Disney+’s catalogue show how the company is using its child stars to promote the streaming service.

What is it about?

Child stars have performed an important function for Disney throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. When the Disney+ streaming service first launched, it prioritised its past and present child stars on the home page. This helped align the streaming service with wholesomeness and nostalgia. At the same time, some of its child stars - such as Lindsay Lohan - went on to troubled adulthood, problematising this Disney image. Further, having purchased 20th Century Fox, Disney+ claimed a new suite of child stars such as Macaulay Culkin. The article looks at the catalogue curation and tile imagery on Disney+ and how it tries to manage the shifting, unstable boundaries of the child star.

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Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article is an important contribution to streaming service interface analysis, particularly tile images, and how they help with branding - in this case Disney+. It also extends child star analysis for the streaming era.

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