It was one for you...it was three for me It was very nice...it was everything So here it is...in little pieces...

 

Hey, LOOK, I cracked the code! Literally! I figured out how to do embeds on Blogger! I feel like a GOD (lol).

All kidding aside, I really do feel accomplished (and maybe more than I should hahaha).

There's just been something I have been thinking about a lot recently. Like I stated in my trip report for my last Disneyland trip, I spent my entire childhood dreaming about Disneyland. Again, I would just wish to reiterate that my childhood and trips to Disneyland once a year being congruent in the same Universe, is honestly pretty remarkable. I know there was a lot of help and sacrifice and elbow grease to make these things happen. As imperfect as things were, and still are, people in my life prioritized family trips like this and making sure there was some semblance of normalcy. I know everyone's circumstances are different, but I think that there is something to be said for prioritizing certain things over others. It's why I don't believe people who make excuses about not being able to go, when they things all of the time for themselves that no one needs(such as commercial-grade espresso machines and Peloton bikes), but I digress. I don't have to keep up with the Joneses and I have no one to impress, so I don't get it. 

To me, Disneyland is not "just a theme park;" Disneyland was one of the few places that I felt safe as a child. I know that this is impossible for people who grew up with two parents, without constant break ins, or being stalked for their entire lives to understand. I know this that this impossible for people who went to private schools and always had food and lived in nice neighbourhoods to understand. People who didn't grow up going to the parks also don't understand this, but winning the birth lottery, too, cannot be understated.

I have been so uncomfortable with a lot of the changes at the US Disney parks, and it isn't because I am some immovable spoiled brat; I am not just talking about the aforementioned Marvelfication of Disney; I am not talking about them repackaging our intergenerational trauma and selling it back to us, pushing the fake shit whilst still continuing to actively hurt marginalized people, although that is certainly part of it. I am not so set in my ways that I am inherently adverse to change. A lot of the changes are just soulless greed ( and so far beyond just the normal corporation-levels of greed) and inherently pointless. A few of them, for whatever reason, have hit pissed off and/ or destabilizing switches in my brain that I have no control over. Yep, that's right, because Disneyland is one of my touchstones for stability, sometimes changes set off destabilizing responses to my brain.

I know a couple other people have expressed this. I also know that they have been viciously mocked for this. Again, I don't understand what purpose that serves? Especially since you can always tell who does an/or does not have any kind of safety or stability-related trauma (and very least  of all who wasn't forced on incompatible psych meds, such as Abilify in the mental health Wild West of the early 2000's, but, again, I digress). I also think that it's very interesting that the people who maliciously ridicule and mock people who might have involuntary trauma responses are the same self-righteous, smug pieces of  absolute shit are the same ones doing Olympian-level of mental gymnastics to praise Disney's clearly superficial and detrimental "inclusion" efforts, but again, I digress. But, please, keep smugly congratulating yourselves (for nothing, I guess? LOL) over the same company that continues to plaster Pocahontas on shit and literally, LITERALLY just donated to Don't Say Gay. Like not even a whole ass complete two months ago. Goin' for the gold, I guess! 🥇

I just want to make it known, as a marginalized person who checks off on many intersections, that the willingness of people whom these issues do not even effect to accept  praise things that are not only wholly superficial, but come off as downright predatory, is absolutely terrifying. Like, pray tell me, who the fuck is this even for?  Because I know damn well this isn't for me.

So, what's going to be my breaking point to finally stop giving them my money? Is it going to be the Don't Say Gay shit? Is it going to be what they recently did to Bobby Driscoll with the fucking vile bullshit Rescue Rangers movie? The fact that Bobby was abused the first time around?!  Let alone the Tenaya Stone Spa bullshit. I don't know. I do know that I of course have my birthday trip to Disneyland. I know that I went not even a few weeks ago. I know that to local economy is actually incredibly dependent on Disneyland and that the cast members, many of whom are also marginalized people, are the first to my punished with underhanded scheduling. Like Amazon, Disney owns just about everything. You want to devest, but how much of that is actually possible? Do we let things be imperfect? Do we ask them to be better?

I mean, it's easy for me to say goodbye to something I didn't really ever care about, like Harry Potter (BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING RIP OFF OF THE WORST WITCH, #JUSTICEFORTHEWORSTWITCH). But what about something your entire life has been built on? What about the marginalized people who saw themselves in the Harry Potter characters and universe because nothing and no one else in their lives was making them feel safe? How is mocking marginalized people using outside means to make themselves feel safe making them feel or be any safer?

Again, I know that this is fucking impossible for people who have never been in these positions to understand. But why be a decent human being, when you can just be a self-righteous piece of shit drinking your $10 latte in New York or sitting in your gated community telling people to "vote blue no matter who" or that asking for Universal Health Care is just asking for "too much." (That's a lot of shit to talk about someone else's idea of stability and safety when you grew up or live in a gated community, but, once again, I fuckin' digress.)

It's not just about Disneyland it's about Disney itself. It's about the man himself. It's about the art. It's about the storytelling. It's about the characters I see myself in as a marginalized person. It's about the books I read and the television that babysat me when I was being neglected, it was about the movies I watched over and over for a sense of stability. I know we shouldn't let corporations and brands define our entire lives (and, again, I have opened myself up for bad faith internet ridicule by even mentioning this, but you have your God of being a self-righteous smug piece of shit on the internet, and I have cartoons that make me happy and feel stable and safe and give me a sliver of serotonin. Poh-tay-toh, Poh-tah-toh).

So, no, I didn't mock people who broke down and cried on Main Street the first day that Disneyland reopened in 2021. No, I don't make fun of people who call Disneyland or Magic Kingdom or Disneyland Paris their "home," because maybe their home is fucking garbage and Disneyland might be the only place where they actually feel safe and happy.  I get it. I get it not only as someone who isn't a piece of shit, I get it as a kid who had fictional characters as friends because she didn't have any real ones. I get it because having somewhere safe and clean you can go back to year after year in a world that is just a litany of disaster and chaos and violence as a normal person would be good enough, but if you have any kind of history of de-stability, how much more important this becomes. 

And if you still cannot understand why people seek external means of stability and comfort and help, maybe acquaint yourself with how much formal means continue to fail us.

I grew up dreaming of Disneyland. I grew up reading the books about the parks and pouring over every picture and every detail. Every night and every week I watched The Ink and Paint Club and Walt Disney Presents that gave me something to look forward to. Disneyland and having the Disney Channel as a kid was one of the only things that made me feel normal. My one modicum of normality.

I don't know how much longer I will keep dreaming of Disneyland. No matter how you slice it, you lose. 

I hope this has not veered too much into "no one asked for this territory"--but this is also my personal blog and not...a formal publication where I expect to be paid, so there's also that.

Anyway, here's Wonderwall.