All the feels.
November 26, 2014 3:50 AM   Subscribe

A long-form essay from The Toast (of which you may have read) about life and grieving and gentleness and joy and ... look, just read it: No Matter How Your Heart Is Grieving: Disney for the Sad
posted by Joe in Australia (26 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh.

"I start to cry."

I know the feeling. This is funny and moving and compassionate and surprising. Thanks a lot for posting it.
posted by billiebee at 4:26 AM on November 26, 2014


Oh, that was lovely.
posted by halcyonday at 4:29 AM on November 26, 2014


What a wonderful find!

"It's like being tickled gently by Cthulhu." Disney in one sentence. I'm getting this put on a t-shirt.
posted by Mogur at 4:50 AM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


"It is very easy to think while you are reading Baudrillard that you are too good for Disney World, but you are not."
posted by dnash at 4:54 AM on November 26, 2014 [9 favorites]


I noticed a lot of the same things on our trip in August. (This very minute I hear a six year-old belting out "Let it Go" through the bathroom walls!)

Lots of people use a trip there as a goal or reward after hard times, and it is surprising the agility with which the Giant Money Vacuum Machine can pivot and become a very focused source of patience and compassion. I think a lot of that is the Cast; I found it to be very affecting.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:57 AM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


I ... hmmm. With reluctance, I read all the way to the end. I'm not charmed by it; he lost me here: In Disney World, every courtesy is extended the overweight.

I mean, I know it's The Toast, so he's writing to their market, but there are a lot more of us who aren't from Williamsburg than are from it. I found his view of the rest of us -- the non-cool, I guess he's think of us -- so off putting that his big 'emotional breakthrough' at the end just didn't resonate. But maybe that's because we're one of those non-hip 'working families' that he clearly thinks Disney is designed exclusively for.
posted by anastasiav at 5:18 AM on November 26, 2014


I am not really familiar with Baudrillard, does he say a lot about the rides looking rubbish and long queues? What is it in his work that would lead one to suddenly think that about Disney World?
posted by biffa at 5:26 AM on November 26, 2014


and yes, beautiful or handsome, too—hateful people can definitely be pretty, it’s just that beloved people can’t be ugly

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
posted by Billiken at 5:29 AM on November 26, 2014


(OK, he also claimed that no one begrudges the scooters, which is patently untrue -- but I gave him a mulligan on that one.)
posted by wenestvedt at 5:51 AM on November 26, 2014


I am not really familiar with Baudrillard, does he say a lot about the rides looking rubbish and long queues? What is it in his work that would lead one to suddenly think that about Disney World?

He wrote a few essays about Disney World/Land I think. It's a ready example of his ideas of hyperreality and simulacra.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:22 AM on November 26, 2014


My recollection is that Baudrillard isn't as negative about Disney as this article makes it sound. It's the best example of what it does, and that's impressive no matter how you look at it.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:37 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


I will never see Disney World in this life.
posted by sneebler at 6:54 AM on November 26, 2014


I found this essay affecting and loathsome about equally. On the one hand, it's a powerful description of the real and not-to-be-sneezed-at compensations offered by the emotional oases consumer capitalism constructs in its own desert. On the other hand, the glibness of the essay's lip service to anything like a critical view of Disney World and what it represents is aggravating to say the least. "A ruthless corporate machine dedicated to the shameless commodification of human feelings, sure, sure, but...I cried."

It is very easy to think while you are reading Baudrillard that you are too good for Disney World, but you are not.

Every human being is too good for Disney World.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 7:01 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Inaction is my only real victory, but it is mine, however small.

yep, I'd cry too.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:05 AM on November 26, 2014


"Inaction is my only real victory, but it is mine, however small."

yep, I'd cry too.


I took this to be a reference to the fact that he didn't act on his suicidal feelings.
posted by billiebee at 7:15 AM on November 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


emotional oases consumer capitalism constructs in its own desert.

As much as people would like to blame all ills in this world on neoliberal capitalism, most of the problems portrayed in this piece would still go on. Even if the corporate state would be smashed tomorrow, people would still have chronic heart conditions, surgeries that went bad, suicidal tendencies, and family members that die. Little kids are still going to get cancer in whatever future you can imagine.

It is very easy to think while you are reading Baudrillard that you are too good for Disney World, but you are not.

Every human being is too good for Disney World.


I think that a lot of people are too good for Disney. A lot of people have the support structures that makes this corporate based support and comfort manufactured reality irrelevant. But as the article point out, there are plenty who don't. And I begrudge no one their solace, for the road is hard and the night is long for everyone.
posted by zabuni at 7:40 AM on November 26, 2014 [14 favorites]


the glibness of the essay's lip service to anything like a critical view of Disney World and what it represents is aggravating to say the least

I just returned from three days at Disneyland and this essay resonated with me deeply because while you're there, in the park, you have to manage your two minds that are racing about everything in front of you all the time. Walt Disney was a terrible person to women and people of color and it shows up almost everywhere at the parks, but you're also having a lot of fun at the same time so you sit there going "boy it's awful how every woman is portrayed in these rides as only either shrill, overweight or an impossibly thin virgin but wow the level of detail is insane and my god this is actually pretty fun even if I want to hate it."

