Guests are reportedly committing acts of vandalism on Walt Disney World property.
This is why we can’t have nice things anymore.
We’ve all seen the diminishment and downright anti-family nature of so many of Disney’s recent themepark developments and announcements. We’ve also seen their endless timetables for new things and alleged reno’s of old ones and generally reacted with dismay and, if the attendance numbers are any indication, rejection of the “less stuff for a lot more money” pricing and perk plans of the park experience in 2025.
The Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island in Walt Disney World – Photo Credit M. Montanaro
But frankly, my friends, we cannot totally absolve ourselves or our peers at the least from the downgrading of the whole experience of going to the parks because, let’s face it, people have been behaving badly in ways that would have been unthinkable not that long ago.
Sure, we’ve seen downright brawls between warring families with security either late to the party or nonexistent. Yep, we’ve seen “drink-around-the-world” people intoxicated to the point of public disgust and not just at EPCOT as more and more cheap-booze-and-faux-fruit-juice $20 cocktails proliferate Disney’s profit. Yes, we’ve seen defecation and worse by guests who no longer seem to have the propriety and social manners of human grownups.
A Closed Sign on the Entrance to Tom Sawyer’s Island – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
We all know that parenting in our modern era hasn’t been what it used to be for so many, and such things resonate through society whether it is in rude behavior in public places, abuse of servers in restaurants and shops, and the endless graphitti-izing of our city streets, businesses, byways, and homes.
But to me, this story says more than it should about how some people have simply lost respect for their surroundings, their fellow citizens and guests, and, by extension, themselves.
The dock at Tom Sawyer Island in Walt Disney World – M. Montanaro
We all know that despite fan anger and frustration, Disney is removing Walt’s classic Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer’s Island from Walt Disney World, with the closing of the area for such “renovation” coming in a few weeks. But in an act of “self-expression” too commonplace in our world and yet glaringly disgusting in what used to be our refuge from that world and reality’s more sharply edged experiences, we now find that “guests” have been defacing the parks by “tagging” them with their own dubiously artistic contributions in pen, ink, and even with knives.
On Tom Sawyer’s Island, in a scene from the original Mark Twain books that school kids used to read but now do not, there is a “Tom Loves Becky” paint work on a fence in mid-whitewash. Or at least it used to be white paint alone. NOW, more than one guest has decided to “improve” it by putting their own names on the paint in red sharpie pen ink and other modern imprimaturs. And if you read further in the article you’ll see where actual living trees in the parks have been carved with initials deeply cutting into the bark.
An image of Tom Sawyer’s Island via DocumentDisney YouTube
My first thought when seeing these incidents was “How long must it have taken them to do this and didn’t anyone else around them object or any cast members intervene before their Walt Disney World vandalism was completed?” Seems not.
People just tolerate this stuff, including people paid to stop it like cast members and security, because confronting such vandals is, I guess, harder than just turning the other cheek. And, yes, Disney itself, in the case of Tom Sawyer’s Island, is about to do more damage as they destroy that part of the park, graphitti and all, so who cares, right?
Spaceship Earth in the evening in EPCOT at Walt Disney World – Photo Credit: Marvin Montanaro
But here’s the larger point: ALL of us over a certain age, and certainly that age is far lower than your wizened scrivener here, not only would have found such an act to be outrageous and worth intervening to prevent, even the IDEA of doing such a thing would NEVER have crossed our minds because, well, “good people” and “decent citizens” and “guests” of the park just plain would NOT do such a low-class, destructive, ugly thing.
We would have been as shocked at the very thought of anyone doing this as we would at a visitor from Mars landing in our back yard asking to be taken to our leader. It just WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED in our lives, communities, and certainly not at the “Happiest Places On Earth” that once were.
Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World at Magic Kingdom during a clear Orlando day – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
So, sadly, perhaps the changes for the worst and the removal of our childhood delights and the general degradation of the park-going experience that is coming along with it are just a kind of corporate version of this vandalism ethos. Maybe, in fact, we’re getting the parks we deserve and deserve to pay through the nose for. Maybe in a world where parenting is denigrated or dismissed as “old fashioned” in so many of our major metropoli this is all we should expect in future.
Or maybe it is time to reclaim decorum, our heritage of decency, our traditions of concern for strangers and our fellow humans and to start by saying NO to this behavior whenever and wherever we encounter it. Such efforts on other issues have worked in the past, y’know, and I can think of one brilliant example:
Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World at Dusk looking into Liberty Square – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
Once upon a time it was a regular comedic theme that drunks were “funny” and many made careers out of portraying them. Genial clowns like Red Skelton added tipsy lushes to their selection of comedic characters and we enjoyed them even while never taking them seriously. Smooth operators like Dean Martin pretended to work in a fog of alcohol as part of their overall song-and-smiles acts and we chuckled along. More blatant comics whose entire act was being a drunk like Foster Brooks made whole careers out of such thing.
But when alcoholic abuse led to broken families, serious danger on our highways, and actual death and injury, a group sprung up called Mothers Against Drunk Driving, aka M.A.D.D., and said it just plain wasn’t funny anymore. And though it took years, society LISTENED.
Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World During a Stage and Fireworks Show – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
We didn’t expect to irradicate inebriation (and the total-abolitionists who went off the deep end were treated with righteous scorn by those who had a sense of history re. prohibition’s failures) but we did demand that we as a society owned up to the downside and damage instead of just making fun of it. And those characters and acts which were so common just plain disappeared because we as a society with M.A.D.D.’s help just plain made a choice that it wasn’t funny anymore.
And LIVES were saved. For real.
So why not start such a movement against the graphitti, the public fighting, the loud, intrusive behavior in our public places and, especially, our theme parks and other family venues?
Epcot Spaceship Earth Walt Disney World Orlando 2010. Photo Credit: chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Because remember: The kids learn by example, and everytime a good family takes the risk and pays the price to visit a park and sees this stuff going on, the example being set for their kids is that society is okay with it….and that way, my friends, lies utter decay.
Looking up at The Hollywood Tower Hotel (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, December 2004. Photo Credit: The original uploader was Techclub at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
We should want good things—even great ones—from those who entertain us for top dollar…but it wouldn’t hurt and might even help if we cleaned up our act and deserved them, too.
How do you feel about this Walt Disney World vandalism? Let us know in the comments below!
