94 Days: More Moana Costume Drama

I was going to write a nice little piece about the new artwork released today detailing the quick service restaurant coming to the new Toy Story Land in Hollywood Studios. I even had the photo saved and the article I was going to reference pulled up. Then I saw this.

Maybe Don't Dress Your Kid Up As Moana This Halloween

It's in Cosmopolitan Magazine (which my friend says is "the first hint that it's crap") but was written by the editors of Redbook. And it really IS crap. But it's worse than that. It's truly racist. Let me explain.

The Redbook editors are using the cultural appropriation argument here. They say that since Moana is a Pacific Islander no one but other Pacific Islanders should be able to dress up like her, or wear things meant to mimic or evoke the whole Pacific Islander motif. They reference an article on another website written by a mom who was worried that her daughter's preference for either an Elsa or Moana costume left her to choose between reinforcing "white privilege" (Elsa) or cultural appropriation. She clearly thinks the later is much worse.

The argument is that dressing up in another culture's traditional garb is making fun of that culture, like wearing blackface was a way for white actors to make fun of African Americans. But kids' Halloween costumes aren't blackface. More importantly, kids aren't racist. Unless they are taught to be, kids just don't see things that way. And that is where the problem lies.

Children want to dress as Moana because they admire her. She's strong and smart and independent, so this is a good thing.....in the sane world. When you tell your child that dressing as a person from another culture is wrong, you are planting the seeds of racism. You are teaching your child that superficial differences (like skin pigmentation and the latitude and longitude of your birthplace) are more important than the qualities (like courage and resourcefulness and independence) that your child admires in her heroine. You are, in essence, quoting the standard White Supremacist dogma and that makes you a bad parent. And, if I might add, a bad person.

Lately Disney has done a great job making the Princesses in its movies much more than just pretty faces. They have given us warriors and leaders and heroes for our daughters to admire. They have drawn on the rich traditions of Ireland and Norway and China and Polynesia and our own New Orleans to create stories that speak to all of us, that show us that heroes can look like anyone and can come from anywhere. To try to reverse that progress with holier than thou, wrong-headed, ignorant and small-minded virtue signalling is horrible.

96 Days: Epcot Rumors

The whole post-a-day thing may not be exactly happening. But I'll try :-)

So Epcot just turned 35 and is in need of some love. The festivals have been great, but Future World is a shadow of its former self and the World Showcase hasn't seen a new pavilion in many moons. The Walt Disney top brass has promised a huge investment in Epcot over the next several years, big to the tune of billions of dollars, but has been pretty vague about the specific plans. As far as World Showcase is concerned we are to get a new Ratatouille attraction in France for sure, but nothing else has been confirmed.

This has left the rumor mills turning at full tilt. Two new national pavilions have been rumored to be pretty safe bets, Spain and Brazil. But Spain was to include a ride based on Gigantic, a planned re-telling of the Jack and the Beanstalk story set in Spain, and Gigantic has been scuttled. Will Spain survive?

An article I read a couple days ago (and I can't for the life of me remember what blog posted it) says no. This is a bit of a bummer from the perspective of wanting more countries represented, but it leaves money in the budget for other things, and those things are interesting.

Brazil is apparently on track, but will not feature an attraction. Its big draw will be a Brazilian Steakhouse, which is fine by me. The problem this leaves, because of the loss of Spain, is one of crowd flow/control. Disney Imagineers want an attraction in the space between Norway's Frozen and France's Ratatouille and that was to be Spain's Gigantic. Now they are looking at existing pavilions in which to build a ride and Japan has risen to the top of the list. One option is a Matterhorn-style coaster based upon Mt. Fuji. This was part of the original plan for the Japan pavilion so it stands to reason it's still on the board. But the other option is the one I'm excited for. Big Hero 6!

Big Hero 6 did well in theatres, the meet and greet with Baymax is popular and the franchise has a new cartoon on the Disney XD channel that is also performing well. The characters tie in well with Japan. I think it's a winner. LEt's see if the Imagineers think the same thing!

98 Days: Disney Tear-jerker

OK, so I missed my second, MY SECOND, post of this series. I'm a mess. But you want to know what really made me a mess? Reading this article about a foster mom's attempt to bring joy into her new daughter's life.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/uplift/foster-child-finds-joy-disney-world_2337794.html

99 Days: 2017 Edition

I enjoyed the blog-post-a-day for the final 100 days of my last Disney countdown, so I'm going to give it another try!

Today is double-digit day, a momentous occasion to be sure. I think I'll celebrate by purchasing tickets to the Secrets of the Empire hyper-reality experience for the Saturday we'll be down there. I was looking on the sales website and one of the time slots is already sold. Now, there are A LOT of time slots, they book every 15 minutes, but still I don't want any surprises.

This whole booking/reserving things month in advance strikes some as weird. It works for me as planning is a lot of the fun in my case and this makes the vacation-spirit fill my life for  along time before the vacation truly begins. My parents are down this week and asked if we'd like to go to Disney World with them sometime in 2019. That's over a year away and the planning gears are already chugging away in my brain. With Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opening sometime in 2019, this trip will benefit from as long range as plan as I can make. I'm looking forward to it :-)

Dis Countdown

110 Days.

Finally have a Disney Countdown again. Lately I'm just not....right....without concrete plans for visiting my Happy Place. But now I have reservations and tickets and all is right in the world.

We'll be taking another long weekend with just the lovely Lisa and I and, as usual, we'll be trying out a few firsts. Well, one is a first for Lisa but just a "been a LONG time" for me. We'll be tent camping at Fort Wilderness. It'll be late January, so it won't be hot and fingers crossed it won't be too cold. The usual weather for that weekend is highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s, so I am pretty confident we'll be comfortable. Our gear is rated for below freezing, so I'm not worried about sleeping at all. In any case, we'll have fun. I'm very excited to introduce Lisa to the camping thing, especially in The Fort.
This will actually be Lisa's second time at Fort Wilderness, but the first was a stay in the Wilderness Cabins with my family as a graduation from college gift from my folks (who, by the way, are THE BEST for doing that).

Another first for us will be attending the Disney After Hours event. We will likely leave here after work Thursday and drive most of the way down, planning to finish our trip and get to WDW around lunch time Friday. The After Hours event allows you entry to the Magic Kingdom at 7 pm with three hours in the park after it closes to the public at 8:00 and our tickets are for Friday night. From everything I've heard this is a pretty incredible time. They only sell a few thousand tickets which leaves the park pretty much empty. The attractions are almost all open and according to a friend who did this last year, they are all walk-ons all night. As an added bonus, popcorn, ice cream snacks and drinks are complimentary all night. I'm looking for forward to seeing this for myself!

We're planning to spend Saturday at Disney Springs enjoying the food and cocktails and shopping and hopefully experiencing the immersive, virtual reality Star Wars experience that is scheduled to open by the end of this year.  Called Secrets of the Empire and created by a company called The Void (who've also created a similar experience themed after the Ghostbusters in New York City) the experience will transport you into a Star Wars universe you can touch and interact with during an original story. It's not like anything I've ever done and I am itching to try it out.

With any luck The Edison will be open in Disney Springs by then along with it's underground component. That underground bar was originally rumored to be a Neverland-themed secret kind of Lost Boys lair thing but now is supposedly going to be modeled after rum running tunnels that presumably fit well into the Disney Springs backstory. We'll see. The whole thing sounds right up our alley, so I'm hoping the Fall 2017 opening projection means it will be ready by late January.