A few months into quarantine, I decided to
finally reach one of my life-long goals: to watch every single Disney Channel Original
Movie. As someone who literally wrote her college undergraduate thesis about the cultural
significance of the Disney Channel Original Musical I’ve been on the pursuit for a higher
purpose for my Disney Channel scholarly knowledge. So I thought that it was time to put my degree to
work and answer the question on everyone’s minds… ARE OLD DCOMs ACTUALLY BETTER THAN NEW DCOMs? In 2015, James Corden took over as the host of
the CBS late night show, The Late Late Show. This marked a significant shift in the framework
of late night television—not because they hired a woman or a non-white man, or anything (I mean,
let’s not get crazy, here) believe me however shocked you are that I am doing this job you will
never be as shocked as I am but because late night shows were pivoting from being about deep dive
interviews with celebrities, to viral moments, games, and digestible clips that could stand
alone on the internet apart from the hour-long midnight TV block. "Can I put the radio on? Yeah?
Please. Yeah, see now that's not an accident. Buddy I know you're right." Carpool Karaoke, for
better or worse, revolutionized the concept of the talk show interview. The stringent question and
answer format became more accessible for viewers by taking A-List celebrities and putting them not
in the hot seat, but in a seat we’ve all been in before—the passenger seat surrounded by blasting
music and challenged to sing for their lives. This matched the newfound accessibility
of celebrities through social media. Mystery and allure were no longer
what audiences wanted—people wanted relatable and real stars who are
“just like us,” ones who can make fools of themselves and rap Nicki Minaj’s “Monster”
verse (which is actually not that special, because any self-respecting Barb can do that with
their eyes closed, I mean, just try me Adele. Also in 2015, came the first film
in a trilogy that would revitalize Disney Channel’s “Original Movie” property
with a wicked vengeance (Descendants) The Disney Channel Movie event of the year Following the release of Lemonade Mouth in 2011, Disney Channel Original Movies had exited
their golden age and been on a rapid decline, not only in quality, but in actual production
output. From 1999 to 2012, an average of 4-6 DCOMs were released per year. But in 2013,
only ONE DCOM was released (Teen Beach Movie) The last time that happened was 1997 with
Under Wraps which is literally (but also debatably) the first DCOM, depending on where
you stand in the great Northern Lights debate. Disney Channel was slowly losing relevance as
influencers—like YouTubers and Viners—occupied the teen idol space that Disney once dominated. You
couldn’t manufacture a social media star the same way Disney manufactured a teen idol… I mean, at
least in 2012. Things are a bit different in 2020… Welcome to the hype house I'm Thomas let's
get a tour. So how much are these cats? One phone call and I can have a 15-foot snake
here. Call the snake guy. We're not doing it. It took a few years for Disney to catch on,
but once they did, they shamelessly milked the social media cow for all that it was worth.
And we ended up with s*** like the Carscendants. "Okay, you guys let's do this. What's
my name? What's my name Say it louder." When I found out about these videos, I thought
they were just some stupid promotional tactic. But the most popular of the Carscendants karaoke
videos has literally 94 MILLION VIEWS. And the least viewed one has an impressive 5 MILLION.
And so, something about this tactic was working. And it certainly worked for me, because now I’m
about to go on a rant about it for 30 minutes. But in the wise words of Hilary Duff:
let’s go back… back to the beginning So we’re here to answer the simple question:
ARE OLD DCOMs ACTUALLY BETTER THAN NEW DCOMs? Is it just nostalgia at work, or did the
quality of the films shift over time? And if so, what caused this shift? This is not
a simple yes or no question. As with almost anything in life—context matters. And
so let’s get a little bit of context on why these movies we all know and love (and
sometimes hate) exist in the first place. I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF DISNEY CHANNEL "l and by all cameras ready
with slow motion standby video" The 1970s were a huge time for television. Monday
Night Football and many popular daytime game shows like The Price is Right premiered for the first
time in the 70s. Soap operas were booming, as well as medical shows. But the biggest
shift in major popularity was of sitcoms. The Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched,
and All in the Family all became mainstays, setting the framework for the
sitcom format we all know today. The 70s also saw the growing popularity
of the telefilm—or the TV movie, as it’s better known—as well
as the miniseries. This showed that TV had potential to capture audiences’
attention for more than 30 mins at a time, and that viewers actually wanted longform
and engaging media to watch at home. So… enter Disney. Previously the company had been focused
mostly on the film market but they could no longer ignore the TV takeover. I
imagine it went something like this:
Some dude at Disney pitches the idea for a channel
around this time and basically gets shut down. Disney is like, “Noooooo, don’t make a channel,
you’re too sexy!” as they’re building Spaceship Earth (aka the Epcot ball) and making plans to
bring Walt Disney’s creepy utopian theme park vision to life. Basically they insisted they were
working too hard on the “Florida Project” (Disney World) to allocate time and money to TV—but sure,
put it on the docket and maybe they’d revisit it. "I didn't ask you! I'm talking to you! You want
to come in here and charge me a billion dollars? That's nothing to me."
