I’m sitting next to my Spanish oral interview partner, Stacey, and we’re discussing movies, TV, and music. These things are easy and discussable, and most likely will give us the best scores. What’s interesting about a foreign language is it takes mundane conversation and makes it the most important. No one wants to talk about politics, or the environment, or food allergies. People just want to talk about the basic fundamentals, which is ironic and slightly rewarding because maybe those things actually matter most. And while we were eventually inadvertently split up by some stupid woman who did her oral interview later, we ended up discussing Disney movies, and Disney princesses.
Colton: I like Belle. She has ambition, is hardworking, and is intelligent.
Stacey: I don’t like Beast. And any girl who falls in love with Beast is crazy, because he is crazy
Colton: Okay well what about Jasmine? She fell for Aladdin? Isn’t he a nice guy?
Stacey: Jasmine is a slut. She dresses like a slut, and she falls for the first guy she meets her age in some Arabian street market. All guys want a Jasmine.
Colton: Okay you win there, but how about Arial? She has this amazing ambition for being on land and wants to experience something new, like Belle?
Stacey: Also a slut. Shells for an outfit? And no one wants to live in a fish fin, so as far as that’s concerned she’s just like everyone else.
Colton: So you’re set on Cinderella?
Stacey: Yes! She’s hardworking, has great music, dresses modestly, doesn’t ask for many favors, and ends up marrying a prince? Because out of everyone, she really deserves it.
And while this conversation will never deter my infatuation with Belle, it does make me feel decadent and old. To explain this, we need to discuss Disneyworld.
Disneyworld is a place of magic. Don’t believe those assholes who say it’s them just trying to sell us the corporate image and make us accept the future. The fact of the matter is we are all part of it because we all drink Coca-Cola (or Pepsi for you crazies) and buy groceries and wash our cars and turn on our TV’s and we are boxed in or let loose by it. But when I went to Disneyworld on the eve of the year 2000, my life was forever changed by the place. It’s an amusement park that produces a jokingly cartoonish world, and takes itself seriously and pulls it off. This makes me insulted at Astroworld and makes me glad that it was closed in the Houston area. It’s important to understand that Astroworld at that time was filled with hooligans and vandals and this behavior was condoned. Disneyworld did not tolerate this kind of plot hole. I’ve been to several meetings about information about becoming an employee for Disneyworld, and it’s no cake walk. You must act like the location you are in. You are paid, fed, and housed, and you are theirs for a summer. Disneyworld presents several wondrous environments, each filled with detail, spit shined floors and walls, and incredible customer service. For those that are young, it’s a chance to experience something grand. For those that are old, it’s a chance to relish on a life filled with Disney. Disney is so large by now that it has literally become magical and inhabits everything you want in life. But I fear the nostalgia is something that is also dying. It’s all falling apart. It doesn’t matter how clean and taken care of Disneyworld is, it will always be too late. And no matter what they do, they will disappoint somebody.
It’s interesting going to Disneyworld. You’ve got interesting rides like Pirates of the Caribbean where kids expect Johnny Depp and get a slow boat ride filled with robotic pirates on Tortuga just looking for a good time. But you go to TomorrowLand and you have Buzz Lightyear’s shooter ride that makes you wonder if 1995s Toy Story was really the future. Disney, while it grows with it’s audience has inadvertently become stuck in time with Disneyworld, and that’s a problem when you consider the direction they are heading.
The last movie to feature a “Disney princess” in my opinion was Tarzan or Mulan in 1999 and 1998 respectively. If you look at the history of Disney classics, princesses were so our generation. And by my generation I’m talking about Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Pocahantas, Hercules, and Beauty and the Beast. The only ones that were left our were Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Robin Hood (kind of), and Lady in the Tramp (also kind of). I do understand that the three outside of our lifetime are pretty much the BIG four, but it’s interesting that I’m making a fuss out of this.
But I am, because for the past ten to twelve years, the only movie that was made with a specific princess was Princess and the Frog, and what it showed was something abundantly clear: the intellectual ideas of princesses are done, smoke, over. While this makes women happy because they no longer have to conform to certain archetypes, it makes me wonder about Disneyworld.
Are little girls going to flabbergasted and scared out of their wits when they see a disney princess? They don’t know them, at all. Unless their parents made them watch those when they were little, these princesses will look like moving Barbie dolls unless they have a story behind them.
Now there’s only one other place I can think of that this is more exaggerated and that’s AstroWorld. Looney Toones are so extinct it’s ridiculous. Their slapstick humor was replaced by better animated slapstick humor, a process that may last for eternity. Seriously I haven’t seen a legitimate looney toon episode for years. That’s why Six Flags seriously redefined themselves…with some old guy dancing to techno.
It may be just me not coping with getting older, but my fear is placed on Disneyworld, not DisneyColton, because although Disney is going a different direction it will not appease anyone paying to go there. People who grew up with Disney princesses have to endure Treasure Planet, Lilo and Stitch, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. If you look at Disney, to me it has fallen apart. The magic of Disney for youth has easily been replaced with Pixar. Pixar has a firm understanding of the future. Although the technology catches the eye at first, it’s the overwhelming excellent stories of Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Toy Story that makes Pixar magic.
I really loved Disneyworld as a kid, but I’m scared of going there again. How will I feel about seeing teenagers being princesses that are largely forgotten? But what can they do? If they remove princesses entirely it pisses adults off but if they remove the current works, they present a boring unknown environment for kids. They’re stuck. They have to keep filling Disneyworld with so much old and new that it very well may implode on itself. Pirates of the Caribbean will always be old and creepy, and Buzz Lightyear’s light saber space trek or whatever will always be in Tomorrowland because it’s futuristic, but it’s not really tomorrow. Maybe that’s the magic about Disneyworld. It’s a dream world, but unlike Wonderland, it makes sense, and it takes itself seriously. Disney was a magician that led the world, but they really did reveal the trick. Disney may have become too large for its own good. Maybe Disney just isn’t as big as my imagination wants them to be. It’s just another part of getting older I guess.
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