes an appearance as a respected peer which tells you a lot about the kind of people they are. They are also given surprising creative credit, Jeffrey Katzenberg is said to have come up with the idea for Lion King for example, which does not gel with other accounts, to put it politely. Though it does have an account of him butchering The Black Cauldron, which matches what the creative side have described. It does seem amazing that in such an atmosphere anything creative can be produced at all, though this is an era that saw a series of great films.

In the end the endless politicking, backbiting, deals on golf courses and private jets, ridiculous salaries and bickering over money, and the fact that anything Disney - the cartoons, the theme park rides - are mentioned only in passing as an afterthought, left me increasingly nauseous. Although we're led to believe Walt himself was no prize of a human being, it does make me curious to go back and see how he started it all.