the masses are speaking, let. disney. burn...
and put up national parks! if you're on certain parts of the internet right now, you get what this is about. if not, please hear me out: disney and their whole mickey mouse media mafia (from ABC to ESPN) makes me so incredibly angry and uncomfortable. and has for decades. once on a disney vacation with my family, i, maybe fourteen years old?, sat next to my dad on the back of a disney resort bus. a kid looked at me and said "this is my first trip" i looked them dead in the eye and said "this better be my last." it wasn't
let's stop with the first gripe: as a disabled girlie, disneyland is mad inaccessible. i can tell you this as a disabled girlie who grew up going on disney vacations while not being perceived by myself or anyone else as disabled, just, hurting and masking all the goddamn time. it's soooo much walking, the rides shake you around and are loud, it's hot and sunny or suddenly dark and cold, but it's disney, they have accommodations! BULLSHIT THEY DO. in their own words:
Disney Parks have an unwavering commitment to providing a welcoming, inclusive and accessible environment for Guests. Disability Access Service (DAS) is one of our programs offered at Walt Disney World Resort theme parks intended to accommodate Guests who, due to a developmental disability like autism or similar, are unable to wait in a conventional queue for an extended period of time.
in the first sentence, "for guests" omits the word ALL...there is zero mention of other types of disabilities that would make it hard to wait online, such as bowel/bladder issues, chronic pain or fatigue, or heat intolerance, just to name a few. they're a billion dollar corporation, they have "smart" lawyers, they had to know this wouldn't go over well. their public relations couldn't have like, paid attention to history and known that disabled people are notoriously loud and organized? a class action lawsuit is pending in CA against disney and inspire health alliance for discriminating against guests with physical disabilities.
it's nice to see lots of people unsubscribing to disney's platforms this week after the kimmel fiasco. i need to point out that disney has BEEN on the bds list of companies to stay away from for palestine. i know, i was still subscribed too and it's not as if this is the only reason, clearly, that i will be removing myself as a subscriber tomorrow. every step we take to disentangle from the web of mainstream media is a step toward more radical truths and disability justice. if you simply can't do without disney content–there's other ways to be entertained, but kids exist--go to the library and get a blu-ray disc. old school. do it for the people in the congo, and the homeless disney employees, of which i was one.
if you never been to disney, or money don't mean anything to you, everything at disney is wildly expensive, but they pay their workers shit. billions of dollars flowing in from all their merchandise, tickets, food sales, etc, they had BILLIONS to lose this week. and they did. that says something. keep up the pressure!
the magic really falls away when you are tapping your toes on a resort balcony while the cops take away your drunk, transphobic, and out of control man-child of a boyfriend. he spent the night on behavioral unit and then came back, we finished the vacation sober but i remain disturbed by what went down. he cracked under the pressure of trying to be the perfect capitalist, just as my mom did trying to pay off the vacations she took us on there when i was a child. it was a status thing for sure, photo opps at every turn. stuff for sale every five feet. it's too much for me. i am the furthest thing from a disney adult.
there is also little magic on your 15 minute smoke break (yeah bitch i smoked on disney property after they banned that shit!!) during the saturday dinner rush at a busy resort restaurant. they had us in a union, but there were no health benefits because they couldn't guarantee full time schedules or even like, 20-30hr a week, i was getting scheduled 2 days out of 7, and my hourly wage was less than a guest parking spot. apparently it takes years to get more hours. how to live until then?? explain yourself, mickey!!!!
disney has to say they make environmental impact, but really they make SO much trash on the daily. so what if some is recycled, trash is trash. the parks and cruises move (tens of?) thousands of people in and out of intensely energy dependent amusement. when did chilling by some water or a forest become not enough? reading or listening to someone tell a story is better for the nervous system than the buzz lightyear video action game, don't forget to buy a picture on your way out!!! they banned straws tho!!! A THING DISABLED PEOPLE DESPERATELY NEED!! coulda started with cutting back on the pyrotechnics which are sooo hazardous and fucked for the enivornment but nope. straws. cool.
"happy, happy HAPPY!" omg shut the fuck up it's normal to have a range of feelings, wasn't that the point of the pixar film inside out? this company wants you deliriously deranged to sell you shit, they want your money. they went full colonizer, gentrifier on orlando and anaheim, hawaii, and various countries abroad. they are NOT cool. for all these reasons, and the ones you hold in your heart, let that shit die. let it burn. and then, group project!: let us birth a new way to be informed and entertained, not one that brainwashes us and undermines our collective and individual intelligence! but rather one that exposes us to the truths behind the lies we've been fed to stay complicit in the ultimate decoy that is the american dream.
