It brings me great pleasure to go to the various entertainment and theme park websites, including That Park Place, and see that we’re getting back to some degree of business as usual. It’s not that I am against politics or social movements. No, not at all! However, the mixture of Disney — an entertainment company that acts as a gatekeeper some of our most culturally important stories — and controversial politics has put me in the awkward spot of trying to call balls and strikes in a domain that I don’t wish to enter. I want to write about roller coasters and new shows; I don’t want to write about The Walt Disney Company taking a controversial position on breast removal surgery for young teenagers. Nobody wins when we’re in that position. Disney investors don’t win, neutral observers don’t win, fans don’t win… and ultimately, even the ideologues that push for it don’t win. We can see that now.
The goal for the Disney Walkout group was simple. They wanted Disney to face day-after-day of fifteen minute walkouts from employees supporting punishment for the state of Florida over their legislation that prevents gender fluidity and sexual orientation curriculum. A reader sent me a copy of Illinois’ curriculum in this area… one of the standards in their curriculum is to have elementary students recognize the different forms of penetration. That’s the sort of thing that the Florida legislation prevents. While I am not an attorney, one of our writers on TPP is, and it doesn’t seem to me that the Florida legislation prevents any sort of conversation or condones any type of shaming for a kindergartner with two mommies or two daddies. Perhaps the framing by opponents of the bill is not fully accurate? Back to Disney Walkout, however: after the days of fifteen minute walkouts, the big day was yesterday, March 22nd, and they were calling for a full-day walkout protest (they even had instructions for the hours — 8AM to 6PM).
