"Well, the beaver is also our god. In retrospect, it was a poor choice."
Posted on 01/23/2009 8:15:05 AM PST by Mikey76
During our family’s recent vacation to sunny Florida, my wife and I had the opportunity to enjoy the magic of Disney’s Epcot park without our children. We enjoyed the rides and shows and the variety of cultural experiences to be found there. There was one show, however, that irritated me not a little. It was a movie billed as the “Circle of Life-an Environmental Tale” and was hosted by those lovable characters from the Lion King, Simba, Pumba and Timor. Al Gore himself might have nominated it for his Oscar.
The film begins with our three heroes enjoying their little piece of paradise on the African plain. Pumba and Timor, however, have dammed up the stream to create a lake. When Simba asks why, Timor unrolls the plan for the “Akuna-Matada Super Resort” the two friends were going to create around their new lake. They were going to make boatloads of money. Simba shakes his head and tells them a story about another species that wanted to follow the same path of money grubbing progress.
The tale begins with pictures of man in his hunter-gatherer state where he was one with nature and only took what he needed from the earth. Then they settled down and built cities and soon multiplied like locusts and spread across the plant like a plague, destroying the earth as they went. Of course there were the obligatory pictures of smokestacks, burning oil wells, traffic jams, sewage and oils spills with shiny, black birds. Timor and Pumba are horrified and swear they will never be like that. They knock down the dam, which was causing an environmental catastrophe downstream, and vow to help the poor stupid humans clean up their act.
Does anyone other than me see the problem here? We were watching this environmental lecture in one of several resorts run by Disney. Resorts that created the scar in central Florida that is Orlando. Timor and Pumba dammed a stream, Disney dammed up the Everglades. How much water and energy does Disney and the the surrounding resorts use in their pursuits? And the bit about the oil companies-if it wasn’t for the oil companies making gas to put in all the cars that clog up Interstate 4 and bring tourists to fill up parking lots, Disney wouldn’t be able to charge each of those cars twelve dollars to park and seventy five for the privileged of being lectured. We constantly hear about the environmental impact of “Big Oil” but what about “Big Amusement Park and Resort”? Central Florida would be nothing without Disney and the environmental impact of all those parks, resorts and the surrounding communities is arguably larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Has not their success resulted in just as much environmental damage as the poor farmers in Brazil who are cutting down the rain forest?
I’m not opposed to entertainment. I love a good show and a fast roller coaster as much as the next guy. And yes. we need to be good stewards of the environment and man’s greed and waste has done a lot of damage and we should do better. But listening to Disney lecture me about environmental responsibility is like listing to a prostitute lecture about safe sex.
Do as they say, not as they do
Disney bases almost all stories on the evil white-male. You will rarely find a movie, especially recently, that in not based on the terrible deeds of an evil white-male.
I’m glad my kids are teens and not into disney anymore...my daughter does watch the disney channel from time to time for some of the shows but for the most part we are done with buying all crap Disney.
Disney has become such a leftist company. Walt must be spinning in his grave.
The environmental movement, for the most part, is just a political ploy designed to amass money and power.
Yes, it's true that the evil white male is a staple of Disney now, but so is the sluttish teenage girl, the valorization of vice, and many other things.
What a disgraceful comedown for a once-valued brand.
The Soviets had their Ministry of Culture.
We have the Disney Corp.
I got mine, so everyone else should stop building, leaving my McMansion in a pristine setting.
If white women would reject the “evil white men” story lines, Disney would be out of business...but they don’t.
I have always called Disney the “All Orphan Network”
You can never watch a Disney movie (even the old ones) that doesen’t have a storyline either void of parents, parents killed, or parents evil as part of the main plot.
Try thinking of one?
Sesame Street is collective socialism at it's best?? and Disney is the sexual revolution for 8 - 12 year olds ... 'maturing' into Brittany STDpears.
Later on I heard about the queer days that Disney promoted.
No, thank you.
The Incredibles.
too-shay
"Well, the beaver is also our god. In retrospect, it was a poor choice."
They run Reed Creek facilities, too.
Guy takes his family to Disney World for a great vacation and then ends up blaming Disney for “the scar” that is Orlando?
Lighten’ up Francis.
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