"The Disney Channel. Everything you've ever imagined and more. So when they finally launched Disney Channel
in 1983 (a year after the opening of Epcot), it opened as a premium channel on top of basic
cable. They mostly showed Mickey Mouse shorts and premiered this movie called Tiger Town, which
was about an aging baseball player on the Detroit Tigers. They also broadcast classic Disney movies,
the first one being Alice in Wonderland, because we all know big Alice in Wonderland remakes were
in the 70s… and I wonder why… *cough* drugs. The audience for The Disney Channel
at the time was the family unit. Most Americans only had one TV in their house, so
shows had to cater to every family member at once. Nickelodeon, the first kids’ specific
TV channel, didn’t launch until 1979, so having shows just for children was
far from the norm in the early 80s. In the 1990s, Disney Channel became part of the
expanded basic cable package, which meant if you paid a little more on your cable bill, you
could get a few additional channels. In 1996, the Disney Channel premiered a
documentary called Anne Frank Remembered, which won the Academy
Award for Best Documentary that year. I’m pretty sure that’s the only
Disney Channel Premiere Film or DCOM to even be considered for an Oscar,
let alone win one.But just a year later, Disney decides to make a huge pivot and completely
rebrand. They had 3 programming blocks: Playhouse Disney, which is now Disney
Junior, for lil kiddos and babies to enjoy Vault Disney (which no longer exists), the
Sunday night block of “vintage” programming And Zoog Disney, which was for hip tweens
and trendy teens who liked surfing the net and chatting on IM with their
totally tight homies on school nights I mean, this was part of that whole trend
in the late 90s/early 2000s were the letter “Z” made things seem modern and edgy, and
because of Y2K, everyone was super into technology and hacker aesthetics,
which has kind of come back around style-wise if you just scroll on Tik Tok for like
5 minutes and come across literally any e-girl. Do you know nothing's wrong with me? But anyway, Zoog Disney was the blueprint
for the Disney Channel we think of now: star-making sitcoms and movies that teach
you life lessons, have banger soundtracks, questionable outfits, and endless reasons
to rewatch them over and over again. II. THE NOSTALGIA YEARS (1997-2002) As a disclaimer, this timeline only
applies to Disney Channel Original Movies, because if I were to also talk about
the evolution of Disney Channel shows, I would have to make an entirely separate
video just to tackle a fraction of that. So… let’s talk about nostalgia. Media has been in a cycle of nostalgia for as
long as there've been… well, media. People tend to be biased towards things they watched, read,
or listened to as teens because life, as a whole, seemed simpler back then. That’s why 50s
aesthetics were so popular in the 70s, 90s aesthetics in the 2000s, and
2000s aesthetics are back now. So when you mention the phrase “Disney Channel
Original Movie” to people of a certain generation, they immediately start listing off
what that they consider “the classics”: From 1997 to 2002, Disney Channel
made over 40 original movies, which is kind of an impressive run for a
project that’s just starting out, right? Except it wasn’t just starting out. Before
the 1997 rebrand, Disney Channel was releasing movies under the label, “Disney Channel
Premiere Films.” These were movies like Wish Upon a Star starring Kathryn Heigl, and
like, 3 Parent Trap sequels for some reason. So, this early run of DCOMs was
kind of an experimental period to figure out what kinds of movies would
do well for an audience of just kids. Their ideas must have been really well researched,
because a lot of the concepts hit super well: Science gone wrong, which
was a hold-over from the 80s Sports movies,
Futuristic space-agey stuff, which was, again, the entire vibe of Y2K,
And the only slightly out-of-place genre—and by out-of-place, I mean it pretty much vanishes
entirely after the Nostalgia Years—is the dramatic “real life life lesson” movie, and we’ll
talk about why this goes away later But one specific property from this time
that fascinates me is Halloweentown. Like any self-respecting Disney Channel stan, I,
of course, love Halloweentown with every fiber of my being. But upon rewatching it recently (in
the midst of watching more than a dozen literally bad DCOMs), I was struck by two things:
1. How good of a movie it actually was 2. How early in the DCOM run
a movie this great was made Halloweentown came out in 1998, just a