I had the most cognitively dissonant moment in my life when I was walking around Cars Land, this world painstakingly reproduced from a 3D movie that never physically existed that is an ode to the automobile and american culture and all the good midcentury cheap-gas feelings it entailed, while simultaneously refreshing Twitter and trying to hear the live Ferguson decision as it was being revealed in real-time. Disney Parks are joy within sadness and disturbing yet fun experiences from end to end and you can never separate the two.

The other wacky thing is I take my family to Disneyland about once every 1-2 years and we schedule these things months in advance, but like clockwork, just before the trip, some personal life catastrophe takes place and I'm often in a deep depression by the time we head to the parks (or we go to Disneyland after yet another Southern California funeral when we have a day or two of downtime after the event). And yet, no matter how down my body and brain are, being looped in a rocketing rollercoaster will make me uncontrollably smile for the first time in weeks and I have to hand it to the park designers that the little endorphin and dopamine hits are welcome and always lift my spirits and make the trips ultimately worth it. I don't go to the parks as therapy, but by coincidence, the trips coincide with times I really need to talk to a therapist and work amazing as stand-ins to remind me of why life is worth living and the park designers did something right when I can come out of my life's deeper funks after just a few rides.
posted by mathowie at 7:58 AM on November 26, 2014 [18 favorites]


These are the Times when I think of harm reduction, you can see the good and bad in things like this, be devoted to making positive changes and want to find a way to keep or reinstate the good in things like this. my phone capitalized Times just to make me sound more profound and deep. I mean say we do minimize capitalism or restructure things, focus more heavily on diversity and equality ans awareness of impacts to the environment and humans in production and design of theme parks/movies, and ensure they are available to everyone rather than only those with enough money, I think there would still be a lot of good there people would want. And if you believe in the power of redemption, maybe even some of, maybe not all or even most, but some companies themselves may be capable of transformation, restructuring and new growth, actually living the spirit of love they claim to be portraying at times.
posted by xarnop at 8:43 AM on November 26, 2014


On the Disney-related Feels-o-Meter, where 1 is a feminist thinkpiece about Frozen and 10 is Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney, this is maybe a 6. Though that might be related to how high the bar has been set.
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:14 AM on November 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


A young man, speaking in a very routinized way with speech patterns that closely match the “Rain Man” characterization of autism, asks me the date of my birth. I tell him, and his eyes flicker. “That was a Friday.”

When I ask the group which Disney character they most identify with, the same student, now enlivened, says Pinocchio and eventually explains, “I feel like a wooden boy, and I’ve always dreamed of feeling what real boys feel.”


I MEAN

COME ON

WHO CAN COMPETE WITH THAT

(silent tears streaming down face)
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:31 AM on November 26, 2014 [8 favorites]


This was such a good article. I almost posted it yesterday but I was on my phone and didn't bother. The line about gentleness came the closest to anything I've read to conveying why I keep going back to Disneyland.
posted by town of cats at 12:09 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


"Your dad just died. What are you going to do next?"
"WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!"

No, seriously, we buried my dad, had lunch, and then hopped in the car to drive to Disneyland. We have pictures of us being on Main Street in our funeral wear. I HIGHLY recommend doing such a thing. No regrets.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:45 PM on November 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Omg Juliet Banana I am sitting here at work trying not to let my co-nerds troubleshooting a router know I'm crying
posted by infinitewindow at 3:30 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm really happy this got posted, because Sam and Pam are friends of mine from grad school, so I couldn't do it. They are lovely, lovely people, and I wish them every happiness this brought them. I have spent two of my birthdays at Disney World (husband's family is from north Florida and we visit then because it's the week before Christmas) and this essay very much captures the conflict I feel at the intersection between corporate greed and a smile born of possibly genuine (possibly manufactured) gentleness.

It's certainly important to recognize whether or not what makes us happy hurts other people. However, this article makes me think about the astonishing amount of time we spend today apologizing for our own happiness.
posted by ilana at 9:02 PM on November 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


I hate to be that contrarian asshole who dislikes what everyone else enjoys but ... I really liked this article! It was the sort of insightful, personal analysis of capitalism in society that was published in The Baffler back in the '90s. The contrarian bit: I usually don't like the articles from The Toast that people post here; they always seem to be written in that tedious "cleverly illiterate" shtick (and, yes, I feel the same way about Pogo). So thanks to the author and JoeInAustralia for converting me.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:49 PM on November 26, 2014


Reminds me of the many many Tumblr anecdotes about the cast, especially Peter Pan, going out of their way to be kind to people.
posted by SassHat at 1:59 PM on November 28, 2014


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