It’s been a long time since a New York Times article made me cry.
In “Disney and the Death of the Middle Class,” NYT guest author Daniel Cressell accompanies a family on their dream vacation to Disney World. The family consists of a single white 60-year-old mother named Scarlett Cressel, her adult daughter, her grandkids, and Scarlett’s own mother.
Scarlett Cressel is a school bus driver in Virginia. Her daughters works with special-needs children in the school district. They make around $80,000 a year combined. Scarlett loves Disney World and has spent years carefully saving up for this treat for her family. They are going bare-bones budget style: not checking luggage, not staying in a Disney budget hotel, and not buying the costly upgrades for skip-the-line access to the best rides.
She even chose to go in July, the most unbearable time of year in Orlando, because park tickets were slightly cheaper.
Scarlett is overweight, has a disability, and uses a mobility scooter.
Now I have to make a terrible confession. You may hate me for it but it’s important to this post.
When I first saw the photos of this family, I had some unkind thoughts; the same thoughts a lot of New York Times readers, with whom I have much more in common, probably had. Just imagine the thoughts an insufferable coastal elitist might have when they behold someone of a lower social class; when they look down from their aerie and gaze upon a sweat-drenched sad sack on a mobility scooter using food stamps at Walmart. (Not that they would ever step foot inside a Walmart).
They have thoughts like…why would someone that unhealthy want to go to Disney World in July? Why are poor people going on trips they can barely afford and that aren’t even fun, because they have to do it the hard way? The poor way.
I confess this to you because I’m pretty sure this is the exact reaction the French photographer Paola Chapdelaine intended for the privileged, liberal New York Times readers on the Upper West Side and in the West Village and in Greenwich. I know what people I grew up with and went to school with and worked with would say. “Flyover people.” “Probably racist.” “White trash.”
The photographs accompanying this article act like a Rorschach test. You either discard your initial reaction and fall in love with the good and decent Scarlett Cressel by the end, ready to ride and die with her on her rented mobility scooter—or you’re a heartless cad.
The writer and the photographer want you to feel scorn and pity for poor, downtrodden Scarlett and her broken home, her desperation for a magical trip that was anything but, her fatherless grandchildren, her scrimping and saving and struggling—but by the end of the story, your scorn turns to sorrow and even rage that this kind lady had experienced even a moment’s distress.
And the truth of what you get for your toil is almost too much to bear. Or rather, the way families like Scarlett’s are led and bled by Disney is cruel.
Americans her age grew up with the Disney mythology; childhood memories from the sixties and seventies are bathed in the glow of the happy mists of time. A Disney park visit was a way to return not just to that specific place but to that specific feeling you remember.
After all, Scarlett was only a little girl when her father was killed in Vietnam. No wonder she is so drawn to her early childhood memories.
All she wanted was to taste that special nostalgic magic.
She left thirsty, and $8,000 poorer.
I realized that my initial knee-jerk reaction was exactly why Trump won.
It’s been this way for people like Scarlett Cressel for decades. Trump was the first politician who acknowledged these people as the “forgotten man and woman.”
Disney didn’t forget about them—they just segregated the parks to keep them away from everyone who could pay more.
No Country for Poor Whites
The all-American caste system is how Disney World makes its money. This is the caste system that propelled Donald Trump into the White House and made J.D. Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, a bestseller, before propelling him into the White House.
This is not about liking communism, or about destroying the rich. It’s fine to be rich; I hope you are! (If you are, please consider becoming a Founding subscriber to this newsletter. Really, you should.)
This is about what it means today to be middle class vs. what it used to mean. Disneyland was $20 when I was in high school. You could get a pretty comfy seat with room for your legs in Coach on an airplane. You could do all the things: buy a house, get a car, pay for college.
The problem is not the rich. It’s not the price of luxury goods being too high or about inflation or eggs. It’s about the degradation of something that used to be pretty great into something that’s now barely tolerable but costs much more. You used to be able to use free FastPasses to fit in all the rides you wanted to do in your one precious day at the park.
Now it’ll cost you hundreds PER RIDE to skip the line.
But it’s much, much worse than that.
The new wrinkle—brought to us by the diabolical supervillains at the management consulting firms who help Disney shave every possible cent off its customers—is that you can actually get the very same product or service you USED to get five or ten years ago! No problem! You just need to pay us a few thousand more to get it.
They made the baseline experience much more uncomfortable and they upsell you just to make it usable again.
I was once in line for a ride at Disneyland with at least four of my kids when they were little (before I worked for Disney and had my platinum Cast Member cards that got us in to the park for free anytime). We saw some old childhood friends walking by and they stopped to greet us. They had grown up and become Hollywood producers or something.
After chatting for a minute, they excitedly explained that they had hired a private Disney guide to skip all the lines (“It was only $800! Everyone’s doing this now”) and scampered off.
Standing in the line after they left I felt like a abject pauper. Private guide? I’d never heard of this before. I was apparently so mired in poverty that I was not even allowed to know such incredible luxuries existed! The park was a little less fun after that.
Soon Disney will charge extra for air conditioning in the hotel rooms. You’ll need to pay extra to sit next to your child on Space Mountain. You’ll need to pay extra to get Mickey Mouse to hug your toddler. $500 for the water to splash you at the bottom of Splash Mountain. $1000 if you want the Jungle Cruise skipper to tell the jokes. $2500 if you want to hear the pirates sing “Yo Ho” on Pirates of the Caribbean.
Disney Confessions
I worked as a writer for Disney for six years. I spent some of that time writing for the parks. In fact, while I was there, I wrote most of ride descriptions on the Disneyland and Disney World websites.
I wonder if they’ll have to delete the entire website once they realize who wrote it all.
Here’s a sample of my copy that’s still live on the site:
Fun stuff to write. Judging by the newer copy on the park websites, they’ve probably replaced most of the writers with AI copywriter bots. You’re paying for a premium experience but the descriptions are written by faceless AIs who will never visit a park.
Scarlett and her family deserved the perfect, magical trip of their dreams and were not able to achieve it. The Disney trip used to be the American Dream.
Now it’s nothing but a nightmare for anyone but the wealthiest.
But I do have one amazing solution to her plight: Scarlett and her daughter should move to Orlando and get jobs at Disney—they’ll be able to visit the park as much as they like for free!
It worked for me!
Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this one, please subscribe!
—Peachy
Scarlett’s plight was sealed by globalization in the early 80s. Before then manufacturing jobs enabled a healthy middle class. Thanks to libtards’ embrace of an “Open Society,” with no borders and elites no longer identifying with their own countrymen but rather with other elites around the world, American workers have been sacrificed to a New World Order. Bless Trump for recognizing we must make AMERICA FIRST—for our security, health and fellow citizens.
I detest Disney and thought I was in HELL when I visited. Every State and National park is better and healthier. Disney died decades ago. Despicable organization.