Heritage child stars on Disney+: the liquidities of child stardom in the SVOD era. Issue 2 (3rd April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Baker, Djoymi; Balanzategui, Jessica
• Is Part Of: Celebrity studies. Volume 14:Issue 2(2023)
• Page Start: 186
• Page End: 199
• Publication Date: 2023-04-03
• Subjects: Disney -- child star -- streaming -- interfaces -- nostalgia -- SVOD -- Disney+; Fame -- Periodicals; Celebrities -- Periodicals; 306.405
• DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2109307
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1939-2397

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Disney is a brand long associated with the production of family content and a continually replenished suite of child stars. The 2019 launch of Disney+ leveraged these heritage child stars in its tightly curated home page, stressing nostalgia and a wholesome brand image around the figure of the child. This article explores how the Disney+ interface aesthetics, catalogue organisation and other paratexts negotiate heritage child stars in the context of managing the Disney brand narrative in the streaming era. Streaming interfaces offer a new form of star ephemera, as former child stars are recontextualised under new thematic banners on Disney+. However, this careful curation on the Disney+ interface is ultimately unable to contain the instability of child stars as emblems of lost youth, a tension that becomes particularly evident in the case of Lindsay Lohan and Macaulay Culkin.