year after the launch of Disney Channel. Its success was kind of a “lightning
striking at the right time,” kind of thing. TV movies were big at the time, and
having a name like Debbie Reynolds attached was a huge draw. Plus,
witches and fantasy will always slap. Director DuWayne Dunham said: "The Disney Channel was just starting
to make these kinds of family movies… It was very well-written, it just was big, because
it was written as a feature. We spent some time trying to keep the integrity of the story but get
it down, where we could afford to make the movie." So perhaps the movie’s quality
can be attributed to the fact that it was written as a full-length feature
to watch in theaters, not a TV movie. Because Disney Channel wasn’t as established as it is now,
scripts weren’t being written specifically for TV; like Halloweentown, they were often being
adapted from scripts meant for the big screen. As DCOMs become more established — with their
own tropes and trappings — the writing begins to follow a similar pattern. Just think about
Hallmark Movies. Someone had to make the first “white couple wears green and red and finds the
meaning of Christmas in a small town” movie, but now that’s, like, every single
movie on the Hallmark Channel. "Rudolph? You bring my sleigh around?" Additionally, and more importantly, DuWayne Dunham
said this about Halloweentown’s intended audience: "When you’re making these kinds of movies, it’s
important to never talk down to your audience. Just because a person, a viewer,
might be considered a child, or you know, young, it doesn't mean
that they're not sophisticated. That was Walt Disney's big thing: never
talk down to the kids. They'll get it." III. A STAR IS (ALMOST) BORN (2003-2005) "Don't worry about all the intricacies of this.
Just worry more about and then the middle line and let's worry more about the ears..Okay? Okay.
And uh.. Oh it's mouse ears. Oh *laughter*" When Lizzie McGuire premiered on Disney Channel
in 2001, it was like they had finally struck gold. Hilary Duff was the perfect girl-next-door
that everyone wanted to be or be friends with. Yhara Zayd has an incredibly detailed video
about Hilary Duff’s rise to squeaky-clean stardom, so I recommend you go watch that
after, since I won’t go into detail here. But here’s what you need to
know: Hilary Duff was the first, true Disney Channel star, and is the
reason Disney Channel became aware of their incredible star-making ability. And they
harnessed that power. Really, really hard. "I'm Hillary Duff from Lizzie McGuire and
Cadet Kelly and you're watching Disney Channel. Okay. Hey I'm Hillary Duff from Lizzie McGuire and
Cadet Kelly and you're watching Disney Channel" The 2002 film, Cadet Kelly, was Disney’s
test-run for a star-driven vehicle. Up to this point, DCOMs were
being promoted by concept: A town where Halloween
creatures live all year round! A true story about twins whose
dream is to play in the WNBA! Quints! The DCOMs of the Nostalgia Years had a few
repeat stars, like Ryan “Marry Me” Merriman or Kimberly “Just don’t understand why they didn’t
cast her in Return to Halloweentown” J Brown, but their level of celebrity was nothing compared
to what’s to come in this era. Unlike DCOMs of the past, promotions for Cadet Kelly weren’t so much
about the movie’s plot, but more about the movie’s stars: Christy Carlson Romano, better known as
Ren Stevens from Even Stevens, and Hilary Duff. In the film, Christy and Hilary play students at
a military school. Christy is a stuck-up stickler and Hilary is a tough-to-tame free spirit.
They were marketing it like some Ryan Murphy Feud-type saga, while also promoting
some sort of unbreakable girl power bond. In retrospect, it was… pretty forced. Much
like all the content on CCR’s YouTube channel. Today what we're gonna watch is Cadet
Kelly. Here we are.. Oh goodness me. I'm so serious in this picture. But if you rewatch the movie,
you’ll notice two things: 1. The beginning of this movie is… kind of boring? "Stock footage. It's not a DCOM unless it
has stock footage in front of it, people. Come on, now." The iconic drill team/ribbon dance
plot doesn’t even come into effect until 45 minutes into a movie where Hilary Duff
just does obstacle courses and sighs a lot. 2. Christy Carlson Romano isn’t even in
the movie that much. The film wasn’t so much of a two-hander as it was a movie
starring Hilary Duff featuring CCR as the antagonist who is kind of in
the right? "I'm totally for Stone. Stone kind of.. gets it." Which establishes
a long pattern of “mean girls” in teen media being portrayed as the villain when they actually
were just advocating for what they deserv— "NO!"
