Usually, if I talk about Disney, I’m not going to be saying anything good. While I did like some Disney movies growing up, Disney as a thing didn’t really factor into my understanding of the world. Most of my related brain cells deal with labor violations, litigious and sometimes malicious overuse of intellectual property laws – you know, evil capitalist empire stuff. Still, I think it’s worth remembering that even if the cultural dominance of a corporation like Disney is a sign of deep systemic problems, it’s also just a big part of people’s lives, and that’s perfectly valid.
This documentary is an incredible work of investigative reporting about four musical notes, and how they came to be. It’s a mystery that turns up a lot of what’s best about Disney – the passion of the artists who work there, and the respect they had for each other. It’s a pleasant watch, and an interesting story.
Huh. Long commercial for Disney, had lots of facts I didn’t know.
My military father was briefly stationed in Florida in 1971 and they took the kids to Disney. My main memory of that time is that whatever ride we kids wanted to go on, it wasn’t included in the book of ride coupons that you got with admission–you had to buy more tickets if you wanted to ride. My parents spent the day saying “We can’t afford that” to food, souvenirs, and rides we actually wanted to ride.
I went again in the early 1980s as part of a spring break, with a friend whose dream was to see Disney. Admission was $45 apiece (they didn’t charge for parking back then) and in theory we had access to every ride in the park, but we spent 5 hours on line for a 2-minute ride on the Space Mountain rollercoaster. The castle had $700 souvenirs and the one meal we ate–a single shared sandwich and a bottle of soda each–cost $20. Minimum wage was $2.30/hr.
Since then, if you actually want to ride a ride, you first had to pay extra for a “jump the line pass”, and now you have to buy a “jump the jump the line pass pass”. You also have to use an app to plan out every second of every day, and if you want to ride the good rides, you have to start months in advance.
Meanwhile, they’re infamous for exploiting their workers, all the way up from their “interns” to their park workers to the people who make their movies.
Yeah, nothing I’ve heard about Disney and their parks has made me want to actually go there, let alone spend money there.
Like I said, 99% of the time, I’ve got nothing good to say about them.
I, too, watched disney productions as an ignorant child. Later, I worked with artists that ‘escaped’ employment in the disney art departments and described a terrible culture. Also, https://www.ianwelsh.net/disney-setting-a-precedent-for-not-paying-writers/ And, I see disney buying fame (henson’s works, winnie-the-pooh, etc) instead of creating original work. Even the famous disneyland castle is just a plaster rip-off of Neuschwanstein.
They really are the epitome of a capitalist enterprise, aren’t they?