Mickey Mouse Degrees

And Other Dangerous Things

You might be surprised to learn that the UK now produces 22% of the world’s films. That’s not a typo, it’s a global figure. We’re not just a nation of enthusiastic audiences; we are a nation of makers, storytellers, designers, composers, animators, editors, and directors. And yet, despite this success, the arts are still treated like an indulgence rather than the powerful creative and economic force they are.

While the arts are, of course, more than entertainment - we must remember that there is nothing wrong with entertainment! To those who dismiss entertainment as ‘an indulgence’ if you were to insist on labelling it that, I argue that it is a necessary one; keeping our spirits up, being resilient, bouncing back, feeling optimistic, retaining hope - this all requires access to entertainment in some form. I will come back to it’s importance to wellbeing.

I live near what you might call the Hollywood of England: within easy reach of Leavesden, Pinewood, Shepperton, Elstree and now, potentially, a new film mecca in Marlow. Our little corner of the country is quietly becoming a creative superpower. With world-class studios, state-of-the-art post-production facilities, and entire villages employed in costume, prop-making, and set design, the UK isn’t just making films, it’s shaping global cinema.

The same can be said for animation. The UK has become one of the most exciting places on the planet for animation and digital production. Aardman Studios (Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep) helped put British animation on the world stage, but that’s just the beginning. Courses in sixth form colleges and universities like Westminster, Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire New are producing a steady stream of brilliant, industry-ready talent. We are growing the next generation of animators, designers, and VFX specialists and they are exceptional.

Which brings me to a more personal point.

I have two daughters: one studying Theatre & Performance at Bristol University, the other studying Fine Art at Edinburgh. These are choices I’ve backed and encouraged every step of the way. If there’s anywhere in the world right now where a young person can build a career in the arts, it’s the UK. We have the infrastructure, the industry, the audiences….and the stories.

And yet, people still ask: “But what is she going to do with that?”

To which I say: everything.

University isn’t just about launching a career. It’s about so much more than that including but not exclusively: building skills, learning to think critically and creatively, and growing into someone who can see the world not just as it is, but as it could be. Given that we have the small task of saving the planet at the moment, imagination might be quite handy for that. Further, rare is the 18-year-old who knows what they want to do for the rest of their life and rarer still the world that stays the same long enough for any career trajectory to remain stable. If anyone hasn’t noticed, the ground is shifting. Fast.

Now, here’s a thought. There’s always the possibility and it is feasible to argue the likelihood that side-lining the arts is not just an unfortunate consequence of tight budgets or exam league tables, but a deliberate political move. Artists are creative. Imaginative. Unruly. They challenge authority, question assumptions, resist neat categorisation. They tend to be left-leaning, justice-oriented, less-easily controlled than those who have learned to comply and fit in. The kind of people who cause a bit of trouble.

So if you start calling arts degrees ‘Mickey Mouse’ courses, underfund creative subjects in schools, and fail to value the teachers who ignite young minds, what happens? People stop asking questions. Stop imagining alternatives. Stop noticing what’s missing.

As Orwell once warned, keep them distracted with beer, football, and gambling, and you won’t need to worry about the rest.

But the arts are not a luxury. They are a necessity. They build empathy, sharpen minds, stretch imaginations, and strengthen democracy. They are the training ground for the kind of thinking the world most needs right now.

An awareness and a movement towards this is particularly important as a certain populist party in the UK are currently echoing everything coming from MAGA in the USA who are currently moving in every way that they can against academia. President Trump’s press secretary recently issued a press statement in one of her briefings against Harvard, Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing on May 28, 2025:

“We need more electricians and plumbers … not LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard.”

This was part of her broader statement supporting Trump’s proposal to reallocate federal funding from elite university research to vocational training apprenticeships, technical skills like plumbing and electrical work rather than arts, humanities, or what she implied are identity-focused graduate programmes. There is no major in LGBTQ, it just seemed to be in there as a passing side-swipe of that group. The reason that this is relevant here is that they come up with phrases and reductionist rhetoric which sadly both appeal and stick. It benefits the populist movement but sadly not the rest of us. ‘Take Back Control’, anyone, ‘Make America Great Again’, ‘Get Brexit Done’ - they say these soundbites, repeat them often enough and they become background noise, familiar, comfortable, and dangerously unchallenged. It’s not scientific evidence - but if you listen to callers on the James O’Brien show on LBC, an incredibly popular talk show in the UK, challenging such stock phrases to ask for examples is one of his favourite activities. It is important work that he does, to resist this sort of brainlessness as it does not do any of us any good. Correction, it does populist power-seekers good, it let’s them off the accountability and reasoning hook.

So yes, the UK makes 22% of the world’s films. But behind that statistic is a deeper truth: our creative industries depend on creative education. If we want to keep leading the world in storytelling, we must invest in the storytellers - not just when they’re winning BAFTAs, but when they’re nine years old and discovering, for the first time, the magic of drama, design, music, and art. Further, there is evidence from a 2017 All Parliamentary Committee that arts are extremely beneficial to good mental health which advocated arts on prescription and creative engagement for those with dementia as well as programmes for any who need to improve their wellbeing. More recently, a 2024 DCMS-UCL-WHO review placed a clear value on arts and culture, estimating an £8 billion annual benefit to the UK economy and NHS savings through improved quality of life and productivity. In 2023, the WHO research series on this subject stated:

“Our measures should reflect this holistic approach, focusing not solely on reduction of symptoms but on how the arts may help us cope, achieve our potential, be productive, and active members of a community.”

We need more people involved in the arts - some as a career and some as an interest for their well-being, to keep their imaginations fired up and always developing their thinking and ideas. Keep playing everyone. Read Michael Rosen’s Book of Play if you’re not sure how to. I spoke with an old school friend who is now a Professor of Chemistry at a leading University and he agreed with me. He absolutely wants his science students to tell stories, develop ideas and keep imagining what could be, not just learning what already is. Let’s stop asking what an arts degree is for and start asking what kind of future we want to build. We need arts for individuals, for our industries and for a strong democratic society.

And besides, I think you’ll find that Mickey Mouse is doing alright.