BUT ANYWAY… the point? Cadet Kelly was successful enough for Disney Channel to turn the star-driven
DCOM concept into… most of their business plan. You Wish! starred AJ Trauth and Lalaine
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off had Orlando Brown Pixel Perfect starred Ricky
Ullman (JUSTICE FOR ZETTA BYTES) Now You See It had Aly Michalka
Life is Ruff had Kyle Massey If a Disney star wasn’t the center
of the film, they added a Disney star as a best friend or side character
to capture the viewer's attention. However, during this time, Disney
exercising its star-making power went far beyond just casting Disney Channel
stars in its original movies. Disney Channel began vertically integrating its stars into other
facets of the business, literally creating a “We are the World”-esque supergroup called “The Disney
Channel Circle of Stars” to sing classic Disney songs and make music videos just to sell DVDs of
movies that had been out for many, many years. The biggest example of this was The Cheetah Girls. So, here’s some things you need to know. During this era of the Disney Channel, the CEO
and President was a man named Michael Eisner. Michael Eisner, better known as DisTwitter’s
favorite corporate punching bag, has kind of a tumultuous history with the company.
Let’s just say he had… some imagination, huh? "Hello, I'm Michael Esiner. I'm here in the
virtual reality studio where Disney imagineers are creating a whole new world of storytelling."
He kind of dreamt big—maybe even too big for Disney’s standards—which lead to a lot of projects
with potential, that also wasted a lot of money. "Oh, well. Welcome to the
wonderful world of Disney." Anyway, Michael Eisner did a couple of good
things during his heyday, one of them being the founding of Hollywood Records. They struggled at
first—like they literally failed to sign Nirvana in the 90s—but they eventually acquired the
publishing rights to Queen’s entire discography. So we're thrilled to be with you and look forward to a great and sparkling future under the
Disneyland or should I say Hollywood sign oh crap again For a while, the label had trouble
getting off the ground with new artists until a certain Disney starlet
released her debut album in 2003. Metamorphosis gave Hollywood Records
purpose, direction, and meaning, the same way it gave me purpose, direction,
and meaning when I was in the 2nd grade. Metamorphosis was so successful that Disney
realized they could focus their label on the stars they already had invested their time and
money in through the channel. And so they did. The Cheetah Girls is based on a series of
YA novels by Deborah Gregory. The movie was set to star Raven-Symoné, a child star who was
shaping up to be Disney Channel’s next big icon via That’s So Raven. They tapped Adrienne Bailon
and Kiely Williams from 3LW and Sabrina Bryan to round out the group, and made a movie that
seamlessly featured a soundtrack of songs to be released on Walt Disney Records (which was their
family-friendly, film soundtrack focused label). And as we know, The Cheetah Girls became so
successful that they made 2 more movies—one without Raven—and spun-off into a standalone
girl group—with an album released ON HOLLYWOOD RECORDS!! Raven-Symoné also went on to
release two solo albums under Hollywood, establishing their focus on the offshoot
careers of Disney Channel stars. Disney would then make even more
money off of merchandise and TCG going on tour, as well as random properties
like video games and musical toothbrushes. AND, just to further emphasize the power of
vertical integration, the original Cheetah Girls books were published by an imprint of Hyperion
Books—a publishing company OWNED BY DISNEY! So Disney absolutely knew what they
were doing when it came to marketing their stars on all fronts. I mean, these
teens became a one-stop shop for them: singing, dancing, and acting, all while cementing
Disney Channel’s reputation for churning out stars like it’s some kind of automated machine.
Which it is. Like, that’s capitalism for ya! Number on: record a bumpin' demo. Number two: have the record people fall
in love with it. and three: make millions! With the success of The Cheetah Girls,
Disney Channel realized how important it was to have one foot in the music industry at all
times. That first Cheetah Girls soundtrack went double platinum, and the second went
platinum. Quite simply, The Cheetah Girls was the blueprint. Musical movies were an easy
way to promote new stars, gain viewers through eventized television, and earn revenue and
radio play from charts and album sales. Are you even listening I am listening very
carefully and do you know what I'm hearing i'm hearing someone glomming on to my talent and my
credit our music mel i basically write all of it i always wish that life could be a
musical one person just says 5 6 7 8. MENTALLY, I AM HERE. IV. THE GOLDEN AGE (2006-2011) During this time, Disney
Channel released 29 movies; 11 of which were either musicals or had music
attached to them. So Disney was fully taking advantage of their dominance of
tweens’ CD players, iPods, and Zunes, while trying to capitalize on the massive success
of what many consider their flagship property. Before I start professing my
undying love for this franchise and everything it has given us,
let’s just look at the facts: HSM premiered on Disney
Channel on January 20, 2006 7.7 million people watched the premiere broadcast The soundtrack reached #1 on the Billboard 200
chart and is now certified quadruple platinum my goal is to have everyone singing
these songs in their head because they're already stuck in my head and
i haven't been able to get them out And the movie was so successful that it spawned
two sequels, a spinoff movie, a super-meta television show, adaptations in Argentina,
Brazil, and China, a concert tour, a stage show, an ice-skating spectacular, a book series,
video games, and a reality show where the winner got to be, like, deep in the credits of
HSM 3, which is the weirdest flex of all time. This is when Disney Channel was honestly at its
peak. And I don’t mean that in a nostalgic fan way. But I mean that from a business perspective.
