An ode to appropriation. Mickey Mouse long the center of the copyright debate of free expression vs property rights was finally made a free mouse on January 1st, 2024. The Disney Corporation and their Mickey Mouse Protection Act finally lost their bid to extend copyright law forever. Appropriation artists have always played with questions of authenticity, originality, and the nature of the artistic process. We also see patterns in seemingly unrelated materials, and place them in different contexts to make them more understandable in our current time. Mickey Mouse has always been a natural target for these themes. The history of Mickey Mouse, created by Ub Iwerks, under the influence of Disney, can be seen in this film as a kind of rags to riches story, an enigma similar to Charles Foster Kane, a riddle to be solved.
