"Important fantasies we can escape to..."

You can find a lot of behind the scenes stuff at Disney parks on youtube.

David,

That actually makes a bit of sense out of the refusal to cooperate with a photography project such as Simon's.

Kamilla

Having participated in a Nutcracker production locally (as a parent of dancers) I can assure you that the idea of "preserving the magic" is very important to fantasy entertainment, and I don't see anything creepy about it. In a relatively simple production like I was involved in, it mostly consisted of strictly forbidding any dancer in costume from appearing anywhere other than backstage while the audience was in the house, and discouraging anyone not directly related to the production from going backstage before the dancers were out of costume. When you are trying to create fantastic "magic" for people to enjoy, just as giant Christmas trees rising out of the floor, beautiful dancers dressed as snowflakes, and the like, you really don't want people looking at dancers putting blister tape over their feet, costume mistresses sewing people up into hastily finished costumes with thread and staples, property managers rigging up special effects, and so forth. This is all the more true when it is a fantasy oriented toward children.

If Disney's product of imaginary, fantastic magic is at all legitimate to begin with, then it doesn't seem amiss that they want to protect the magical mystery of it all.

I heard that the man who plays Big Bird on Sesame Street once came out to see his grandchildren wearing only the bottom half of the costume, and they all burst into tears. He decided that Big Bird is a real person to children, and seeing a man's body with Big Bird waist, legs and feet would be like seeing your dad's head on your mom's body. They instituted a strict policy about no child ever seeing half a costume.

I know there's a larger point here, but I'm not catching it.

I worked at Disneyland [Anaheim] the summer of '72. Wore costumes, went into employee areas behind the scenes, etc. It was all so unremarkable, I can't even picture what any of it looked like. Seen one Break Room, you've seen them all...

I was quite sad to find out on a recent trip back that the "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" submarines were now something to do with to Finding Nemo, and the "Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse" was now occupied by Tarzan, among other undesirable "upgrades." I preferred escaping to the original fantasies.