They were putting out an average of four movies a year, all of which were relative successes, with
many of them creating long-standing franchises. oh this one was good how long did you guys
date are you here to help like a month Both their television and movie stars were
the talk of the town in the tween world, with Miley Cyrus, Zac Efron, and the like
regularly gracing the covers of magazines, garnering paparazzi attention, and getting
cast in bigger and better projects. Stories from this era are eerily similar to that
of the Golden Age of Hollywood: young people at the peak of stardom, their freedoms aggressively
stifled by the company that created them. well i'd give anything to
get out of ours all together Disney had successfully created a rotation
of stars and productions to sustain them through this Golden Age. An era that was
defined by unmatched celebrity status, chart dominance, sold-out concert tours, and a model that virtually every youth-focused
media company tried to emulate or mock. a nickelodeon original movie spectacular The HSM franchise became so big
that they released the third movie in theaters. It grossed over $90
million in its opening weekend, setting a record for the largest opening weekend
for a musical film. The Jonas Brothers got scooped up by Disney and were first introduced as a
musical act only, then got tricked into acting through a record-breaking guest spot on Hannah
Montana. This episode aired the night of the HSM 2 premiere and eventually landed the Jonas
Brothers their own—noticeably less-good—show. season two of jonas is a big
regret we shouldn't have done that They were reverse-engineered as
Disney stars through Camp Rock, which helped launch the career of Demi Lovato,
who would later star in Sonny with a Chance, which also starred Sterling Knight, who ended
up starring in Starstruck, which is a movie so bad that it basically broke the
DCOM-to-soundtrack pipeline, because at this point the “popstar meets fan” musical movie
trope had become such a Disney Channel cliche. all of those like disney channel original
movies like brink and motocross like that was the jam back in the day like that was
the coolest thing in the world we don't get to do that anymore which i think these kids
nowadays are missing out you're doing it again doing what that thing with
your eyes oh you mean this okay so comedy not your next big career
move what no i'm funny funny looking You see, while this was the Golden Age, that
also meant Disney was getting into a groove… a groove of greed. They were producing
these movies with such vigor that they started to follow a similar pattern:
a kid with a problem doesn’t fit in, so they need to do something to fit in… like
singing, or dancing, or acting, or whatever! But, they found out the strength was in them
all along, and so… that is a movie! Almost every DCOM during this time follows that
similar “find yourself, be yourself” pattern which is… kind of an easy sell. Because kids will always
feel a little out of place during their tween years, no matter the generation. But because of
this cut-and-paste morality, the deeper messages found in earlier DCOMs—which dive into topics
like race, gender, and disability—were basically wiped clean. Disney no longer wanted to rock the
boat out of fear of offending their audiences or losing profit. They saw that being safe raked in
the big bucks and for that, they were never sorry. i would rather have friends
than fans any day yeah right But if we’re getting technical though, the
DCOM Golden Age ended on April 15, 2011, with the premiere of Lemonade Mouth. Lemonade
Mouth seemed like it was going to be a positive shift for the DCOM format. It had a musical
built into the story, it starred Bridgit Mendler, who was slowly becoming Disney’s main pop
girl after the departure of Miley Cyrus, and, in retrospect, this movie
kind of got a lot of things right. it It gave us Hayley Kiyoko and Naomi Scott, and
we uh, don’t talk about what happened to Wen and the drummer who just makes really cringe Tik Toks
about his career now. It was a movie about fitting in and finding your crew, but without compromising
your real self to fit in. Yes, this was the message of most DCOMs by then, but they did this
without watering down the characters’ struggles. Mo is the daughter of Indian immigrants and
gave us the “eldest daughter of immigrants” anthem we all deserve. Wen was working through
his father’s remarriage to a much younger woman, Charlie struggled to get out of his
Stanford-bound brother’s shadow, Olivia’s father, spoiler alert, was incarcerated.
