ABSTRACT
In this chapter we examine the Disney+ original content that was included in the service under the National Geographic brand. We begin with an analysis of Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox and, in particular, the National Geographic (NATGEO) channel. We examine the history of the Fox company, its merger with 20th Century, and the subsequent purchase of the combined entertainment company by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. We then bore into an element of NATGEO’s program, The World According to Jeff Goldblum. We argue that the program provides a reworking of banal cosmopolitanism by investing the ordinary with a historical and global context. Our analysis ties the program to the Disney brand and how each episode brings into focus a particular subject or item that fascinates Mr. Goldblum; a fascination that is decidedly optimistic, while dismissive of negative contingences of the subject.
