Thread by @mcjulie

Since everybody's talking about Disney today, I will too.

Because my Extremely Evangelical grandparents were ALSO my Extremely Disney grandparents -- my grandfather basically got out of the navy and worked for Disneyland until he retired.

So, we could get in cheap, so when I was growing up
(until the age of 12) my family went to Disneyland extremely regularly, maybe every 2-3 months.

But more than that, because Disney was a family legacy, it informed every aspect of my life. Gifts for Christmas & birthday were frequently Disney, we watched The Wonderful World of Disney every week, when we went to see movies as a family at the drive-in they were Disney

My grandparents' house was full of coffee-table books about Disney & Disneyland, which I would often read at family gatherings.

After we moved to the Seattle area when I was 12, whenever we went back to visit the grandparents, we would also visit Disneyland. I went through a brief anti-Disney phase as a cynical teen (roughly 15-19) before making my peace with The Giant Mouse.

The thing is, I was right to be cynical about Disney -- they really are a giant talent-eating capitalist money machine. But also, they're incredibly good at what they do. The theme parks are first rate, absolutely the gold standard for what a theme park can be.

And, one of the things Disney is incredibly good at, is extracting the most possible money from the largest possible number of people.

Do you think they made The Princess and the Frog in 2009 because they were so "woke"? No, it's because they wanted a Black princess.

Disney's self-consciously "wholesome" image sometimes collides with their desire to make money.

Disneyland Paris had to start serving wine, for example.
wdwinfo.com/disneyland-par…

Disney doesn't do anything without a reason, and usually that reason is to make more money. So if they've decided to start allowing their Orlando Disneyworld employees to have obvious tattoos, it's probably something like "we couldn't find enough people to hire otherwise"

But also, it's an acknowledgement that things like obvious tattoos and blue hair no longer contradict their wholesome family Disney image. They're like "eh, nobody cares about tattoos anymore"

(Except apparently one guy who got to write an editorial in the Orlando Sentinel)

Similarly, if Disney updates the content of their rides to try & eliminate offensive caricatures or storylines, it's because they recognize (probably 20 years after everyone else) that the offensive content fights their wholesome image & limits their ability to extract money.

Disney will never be FIRST to respond to social change, but they won't be LAST either. And they love to recycle their content, give it a new context.

A certain butthurt editorial writer is all bent that Disney is removing "Trader Sam" from the Jungle Cruise, but seems completely oblivious to the fact that they've given him a Tiki Bar of his very own.

It's very telling, what he has to say about it.

"The next time I ride Jungle Cruise I will not be thinking about the gloriously entertaining puns of the skippers, I will be thinking about Disney’s political agenda. That’s a mood killer."

Dude, I do not even believe you, nobody's favorite part of Disneyland is the Jungle Cruise, let alone the "Trader Sam" character. The Jungle Cruise is the thing you go on to kill time until your fast pass for the Indiana Jones ride comes up.

I need to get back to work, so I'll cut to the chase: if DISNEY, the very epitome of mainstream mass appeal is too "woke" for you, it's because you're SUPER racist.

It's not Disney, man, it's YOU.

The end.