And Stella? Well, we all know how that ends. When I first watched this movie in 2011, I
was surprised by how real it was. None of the songs were random; they were always singing in
a performance or music video, which made it feel more realistic. And the things these kids were
struggling with were more real than… should I go to Juilliard for free, even though I’ve
only ever been in one-and-a-half musicals and never had formal vocal or acting training,
or go to a D1 basketball school, which is inexplicably my backup, which is also ranked
as the #1 public university in the world, I mean I DON’T KNOW TROY, MAYBE YOU
SHOULD CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE… anyway… university california berkeley offers
me both that's where I'll be attending I hoped Lemonade Mouth marked a trend of
DCOMs embracing their sentimental roots, digging their heels a little more into the after
school special of it all, now that Lemonade Mouth was a musical with Disney stars that opened
the door for mature and honest discourse. But instead… we got this. (rap battle
from Adventures in Babysitting) This this girl is ruining my life.. My job, my reputation. and if we ever
get home I'm gonna need a vacation but no matter what I won't be a quitter. I'm gonna
care for these kids because I'm the babysitter! V. DISNEY’S IDENTITY CRISIS (2012-2016) Okay, here’s the thing. There are genuinely a
handful of great movies that were made during this era. Radio Rebel is good and y’all are
just mean to Debby Ryan because she can be a little cringe sometimes. But I’m all about
this Sleepless in Seattle meets Lemonade Mouth underground rebellion vibe that they have going. HOT TAKE, but Invisible Sister should be
considered a new age DCOM Halloween classic. Rowan’s dramatic acting is actually a perfect
foil for the comedic acting here. The New Orleans setting is really fun and fitting, the ending
haunted house sequence is perfectly set-dressed, and the heart of this movie
is totally in the right place. And Teen Beach Movie is just
a film ahead of its time, making very important commentary about how we
consume media and identify with it. A crash course on gender roles in different time periods, an
experiment in post-modern musical filmmaking, and a poignant satire on the teen surf movies of the
1960s. And also, Mack and Lela are girlfriends. But that being said, a majority of these
movies made during the time were… a mess. From a business standpoint, Disney had
stopped making as many DCOMs as they used to, cutting their yearly average in half, and in
2013, only releasing one movie (Teen Beach Movie). They did a lot more one-off movies because
their flagship franchises had come to an end. Teen Beach Movie tried to be the
next HSM but the ending of Teen Beach 2 is actually a crime against humanity and I will
not be taking any questions at this time, unless you want to listen to my podcast, where I actually
get into this discussion for over an hour. they were smart to make this i
thought it made a lot of sense well and we ended up like we far exceeded
their expectations for even our views It was obvious that Disney was trying to
reboot itself as a star-making machine, after losing so many of their key players to…
well, growing up. They pushed the stars of their current shows to star in DCOMs: Debby Ryan,
Ross Lynch, Laura Marano, China Anne McClain, and even Zendaya. But nothing seemed to hit
the same way HSM or its counterparts did. By 2014, Disney Channel’s viewership was on
a rapid decline. They lost about 60 million average viewers in two years. Additionally, in
2011, Nielsen reported that American TV watching was on the decline for the first time in twenty
years… and that downturn has not stopped. Disney had a new competitor that they didn’t
see coming. Invading the online space, a place that Disney was afraid to truly dive into
at this point, came the era of social media stars. As an artist and as a content creator just having
the ability and the freedom to create whatever you want. You have a vision, you have a message, you
have a song, or you have something you want to share to the world you have the capabilities
right there and the tools to upload it..and the best part is that you have the
direct communication with your audience In 2012, Instagram went from being an iOS-only
app to being available on Android phones. This was also the year that Instagram was acquired
by Facebook, which helped their user number grow from 30 million to 80 million in just four months. What if you had the power to control
things right in the palm of your hand? A 2013 survey shows that 55% of teens had
an iPhone and 65% planned to make the iPhone their next phone purchase. 2013 also saw the
release of Vine and all that followed. With things like VidCon and Internet influencer
culture taking off, young people no longer looked to a company like Disney to manufacture
stars and content for them. With that first wave of big Disney stars growing up, going wild,
and exposing Disney for its overprotective and sanitizing nature, young people wanted
stars who they felt a real connection with. Holding a phone in your hand and watching
a video that someone took in their house, just like, showing you their morning routine or
