"Wokeness" has ruined Disney World

[hobie16]

Great, "wokeness" has ruined Disney World, too, whines fully grown adult man

In an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, Las Vegas resident and Florida vacationer Jonathan VanBoserck goes medieval on Disney for, among other things, allowing its performers to express themselves and updating the 30-year-old ride Splash Mountain, a major attraction based on the infamously racist Song Of The South to a modern property people can actually see, The Princess And The Frog. Let’s be clear, while the casual racism of the Enchanted Tiki Room makes VanBoserck feel right at home, he fails to recognize that that same racism can ruin another family’s vacation. How dare Disney make its parks more pleasant for more people? It goes against everything Walt Disney stood for!

Now, before anyone reaches for their pitchforks, this is not a racism thing, says VanBoserck. It’s an immersion thing. When on vacation, VonBoserck wants to keep the fantasy of Disney alive. So when he sees performers with tattoos or, even worse, a haircut, that illusion is destroyed. He writes:

The problem is, I’m not traveling across the country and paying thousands of dollars to watch someone I do not know express themselves. I am there for the immersion and the fantasy, not the reality of a stranger’s self-expression. I do not begrudge these people their individuality and I wish them well in their personal lives, but I do not get to express my individuality at my place of business.

This is a short list of what VanBoskerck has issues with regarding recent changes at Disney World:

He disapproves of cast members’ self-expression, which includes new rules that allow them to “display tattoos, wear inclusive uniforms and display inclusive haircuts.”
- He lost interest in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride after Disney renovated it over the years.
- He believes that many of Disney’s business decisions are politically motivated, which he feels excluded by and will lose Disney business. (At the very least, it’s making him reconsider going.)
- He took issue with Disney revamping the Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain rides to remove racist elements.
- He notes that Jungle Cruise’s Trader Sam “is not a representation of reality and is meant as a funny and silly caricature.”
- He doesn’t like that Disney making these changes will have him thinking about politics—such as with Splash Mountain, a ride associated with Song of the South, a movie racist enough that Disney stopped releasing it even with content warnings—because it’s a “mood killer.”
- Citing Walt Disney’s pro-U.S. propaganda efforts during World War II, he believes that Disney should “return to the values and vision of Walt” and that it should not be listening to the “Twitter mob” to make decisions about its parks.

It’s probably not an argument being made in good faith, and it didn’t take long for people to mock VanBoskerck and the op-ed.

“This grown ass man is pissed cause they made the Pirates of the Caribbean ride less rapey and may change the theme of Splash Mountain from fucking Song of the South- removing reference to sex slave trade and racism is just absolutely ruining his Walt Disney World experience…”

One site believes his comments are satire. I Love Disney World, But I'm Going to Act Like "Wokeness" Is Ruining the Experience Because I Hate Respecting Others More We can only hope.

This guy doesn’t want Disney World; he wants Westworld.

"As a white guy living life on the lowest difficulty setting, I'd like my theme park experience to stay exactly the same. Sure, that means some rides and shows are a bit insensitive to others, but it doesn't affect me, and you're here to accommodate ME."

A Christian shouldn’t even be at Disney , it’s full of magic and magic is of the devil

"I just want sanitized stories about colonialism, indigenous people and American race relations that whitewashes history and spreads a message about how white people have only ever been the good guys, not something POLITICAL"

[hobie16]

I also love Disney World, and here’s why wokeness critic is wrong | Commentary

Cast members should be able to express themselves and work in an environment where they are safe and respected. I don’t care if they have a tattoo. If they treat me with kindness and try their hardest to make my family vacation a success, they have gone beyond the call of duty.

Yes, tourist dollars are important to the health of Orlando’s economy. They always will be.

But I think I speak for the Orlando area when I say, if you can’t deal with updates to the modern way of thinking and treat cast members with basic human decency and respect, we do not want your vacation dollars.

[hobie16]

Anti-racism, tattoos and no more ‘wench auctions’: Disney’s ‘woke’ moves spark a conservative backlash

[felinefan]

I think it's ridiculous that this so-called "wokeness" has to shape our entertainment sources. Walt didn't create Disneyland to promote a political or social agenda, he wanted families to have fun together. Look, slavery happened, okay? But before they began kidnapping Africans and forcing them to work here on plantations, there was an institution called indentured servitude -- look it up. You'd think white people would treat their own kind with compassion, but no. You can't change history. The scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where there's a pirate chasing a woman, as well as the wench auction, are factual. I always thought it was funny to see two pirates chasing women,one woman hiding in a barrel, then a woman chasing a pirate--the look of terror on his face is anticlimatic and funny.
Mom had a copy of Song of the South, I always thought it was a cute picture. The sound of Brer Rabbit hopping was memorable. I don't remember the bulk of the movie, it was so long ago, but as I recall Uncle Remus helped a little boy get well, and his uptight family learned to lighten up. What's wrong with that? The Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris were based on stories he heard from a slave actually named Uncle Remus when he was a child.
Anybody remember the brouhaha over Sambo's Restaurant chain? It was claimed the restaurant was racist because it was based it was based on a story called Little Black Sambo. Problem is, it was a story by an English woman who was living in India with her husband and their two young daughters. They were traveling by train, and the mother came up with the story to amuse her daughters. But Black in this case referred to the darker-complected Indians, not Africans. The English have a tendency to call anyone who was even slightly darker than their pallid selves Black. The last time I ate at a Sambo's, it was the 60s and the fuss over it hadn't yet materialized. I remember panels on the walls in the dining area, showing a plainly Indian boy, though he was light-skinned, in scenes from the story. I have read the story any number of times; I have seen it illustrated with a Black child, and with an Indian child.
Bottom line, anyone who screams something is racist is racist themselves. And I bet they don't even know the background of what they criticize.