Disney and ecology
I got really sick of the ecological pitch that Disney kept throwing at us. "If we all work together, we can save the earth!". Well, first, I figured out a long time ago that we cannot save or destroy the earth. We can save or destroy ourselves, we can make the earth inhospitable for human life, but this ol' rock gonna keep rollin' along for a long ol' time with or without us. Earth don' care.
Second, the consumption of energy, the ruination of wetlands, the consumption of paper goods and plastic and every other renewable and non-renewable resource on the planet is probably tripled for every moment you spend at Disney.
And it's not just the parks. For miles around the parks, there are the ugliest of strip malls with huge facades carved into faces and animals selling cheap disney knock off crap. Mile after mile of hotels and condos on what used to be wetlands. Gallon after gallon of water sucked up out of the water table to water lawns and fill pools. There was a huge mini-golf place with a water feature, we'd drive by and see gallon after gallon of toilet-blue water washing down over the sides.
Yet Disney continues to send the message "if we work together we can all take care of the planet." Pocahontas does a little stage show (when she throws those colored "leaves" in the "Dance with all the colors of the wind" song, are they biodegradable? Or just some more plastic to last forever in the landfill?). There's a Lion King show where Simba teaches Timon and Puumba about the unanticipated consequences of building condos all over and blocking up the stream.
My favorite was the Kali River Rapids in Animal Kingdom. They show one part where the rain forest has been destroyed by the greedy developers, there's a faux burned out rainforest section. So let me get this straight. They had to fill how much wetlands, and truck in how many tons of plastic and cement to simulate the destruction of the environment somewhere else?
I just wanted to scream, "SO SHUT THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN!!" There must be a special hell for people genuinely concerned about the environment who work at Disney.
I guess that became a theme of my trip. Spotting the existential hells that people were walking through in the park. Everything from the special minimum wage hell where you MUST SMILE AT ALL TIMES to the "characters", poor kids dressed up in disney costumes signing autograph books as Cinderella 300 times a day, to the guests, the visitors, accepting this dumbed down pseudo reality as the most magical place on earth.
I'm an idiot.
Second, the consumption of energy, the ruination of wetlands, the consumption of paper goods and plastic and every other renewable and non-renewable resource on the planet is probably tripled for every moment you spend at Disney.
And it's not just the parks. For miles around the parks, there are the ugliest of strip malls with huge facades carved into faces and animals selling cheap disney knock off crap. Mile after mile of hotels and condos on what used to be wetlands. Gallon after gallon of water sucked up out of the water table to water lawns and fill pools. There was a huge mini-golf place with a water feature, we'd drive by and see gallon after gallon of toilet-blue water washing down over the sides.
Yet Disney continues to send the message "if we work together we can all take care of the planet." Pocahontas does a little stage show (when she throws those colored "leaves" in the "Dance with all the colors of the wind" song, are they biodegradable? Or just some more plastic to last forever in the landfill?). There's a Lion King show where Simba teaches Timon and Puumba about the unanticipated consequences of building condos all over and blocking up the stream.
My favorite was the Kali River Rapids in Animal Kingdom. They show one part where the rain forest has been destroyed by the greedy developers, there's a faux burned out rainforest section. So let me get this straight. They had to fill how much wetlands, and truck in how many tons of plastic and cement to simulate the destruction of the environment somewhere else?
I just wanted to scream, "SO SHUT THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN!!" There must be a special hell for people genuinely concerned about the environment who work at Disney.
I guess that became a theme of my trip. Spotting the existential hells that people were walking through in the park. Everything from the special minimum wage hell where you MUST SMILE AT ALL TIMES to the "characters", poor kids dressed up in disney costumes signing autograph books as Cinderella 300 times a day, to the guests, the visitors, accepting this dumbed down pseudo reality as the most magical place on earth.
I'm an idiot.
posted by Swampdog at 11:22 AM
2 Comments:
OMG, you are totally cracking me up. I have read all of your "articles" and some people just don't get it, do they? I especially like the one about giving your 9 year old her medicine. I would have opted for chugging it myself!
BTW, I have a 13 year old AND a 2 year old at the SAME TIME!
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