doing a haul of what they got at the grocery store connects with you on a different psychological
level than like, a highly-produced movie about some girl’s prom getting sabotaged because an
ex-cop asks her to help hunt down a jewel thief, which is the actual plot of Bad Hair Day. but i don't have anything to wear welcome
to the coolest department store in the city central police station evidence room lucky for you
some criminals have great taste oh yeah they do By 2016, most teens were spending their
leisure time on YouTube instead of TV. Instagram stored up to 60 million users and
Disney’s viewership continued to rapidly decline. They weren’t making shows and movies that
mirrored what the youth wanted to see; they were desperately trying to hold on to
the formula that made them big at a time when self-made influencers did not
exist the way that they do today. In order to step up the game, Disney channel
shifted their business model to be more in line with the Disney Corporation at large. Say hello to existing intellectual
property and fake authenticity. The time has come to talk about the Descendants. VI. RETURN & REBUILD (2017-PRESENT) One of the fundamental problems Disney Channel
had post HSM was that they no longer had a flagship property. The success of HSM is a big
reason why their business model was what it was: musicals that make stars that make soundtracks
that sell, and so on. They tried to replicate it again with Teen Beach Movie, but frankly the
concept was just not something that followed any sort of market trend at the time. It also wasn’t
directed by our Lord and Savior, Kenny Ortega, who directed not only the High School Musical
trilogy but also the best Cheetah Girls movie. Disney as a whole was moving into this uninspiring
trend of just recreating their own movies again but like… worse? But Disney’s long-standing
brand has always been its strongest suit, which is why the Descendants movies were the
perfect way to realign the Disney Channel. For those not in the know, Descendants is a
trilogy of movies directed by Kenny Ortega and released on the Disney Channel between
2015 and 2019. It’s about the kids of iconic Disney villains, who call themselves VKs,
getting off their little prison island and getting the chance to go to the same school
as the children of princes and princesses. It pretty much followed the
original DCOM musical formula. It starred Dove Cameron and Cameron Boyce,
who were already known for their roles on Disney Channel shows. It was directed by
the God, Kenny Ortega, and it was a musical. Except… it totally did not need to be a musical. There is no point in the narrative
of the Descendants trilogy where the characters express the need to
sing and dance. It just kind of… happens? The songs don’t move the plot forward so much
as they sound like, really similar to songs you’d hear on the radio. The first Descendants
soundtrack is full of these, like, horrible dubstep-adjacent songs, while the Descendants 2
soundtrack was like, robbed of a Grammy basically. like uma's song song is so good
yes it's definitely my favorite Unlike High School MUSICAL, Lemonade
Mouth, Cheetah Girls, Let it Shine, and Teen Beach Movie, where music is an integral
part of the plot, the Descendants trilogy is a musical just because you can make it a
musical… and like, make a lot of money off of it. YouTube clips of the songs from Descendants
have upwards of like 100 million views. Like late night shows before them, Disney figured
out that making a movie that can be repurposed into bite-sized viral clips was the best way
to advertise their own movies. The songs don’t need to make sense in the plot, as long as they
go viral on YouTube. And kids will watch them over and over again… which means they all
have a favorite Descendant and they all want to be Mal for Halloween and they all need the
lunchbox and the backpack and… you get the idea. Disney’s distribution habits began
to match that of viral trends. Why don't you join me as I unbox this mystery
box of goodies right now so we're here in the hair trailer you're a fire camera we've been best
friends ever since this number 10. here's my girl looks a lot like me there are a lot of
similarities between us my evil laugh did you see that sweeping them off their feet car Carscendants is a literal ripoff
of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke, where the Descendants cast just lip-syncs
their own songs in a fake car. And yeah, the Carscendants car is fake—the
background is a green screen! Like, there’s absolutely no reason they need to be in a car or have their hands on the
wheel or even be wearing seatbelts. It’s just a way to attach the Descendants to a
property that people are already familiar with. They do this with a lot of things—like,
they did a Zombies prank video or like, Joshua Bassett’s entire Instagram aesthetic just
being like nine videos of him playing the guitar. Disney stars nowadays need to toe the line
between relatable and celebrity, equal parts Emma Chamberlain and Ariana Grande. But
Descendants was like, a smash. Even critics were happy to see Disney Channel back in their bag. Amy
Amatangelo of the Hollywood Reporter called it, “High School Musical meets Once Upon a Time.
