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| The Magic Kingdom |
The Walt Disney Company is in the image creation business. Americans of all ages relate wholesomeness, innocence and American virtue to its brand, and the company has successfully packaged good feelings and the perception of safety in its theme parks— parks we’d like to believe are the happiest places on earth. Disney’s history is full of unforgettable imagery such as Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Fantasia and The Mickey Mouse Club of 1950s TV fame. The Magic Kingdom, as it is often called, is a carefully designed reality that bears little resemblance to the real world or to the fables and historic events its creators depict. Daniel Boone would not recognize Disney’s version of Davy Crockett.
Disney has become a multi-billion dollar corporation much the same as any other communications giant. The Disney Corporation, like Nike and countless apparel manufacturers, has been exposed for paying pitiful wages to employees in the Third World— through sweatshops in China and Bangladesh.
Like most multinational corporations, Disney has acquired a labyrinth of subsidiaries, including some whose activities (such as producing Hollywood films with lots of sex and violence) do not fit Disney’s carefully cultivated squeaky-clean image. The Walt Disney Company engages in aggressive marketing just like any other corporation, shredding the notion that it is part of a distinctive world of magic and innocence.
For over 80 years Disney has disseminated an unequivocal set of family values and world views. In Disney’s safe and sterile world, good always prevails over evil; and hardship exists
only to dramatize how people live happily ever after. Its corporate acquisitions, mergers, subsidiaries and new start–up ventures have permitted Disney to disseminate its world view across the world of entertainment: film, television and cable broadcast networks, books and music, newspaper and magazine publishing, theater productions, amusement parks, home video, consumer merchandise-- and, of course, the internet.
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| Snow White |
Greenwash by Imagineers
Walt Disney Imagineering is the unique, creative force behind Walt Disney Parks and Resorts that dreams up, designs and builds all Disney theme parks, resorts, attractions, cruise ships, real estate developments, and regional entertainment venues worldwide. Imagineering’s unique strength comes from the dynamic global team of creative and technical professionals building on the Disney legacy of storytelling to pioneer new forms of entertainment through technical innovation and creativity.
The name “Imagineering” combines imagination with engineering. Building upon the legacy of Walt Disney, Imagineers bring art and science together to turn fantasy into reality and dreams into magic. From a Disney website
The Walt Disney Company has crafted an Environmental Policy Statement that defines its commitment to “sustain a positive environmental legacy for Disney and for future generations.” The company’s policy is very well written and hits most of the targets large corporations list as conservation goals. And, in keeping with recent corporate best practices, the policy states that Disney will regularly communicate its progress— presumably as part of its corporate citizenship report.
While Disney is cutting emissions and switching to more efficient energy technologies to shrink its footprint (and to improve their bottom line), the company has not changed its business model. It remains tied to global promotion of travel to its resorts – perhaps the
most environmentally damaging leisure activity on the planet. Disney’s marketers could alter their message and target audiences to reduce the distances traveled and energy burned by its customers. Disney aggressively markets theme parks as international attractions – luring kids and their parents to travel halfway around the globe to commune with Mickey Mouse and leave reality behind for a day or two.
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| Do more than change the bulbs |
Disney has acknowledged that action on climate change is urgent and requires "fundamental changes in the way society, including businesses, use natural resources, and Disney is no exception." Therefore, the company is greening some of its activities, but not its business model. This is the classic definition of greenwash.
Sustaining the Magic Kingdom and its Throw-Away Culture
Supporting the notion that good triumphs over evil and people live happily ever after, it is imperative that nothing die in the Magic Kingdom— except bugs and other vermin. Aging and diseased plants are summarily removed when the park closes, and cauldrons of chemicals curtail weeds and unwanted or unsightly pests. Growth retardants
keep plants within their designated footprint. Hormones and other treatment chemicals are relied upon to entice flowering out of season so the parks are always vibrant with “natural” color no matter the season.
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| Disney's Flowers |
When Disney’s Imagineers create a world, they go all out. Bay Lake sits to the east of Magic Kingdom Park at Disney World. Since the lake’s natural look was not picture perfect, the lake was drained, most of the cypress trees were yanked and cypress bark was scraped from the lake bottom to prevent the reappearance of its unsightly brown tea. Then the white sand beneath the bark was removed to cover the “beaches” along the lake and on Discovery Island and River Country— two theme parks abandoned to rot like ghost towns in the swamp.
Castaway Cay and Treasure Island
Formerly Gorda Cay, Castaway Cay was once a drug runners’port. Disney is said to have spent $25 million to develop the island as a port exclusively for Disney Cruise Line Ships— Disney Wonder, Disney Magic, Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy. Construction took 18 months and included dredging 50,000 truckloads of sand from the depths of the Atlantic
Ocean. The pier and its approaches were constructed to allow Disney ships to dock alongside without the need for tenders to transport passengers ashore. To create the mooring site for the ships, workers dredged sand and blasted through the coral. Not only was the sea bottom altered, but endangered coral was destroyed to create the Disney experience.
