Fearing separation from capitalist paternity: A psychosocial analysis of revanchist anti-gender consumer activism against Disney

Abstract

Drawing on political readings of Freud, this paper probes the anxieties and fears driving anti-gender consumer activism, an emerging form of consumer politics in which a cisheteronormative subject defends his consumer privileges in the name of "the family." We examine how American anti-gender activists opposed Disney's shift from its conservative, family-oriented brand image. We argue that this campaign is driven by infantile fears of losing the ideo-affective guardianship conservative brands have historically offered to privileged consumer groups. These consumer activists aim to resolve this perceived threat of brand abandonment through anti-brand revenge. This study enriches current discourse-centric analyses of far-right consumer activism by probing its underlying psychosocial dynamics. Additionally, it contributes to scholarship on the marketing of the heteronormative family by revealing how conservative brands not merely disseminate family ideology but also function as paternal love objects themselves, satisfying infantile consumers' desires for attention, moral guidance, validation and protection.