It smartly ushers in little girls who have grown up watching Disney movies into the tween
audience and is an idea so ripe for merchandising that the Disney Store is already chock-full
of Descendants costumes, dolls, and T-shirts.” so this is my entire collection of descendants
stuff. I am getting more customs but descendants is over, so I'm not sure how much more
descendant stuff I will be adding to my collection..but hopefully they make a lot
more stuff so I can add it to my collection Disney continues to milk this
franchise for every last drop, making countless cartoon spin-offs,
and music for those cartoon spin-offs, and even releasing a music video where the villain
of the third movie tries to retcon her entire plotline. But it’s also a Christmas song, because
apparently they celebrate Christmas in Auradon. I honestly think Disney Channel is getting back
into a good place with its movies after the boost that was Descendants. They’re trying this
“colored hair trilogy” thing again with Zombies, which is also a musical for no reason,
except they can make music that sounds like Aaron Carter meets “Party
in the USA”-era Miley Cyrus. It’s like painfully obvious that “Someday” carries the entire franchise, since they use
it three different times across two movies. But I also think Disney Channel is taking some big
swings on things that don’t quite fit into their old formula. The Freaky Friday movie got a lot of
backlash online, because how could you possibly recreate the success of the Lindsay Lohan movie?
But the DCOM was actually based more broadly on the 1972 novel of the same name that Disney keeps
making movie versions of, dating back to 1976. The Freaky Friday DCOM is based on
the stage musical of the same name that Disney produced to be licensed
by professional, regional, and amateur productions all over the country. And I think
that’s… kinda cool? I mean, it’s no Hamilton but it’s cool they created a musical that can be
licensed by smaller and non-Broadway productions, and then made a movie featuring some of the
show’s original cast, to help get people excited about wanting to do a stage production. I mean,
obviously the long term goal of this whole thing is a capitalist takeover of all forms of media,
but everything is evil and nothing is good. BUT I like that this movie was an
actual musical where the plot is being moved forward by the songs, and the
songs sounded like musical theater songs, and not rip-offs of the Chainsmokers. The
choreography and set design are really crisp and impressive and the scavenger hunt
plotline was giving me everything To All the Boys 2 didn’t. Plus, the music was written
by the same team who did Next to Normal. I’d really like to see Disney Channel
lean into more creative things like this, especially since so many people are getting into
musical theater from watching Hamilton on Disney+. Disney+ is also the biggest factor here, I mean,
the DCOM doesn’t need to thrive off of ratings anymore. Disney can just chuck any movie they
want onto their streaming service and at least a few thousand people will check it out. So this
platform shift will surely change the quality and content of the movies yet again, so it’s
too soon to tell how that will all turn out. SO… WHICH MOVIES ARE BETTER? That Golden Age of Disney Channel
was the Golden Age for a reason. Movies like High School Musical, The Cheetah
Girls, and Camp Rock were made better by the culture surrounding it. The aura of celebrity
that hovered around the network’s teen stars. The desire to consume all the content
possible around these movies we love. But there also just wasn’t that much to do.
Kids nowadays have their choice of devices and apps to keep themselves occupied, whereas
my biggest dilemma growing up was choosing between Disney Channel and Nickelodeon for
the night. I think new DCOMs suffered from a lack of direction and just an overall
decline in interest. And if people aren’t interested in what you’re doing, there’s less
and less motivation to make something good. And of course, there’s exceptions to this
rule across the board. I mean, Invisible Sister and Freaky Friday are movies that, to
me, feel similar to classic DCOMs but also inch the genre into new territory. On the
flipside, Starstruck is like… offensive to me. There are literal Wattpad fanfics that
are better than the writing in that movie, so of course the old versus new debate
isn’t ever going to be black and white. But the biggest takeaway here is to think
critically about the conditions under which art and content are made. The different pillars
that make up a DCOM are inherently capitalist; the bottom line is usually to make as much money
as possible in the most efficient way possible. I think when you’re making art under the
suffocating system that is capitalism, anything that ends up being actually good quality despite
its money-making motivations is worth nothing. And media that shifts the needle of trends in
culture at large are always worth scrutinizing. And finally, we really should think of Disney
Channel Original Movies as a canon. And I don’t mean something we just look back at with
nostalgia, make memes about every few months and go, “oh my god, do you remember that?” For
its impact on art, media, and the entertainment industry at large, DCOMs are a canon. Movies that
are heralded as part of the classic film canon are identified as such, not just for being good movies
but for being movies that move the needle and say something about what the world was
like at the time those movies were made. It’s clear that DCOMs have done the
same for its corresponding generations. And that’s certainly worth canonizing. It's a fun movie I really really love
it. I think you should go check it out it's on Disney plus right now it's
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