On Disneyland

Greetings, readers.


On Saturday, I arrived home from a weeklong stay at my grandfather's house in California. You know those moments in time that end and you can't believe they're already over, but when you look back on everything that transpired in them you wonder how they could possibly feel so short? This trip was one of those moments. I feel like I only just left home until I really stop and think about all we did. It was amazing, seeing grandpa, wading in the ocean, visiting San Diego, etc., but the high point of the trip was probably the two days we spent at Disneyland and California Adventure (for those not in the "know", California Adventure is a second amusement park situated across a courtyard from Disneyland).


Even before we left for California, I knew I wanted to write a post about Disneyland. The only question was what to write. I'm going to go ahead and start with the highlights. They included:


- Walking on to Splash Mountain (and I mean seriously walking on, we waited for a total of maybe 30 seconds at the loading area) (and if you've ever been to Disneyland and ridden Splash Mountain, you know what a shockingly awesome occurrence that is)
- A completely unplanned and unexpected singalong with a pirate band on the raft ride back from Tom Sawyer's island (Tom Sawyer's island was a sort of "what the hey, let's just go check it out" detour while we waited for some Fast Passes to become valid, but boy were we glad we went; there was an upright bassist, a fiddler, a guitarist, and a flutist, all very talented, who led the crowded raft in a call-and-response drinking song that my whole family's been singing off-and-on ever since)
- Going into Innovations for the first time ever and about having a full-on fangirl spasm right there in front of everybody because of the lifesize replicas of every Ironman suit prominently featured in the movies (forgetful person that I am, it wasn't until the second day that I remembered Disney owns Marvel)
- Sitting on a garden hose while looking up at the place the hose connected to the water supply and feeling roughly two millimeters tall (but more on that later)
- My souvenir (I'll get back to that too)


But now on to what this post is actually going to be about. I don't remember exactly when the idea hit me, but it was sometime in the course of the first morning, and I've been mentally building this post since (in other words, it had better be good).


Throughout the two days, my father and grandfather (but especially my grandfather) often joked about the parks' miserliness, and I joined in. My dad shared his experience of being able to produce only $12.55 of a $12.57 bill and having to use a card instead of cash because the cashier refused to float him the two cents. "Well, dad, keep in mind that this is a struggling small business," I said. "They have to redeem every penny they can." We all laughed. This is how I communicate with my family: in jokes and good-natured mockery and sarcasm. I'm glad of it and I love them for it, but I'll confess there were times I felt a bit depressed by the picture we were painting. Disneyland is supposed to be the happiest place on Earth, not some uncompromising money-hoarding machine. In half the souvenir shops I ducked into, I overheard someone commenting on the prices of the items for sale, and frankly I agreed with them. Disneyland and California Adventure's tickets and purchasable items and food and everything are far from cheap, and oftentimes seem ridiculously overpriced. Add in other things, like the fact that characters from Disney's animated films have been added to the It's A Small World ride (which really annoys me much more than it should), or that some beautiful statues of Arial and Triton have been removed from the area in front of Fantasyland to make room for the weird Pixie Hollow walkthrough (random unnecessary aside: I hate the Pixie Hollow movies and if I ever watch one all the way through, it will only be The Pirate Fairy and it will only be because Tom Hiddleston is voicing Hook in that movie). To deviate from the park itself for a moment, the Disney Channel is a horrifying mess, and in my opinion even the animated films are gradually losing their innocence and magic.


In short, it feels like Disney is losing its soul.


But this week, in the park, despite all my joshing and irritation, I refused to believe that. It sure does a lot to convince me, but I simply will not view the Disney franchise as a corporate sellout. Not yet. After all, isn't one of Disney's big ideas looking beyond the appearance of things? Heck, my favorite animated Disney movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is all about that. (Come to think of it, my second favorite animated Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph, basically is as well. Do you think that says something deeply profound about my psyche?) (Second random unnecessary aside: when are they adding a Hunchback ride to Disneyland? I WANT A HUNCHBACK RIDE. Or attraction. Or SOMETHING.) (But I digress.)


