|
Barracuda, Stingrays, and Sharks, Oh My!
(continued)
On this same day (yes, it was a busy day!), yet another friend was doing the
parasailing excursion on Disney's private island. He had a great time. He
explained to me later that this was the ideal time to do it. After all, he
trusts Disney.
Would he place that kind of trust in any old motorboat operator
back in Huntington Beach? Heck no. He figured that if Disney trusted them, he
would too. This was still true despite a scary moment when he was hooked up, and
two bolts "broke" on the parasailing rig (he tried to explain it to me, but
without seeing it, I couldn't quite follow it). He was hesitant, but still
trusted in Disney.
It's that trust which stuck around in my mind. People really do trust Disney.
They trust that the movies with the Disney label (not the Hollywood Pictures or
Touchstone label) will be family friendly. They trust that the parasailing will
be safe. And they trust that the shark nets will make this ocean perfectly safe.
A Disney-fied ocean, if you will.
When you get right down to it, Disney only has itself to blame for people
thinking they can trust the company like that. Ever since Disneyland threw open
its doors, Disney has cultivated this very image of a "bottled reality." It
looks like a sanitized version of reality sometimes (think Fantasyland, which
takes the European village concept and idealizes it), and at other times it
tries to capture the grittiness of reality (think Disney's Animal Kingdom,
especially the lands of Africa and Asia, which revel in the cluttered, tattered,
worn-in look of exotic countries).
If you're going to parasail, might as well
pick Disney. They're the safest, right?
And in even more recent years, Disney has slid increasingly down the road
away from sanitized/idealized, and toward gritty reality. It's still "bottled
up," but it's a more authentic experience. Look at the major initiatives by the
Parks and Resorts division (Jay Rasulo and his domain). They haven't been to
open new parks that celebrate sanitized reality. Rather, Jay has been promoting
Adventures by Disney, a Disney-led tour of "real" locales around the world that
people seem not to want (to judge by the lack of sold-out dates), yet Disney
continues to push anyway.
And the noise recently about Night Kingdom, a rumored (and probably really
proposed) boutique park to WDW that would entertain only a few hundred visitors
per operating day (well, operating evening) and charge a lot of money to do
things like explore caves, climb mountains, and ride ziplines. Sound familiar?
It's the move toward "authentic" experiences simply taken to the next level.
If the nurse shark is so harmless, why do they
want us to keep it quiet?
As Disney transitions away from the idealized/sanitized (and I for one wish
they would stop this insane transition), they need to be cautious about the
brand. People know and love Disney because its very name is synonymous with safe
family entertainment.
Castaway Cay, with its shark net and the lagoon connected to the real ocean,
represents one such moment when they moved away from "sanitized" and envisioned
a more "authentic" experience. But authentic means sometimes authentically
dangerous. Sharks, stingrays, and barracuda?
Just what ARE they building on Castaway Cay?
I find myself wishing they would just build a jetty and completely enclose
the snorkeling lagoon. Make it a giant outdoor saltwater aquarium, rather than
connected to the real ocean. At least then it would be safe.
I, for one, will not be snorkeling in the lagoon any time soon. Frankly, I
don't feel safe for the first time, despite feeling completely so in the past.
They reap what they sow. As Disney moves from an idealized and sanitized
reality toward gritty and authentic experiences, this is exactly the kind of
friction to be expected. I won't be surprised if this isn't the last time we'll
hear of complaints like this.
|
