PJM Lifestyle
How Disney Culture Values Excellence
We live in an era of disposable pop culture. All around us we see vapid reality series, uninspired (and uninspiring) music, movies that are little more than retreads of other bad ideas, and starlets who are famous merely for being famous. Of course, this stuff is not necessarily bad in and of itself – in fact, mindless pop culture can make for some great “guilty pleasure” moments.
The truth is, when any form of entertainment achieves excellence, we notice. Television programs like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, music by artists such as Mumford & Sons and Zac Brown Band, and films like Lincoln and Les Miserables attract attention because they raise the bar in their genre.
The idea of excellence as something for which to strive goes back to the Bible. Jewish and Christian believers alike are aware of the admonishments in Scripture to give our all. In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon advises:
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NIV)
And the Apostle Paul encourages the believers in Colosse:
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Walt Disney himself felt the pull to achieve excellence, in part because his name was on every product the Studio created. He once said, “Anything that has a Disney name to it is something we feel responsible for.” He instilled the value of excellence in his staff as well – he once hailed his staff as “the ones who insist on doing something better and better.” A sign on a construction wall from my last trip to Walt Disney World expresses this value.
Over the course of the next couple of pages, we’re going to take a look at how this value of excellence shows up throughout Disney culture.
Walt Disney’s Fascinating Political Journey
Walt & Lillian Disney with Richard Nixon and his family at Disneyland, 1959
We tend to think of Hollywood as a bastion of leftism, and rightly so. Books like Ron Radosh’s Red Star Over Hollywood demonstrate the deep-seated left wing dominance of the entertainment industry. Even with the leftism prevalent in Hollywood’s Golden Age, many unabashed conservatives found success without compromising their principles, including one of the most creative minds in the business – Walt Disney.
Several biographers and writers that I’ve read have tried to declare that Walt Disney was apolitical, but I find this conclusion not to be true. Diane Disney Miller once said that her father was “kind of a strange figure” politically, and Walt admitted his own political naiveté:
A long time ago, I found out that I knew nothing whatsoever about this game of politics and since then I’ve preferred to keep silent about the entire matter rather than see my name attached to any statement that was not my own.
But plenty of people surrounding Walt Disney knew the truth: that he was conservative to his core. Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” said that Walt’s right-leaning politics made him uncomfortable and that politics drove a rift in their friendship in Disney’s later years. Radical writer Maurice Rapf, who worked on several Disney films, including Song of the South, said, “He was very conservative except in one particular – he was a very strong environmentalist.” However, Walt Disney’s conservatism did not manifest itself until after he had been a businessman for several years.
Walt Disney’s early exposure to politics came from his father, Elias, who was a Socialist – in particular, he followed the philosophy of J. A. Wayland. Wayland created a unique strain of Prairie Socialism in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Daniel J. Flynn, in his book A Conservative History of the American Left, tells of how Wayland “reached Americans with the message [of Socialism] that had been heretofore explained in a German, Yiddish, or Russian accent, but never with a Bible-belt twang.”
Paul Johnson on Walt Disney’s ‘New Form of Miracle Play’
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The Sun Rises Over the Hills As We Make Our Way to DisneyLand…
A snapshot from my cell phone Sunday morning, 7:07 Am, en route from the San Fernando Valley to Anaheim.
During the second half of 2012 my wife April and I fell away from our Spring habit of regular (twice a month, ideally) DisneyLand visits. This last fall the competing burdens of a full load of graduate-level courses, her first teaching assignment, and enduring the pains and fatigues of her Lupus meant that most Sundays we did not make it to the Happiest Place on Earth. So this last month before our passes expire we’ll get in our final trips for awhile. We’ve decided that when my parents start inquiring about our birthday present we won’t ask for another renewal.
As much as we cherish our DisneyLand Sabbaths until we can both get healthier (New Year’s Resolution #6) and April through the rest of her Masters of Fine Arts program we should find other, less strenuous weekend hobbies (New Year’s Resolution #4.)
In the meantime, I’m going to use these Monday, family-oriented blog posts to share some of the Disney and DisneyLand-oriented tips, suggestions, and opinions accumulated in our two years of loyal, proud membership in the Cult of Mickey Mouse.
One aspect of the DisneyLand visit that April and I have now perfected to a science: prioritizing one’s ride selections in order to maximize happiness generated. As April’s Lupus has gradually cut down the amount of time we can spend each visit we’ve learned how to make good use of the time we do have. We time our visits, get in, hit up the best rides quickly, and escape before both the heavy crowds and her Lupus fatigue begin their assaults. We’ve gotten it down so that in 2 hours we can comfortably enjoy the 5 Do-Them-Every-Time Rides:
5. The Haunted Mansion
4. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
3. Indiana Jones Adventure
2. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
1. Pirates of the Caribbean
In next Monday’s family blog post I’ll discuss why we try and do each of these five rides every time we go to DisneyLand and how you can do them all in just 2 hours as we did yesterday…
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Not the Sign You Want to See in Front of Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland
Real Life Superhero Christian Bale Treats 4-Year-Old Cancer Patient and Family to DisneyLand Vacation
via Jayden Meets Batman – 33 News – We Believe in This Valley.
A 4-year-old Boardman boy with terminal cancer and his family were flown to California this week to meet Batman.
Jayden Barber, who was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and his family spent Wednesday with superstar actor Christian Bale, according to a Facebook page post by the family.
“Finally can share!!! Christian sent us to LA and we had lunch at Disney club 33 on wed!! He and his family were so awesome and down to earth!!!,” said a post on Lighting the Batsignal for Jayden page.
The family also posted pictures of Bale posing with the family on the site.
Jayden’s favorite character is Batman, and on Aug. 23 the Caped Crusader visited Jayden at the Boardman football stadium. That day was declared Jayden Barber Day in Youngstown.
Last week, Barber’s family said Jayden was in remission.
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