I think that my favorite place in all of Disneyland is an easily missed little niche tucked it on one side of Sleeping Beauty's castle. It's not a ride or an "attraction", it's not a shop or a show. It's just a waterfall, decorated with finely made white statues of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. In the pool that the fall tumbles into, three stone fish on a simple mechanism pop out of the water, spin in a few circles while spouting fountains from their mouths, re-submerge, and repeat. On the walkway in front of the waterfall is a wishing well clearly modeled after the one at the beginning of Snow White that always has a layer of coins covering its floor. Painted around the top of the well is the inscription "Your wishes go to help children everywhere", referencing Disney's custom of donating all the money collected in the parks' various water features to charities.


Really, you could look at this little area as Disneyland's soul. Here it houses its beginning, Snow White, and here it houses its promises, its themes of charity and love and, perhaps most importantly, of wishes. Because, at it's heart, that's what Disneyland is. It's a wish, it's a dream, born in the mind of one of the most brave and imaginative people ever to change the world, grown and embodied and evolved over the years into the massive presence it is now. It's changed, and it's darkened, and it's lost some of its magic; such is the cost of existing in our world. But deep down, in its center, it's still just the beautiful realization of a wish, and as long as that niche exists in Disneyland, I will be incapable of seeing it as anything otherwise.


Now, I know this post is already insanely long, but I'm only about halfway done, so grab a drink or something and sit tight, because all that money is actually recognizing something, or really two very similar somethings: creativity and genius.


As I said a few paragraphs ago, one of my highlights was sitting on a garden hose and feeling two millimeters tall. That happened in California Adventure, in a section of the park the name of which I suddenly can't remember that is based on the movie A Bug's Life. A short journey through a structure that looks exactly like the inside of a cereal box deposits visitors in a world of straws twice the height of humans and lights fashioned to look like lightning bugs. The gigantic garden hose winds all over. One section of it is clearly meant to serve as a bench, winding around the place the hose connects to the ground, where a few tiny "leaks" spray water all over the ground, creating a play fountain that no child could resist romping in (a fact I saw evidence of when a small boy came by and stared in wonder at it before running through the water). We came to this place on the afternoon of the first day. By that time, I was growing tired and my feet were growing unbearably achy, so I seated myself comfortably on the hose and just started at the tiny waterfalls while munching on a churro. After a while, I really did feel tiny.


Also in California Adventure is the newly constructed Carsland. I have no love whatsoever for the movie Cars and was far from enthusiastic about the idea of visiting a land based on it, but even I had to admit I was impressed by the flawless replication of Radiator Springs that I entered. I felt like I was walking into a movie. I had the same feeling while waiting in line for the Indiana Jones ride; the sets and props are unarguably masterfully made. There are even more examples, like the animatronics in the Fantasyland-style rides of both parks. The It's a Small World ride was completely redesigned, inside and outside, for the holiday season. Disneyland's main street, from the layout to the false fronts, looks just how I imagine an old-style city. California Adventure's main street is a perfect recreation of an early twentieth century California street.  And do I even need to mention the freakin' French Quarter? The designers and architects employed by Disney are undoubtedly people of great creativity, ingenuity, perfectionism, and above all dedication, and, in my opinion, the admission price is excusable, because by paying it we pay homage to their hard work.


The souvenir I selected from California Adventure reflects a similar idea. It's a book of paintings, sketches, and digital renderings of the Disney princesses. Some of them are excellent copies of the original animation. Others are complete reimaginings. One drawing depicts Aurora leaning down to waken a sleeping Prince Phillip. Another shows Belle in an armored yellow jumpsuit balancing on the shoulder of a massive robotic Beast. Elsewhere in the book, Belle appears in a painting modeled on a famous painting of Madame Pompadour (the fact that I'm a Whovian immediately made this one one of my favorite images in the book). If I had to choose an overall favorite painting, I would find it quite a difficult choice, but I might select the extremely colorful and stylistic one of Mulan which I believe is intended to reflect traditional Chinese artwork, or perhaps the cover drawing in which the outline of Snow White's face is made with flower buds and leaves. Whatever my favorite, each image is beautiful, even the ones I dislike. Why?


Because each is a celebration of creativity and originality and new ideas, which I think is and always has been the Disney Company's point. They take old stories and change them and release them, for better or for worse, but certainly for forever. For all its commercialism and expense, Disneyland is still beautiful, because Disneyland is brilliant. It's movies made real and fairytales made believable. Disneyland is a dream, a thousand dreams, all come true.


I guess that's why they call it the happiest place on Earth.


~Pearl Clayton