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| Abandoned in 1999, but the lights are still lit. |
Even worse, Disney had already partially developed and then abandoned a 90 acre tract of land in the Abaco Islands in Bahamas which was to have been a cruise ship resort called Treasure Island. A report, by the University of Miami and the College of the Bahamas blames Disney for leaving hazardous materials, electrical transformers and fuel tanks behind. Disney is also blamed for introducing invasive alien plants and insects that threaten the natural flora and fauna of the island. Perhaps that’s what the company considers being green.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District
The Reedy Creek Improvement District is a 40 square mile tract of central Florida land that Walt Disney secretly bought during the early 1960's. Twice the size of Manhattan in area, the district was inhabited by less than fifty people and they were almost entirely Disney executives and their families. And, of course, the governing board of the District is elected solely by these inhabitants, which ensures that Disney retains complete control of this area.
The state of Florida gave the company the right to function as a government. Its rights include the right to levy and collect taxes, to control the planning and zoning of anything built on the property-- with its own building codes and inspectors, the right to run its own
utilities and fire department and the right to control the infrastructure. The district fields its own security force, and has the right, not yet exercised, to build its own airport, schools, cemeteries, police department and nuclear power plant.
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| Reedy Creek Fire & Rescue |
Alexander Wilson, landscape designer and community activist, describes how Reedy Creek sanctioned Walt Disney's willingness to sacrifice reality for the appearance of it. In his book, The Culture of Nature, Wilson wrote of the damage done by Disney to Reedy Creek’s natural environment.
"The park itself is built on a recharge area for the Floridan Aquifer, and the regional development it has encouraged has done irreparable damage to the fragile ecosystem of most of the central and southern part of the state. The wetlands now slated for development are home to many rare and endangered species, among them the bald eagle. The EPA has fined Disney for contaminating these wetlands with toxic waste. The park's sewage effluent exceeds state guidelines, and has been found as far away as the Everglades. Disney had found it cheaper to pay fines than redesign its 'state of the art' engineering systems, much of them funded with public money."
Walt Disney, Control Freak or Profiteer?
So Walt Disney was even willing to throw America’s icon of strength and freedom, the bald eagle, under the bus? This was the man who extolled the American story in almost everything he did— at least his version of the story. In order to make his vision of Disney World and the district a reality, however, it was necessary for him to control everything touching it— the environment, the topography, whatever he wanted to build on it— even the lives of its inhabitants to a certain extent.
Perhaps it was simply Walt Disney’s insatiable hunger for profit at play. It was widely known that he disdained the cheap hotels and restaurants that clustered around Disneyland in Anaheim. They did not fit in the clean and well ordered world he created within the park’s
gates, and they detracted from the experience he wanted to deliver to the American public. Even more offensive to him was the profits generated by others who capitalized on his vision. In its first 10 years, Disneyland was reported to gross $273 million, but the businesses outside the gate grossed $555 million during the same period. He wanted that profit.
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| Walt Disney |
In central Florida, Walt set out to avoid repeating this Anaheim disappointment. He bought up all the land surrounding his planned theme park to achieve total control. The Walt Disney Company set up a roster of dummy corporations in order to buy the land cheaply— and secretly. If the Disney name had been involved with the original purchases, the selling price would have been greatly inflated. It has been estimated that the land is worth more than 10,000 times what Disney paid for it in the early 1960’s.
The Enchanted Shopping Mall
Disney is all about commerce. Visitors are given every opportunity to purchase Disney goods and services. Its theme parks are designed as enchanted shopping malls through the expert use of architecture and decor. The objective is to promote sales and consumption. The layout and structure of Disney theme parks is similar to the typical shopping mall with its external parking lots, kiosks, food courts and hidden infrastructure such as power lines and
other utilities. The Disney experience is incomplete without meals consumed in Disney restaurants, one’s friends and family outfitted with Disney paraphernalia, and a Disney hotel stay— if one can afford it. Once caught up in the entire experience, visitors behave as consumers with little restraint in spending their money.
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| Main Street of the Mall |
Choice within the park is limited— by design. All products and all services in the park are controlled, so that the visitor can only buy what the park offers. Multinational corporations and strategic partners (such as Kodak, Coke, etc.) are featured throughout the Disney mall. Many exhibits in EPCOT, Disney World’s futuristic theme park, are not only sponsored by corporations, but celebrate the aptitude and contribution of these corporations to modern life. Disney’s theme parks showcase thriving corporate wealth, and the consumer paradise that merchants seek-- with advertising and promotion throughout the premises.
Disney, Corporate Citizen
Corporate responsibility is more than issuing a citizenship report and sending press releases touting lofty achievements. If The Walt Disney Company is sincere in its efforts to act responsibly, there are many things the company could do. Among them: stop selling junk— particularly cheap plastic throw-away junk, curtail the use of chemicals, sell only recyclable packaging, put solar banks in the parking lot of theme parks to provide shade for cars, serve organic food, offer reduced price admission to visitors who ride mass transit, stop violating human rights in factories that produce goods off-shore… I’m sure Disney’s Imagineers could come up with a better list, but this could get the ball rolling.
On the other hand, here are some of the good things Disney has done:
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