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Notes -
Observations from a Visit to Walt Disney World
I was aware of the "Disney Girl" stereotype; I wasn't aware how many middle-aged women treat Disney and its merchandise with a quasi-religious fervor. This seems to inhabit a different space from the mid-life-crisis buying frenzy in men, where guys purchase all the things they coveted in their youth but didn't have the means or freedom to buy then - with the ladies, it looks more like a deeper and deeper retreat into childish escapism, a desire to return to what the world - and the Disney company - once represented for them and no longer does: possibility and wonder. Whatever the reason, I couldn't help but look on these women as "failure to launch" types, and I wonder if this is the first generation appearing that way in the Disney parks - surely there weren't 40-year-old fanatical Disney moms in the 1980s or 90s.
I had last visited WDW in 2006 and, by the look of things, that was also the last time the park had been properly maintained. Visiting the parks today as an admirer of Walt Disney The Man (TM) seems about as connected as watching modern-day Manchester United as a fan of Matt Busby - everything is a little more pathetic, a lot more expensive, and completely lost from its original intent. It's incredible how the parks had a reputation - not even twenty years ago - of being impeccably maintained experiences so detail-obsessed that even the smells were pumped in. Maybe I'm just older and seeing the things I couldn't have seen as a teenager, but the Disney World of today is about as magical as a Rainforest Café... "okay, I can see that this was probably cool when it actually worked and had a fresh coat of paint."
It was nice to see the world coming together among the attendees and their many accents, but it only made more obvious that the Mexican Spanish accent really is the most annoying sound the human voice can produce. How did that nasal, reedy, words-strung-together-without-a-breath-for-not-even-exaggerating-five-minutes-or-more dialect come to exist? This must be how British people feel about my accent.
With all of the... "cleansing"... the parks have undergone in recent years, I was surprised to still see a performing African "tribal band" in Animal Kingdom, complete with animal skins, grass anklets, and face paint. For what it's worth, they did appear to be real Africans and had a fantastic ensemble sound.
Of Walt's many ambitions for his parks, most hit a high point in the 1990s under Eisner and have been in freefall ever since - the "escapist fantasy," the unrivaled excellence, the obsession with details. The one remaining quality is the melting pot; the mix of the richest and poorest demographics in one place (even if money gets you an "improved" experience). Though I had lost the magical curiosity once felt in Disney World, I did gaze in wonder at near-aristocratic families from Istanbul and Madrid stuck in line behind a family of 400-pound wheelchair-bound Floridians stained with turkey grease. And there are tons - let me make this clear - tons of wheelchairs in the park - like, to the point where the whole place now seems primarily built for the handicapped customer.
You know that saying about Japan - that they've been stuck in the year 2000 for the last 40 years? There's something of that in Disney World too - they've been stuck in 1990 since 1970. For all their "innoventions" of the last thirty years, the greatest rides are still the original ones - It's a Small World, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean - really all the dark rides still have a magical quality about them.
The biggest detrimental change to Disney World (and the company at large) since my last visit in 2006 is the loss of the "Disney identity" or the "Disney feel" due to their acquisitions - and obsessive marketing - of Marvel and Star Wars. Those brands feel so cheap in Disney's hands when compared with what "Disney" used to represent - Mickey and friends, the idealism of a better tomorrow, the wonder of childhood. Every area, every store, every restaurant that used to have a magical aura about it now seems weighed down with sad Marvel gimmicks or flimsy Star Wars plasticware, and the homogeneity of the parks - a homogeneity that used to be so strong as to make Tower of Terror and Toontown both feel like two places in the same universe - is completely gone.
One thing I was surprised to see thriving at Disney, given the changes in both the parks and the world over the years, was an excellent model of early fatherhood. Many new families still gravitate to the parks, and maybe it's just the now-higher ticket prices, but it seemed a majority of these had a two-parent model with fathers who were sincerely invested in their child's experience - and the wonder of a child at Disney World is really something to behold. I met and got to know a few of these families - many of the fathers were recent military veterans; maybe that has something to do with the demographic being represented.
Finally, I understand that the Disney company of today is essentially a for-profit entertainment arm of the Democratic Party inhabiting the skin of a once-neutral (okay, right-leaning) organization, and therefore has felt it necessary to purge the shadows of the past. Even so, it was frustrating to me as a fan of Walt Disney The Man (TM) that there is no archival or historical experience within the parks as relates to the company itself. Surely there must be acres of warehouses with artifacts and curios and documents from the past 100 years of the company's existence - how is nothing exhibited in the parks? This is yet another area where I've likely completely misunderstood what the Disney experience is to the modern world.
In summary, a disappointing experience only in the sense that yet another thing that was awesome in my youth - that had the potential to only grow more awesome year-on-year - has instead disintegrated into a bland, sanitized, "globohomo" experience with nothing particularly special about it. If you find yourself in the Central Florida area, I highly recommend making the trip to see some of the real, unsanitized history in the region - Kennedy Space Center, the Spanish Forts, the Dali Museum, the Circus tributes in Sarasota - and to avoid that which was once-great.
Echoing @OracleOutlook, I will say the Japanese Tokyo Disneyland /Disneysea experience is one of perfect Baudrillard hyperreality--clean, well-swept, devoid of stench, and as ordered as a massively crowded theme park can probably be. Disney Sea is distinct as its own (albeit adjacent) park with its own ticket, in which alcohol may be served--and is, at pretty steep prices. Still from experience no beer is too expensive after a day of hustling around watching Mickey parades and making sure you're at the line at the right time because you bought that one ticket three hours ago that says you can line up at point X.
I've always wanted to go to that Florida Star Wars exhibit (the last time I was at Disney World was pre-Epcot, if that tells you anything). Just to see that Millennium Falcon. My own boys, alas, are aging somewhat out of the age of wonder (I am not certain I ever have) and the days when we took them in costume around Halloween to TDL are behind us (older boy was Luke Skywalker, younger Darth Vader without mask--masks on patrons aren't allowed, and only Disney character costumes, and these only at certain times of the year).
I will note that I don't remember seeing many middle-aged women in Mickey ears, but high school and twenty somethings by the bargeful. The Japanese female obsession with Disney is real. I try hard not to armchair analyze it. But I suspect it has to do with the usual shutting out the harsher realities of growing up. I once dated a girl (well, young woman, she would've been around 27, a flight attendant then) who related to me a story of how when she was at TDL "Mickey" hugged her and she cried. "But why cry?" I remember asking, and her response put paid whatever dinner it was I had bought that night: "Because I knew he would never hurt me."
I was apparently unable to match Mickey and I remember the night of our inevitable breakup as she stood there telling me she was fine just having sex, she didn't mind anything, she just didn't want to be alone--and I, of course, left her alone. At that exact moment the twin towers were coming down, September 11, 2001. Vibrates in the memory. Music, when soft voices die, etc.
It's interesting to read other women who aren't Japanese have this same preoccupation with Disney. A deep well, no doubt.
Edited for typos
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