Disney Adults

Fandom Freedom or Retarded Adolescence?

Learning happens in the minds and souls, not in the databases of multiple-choice tests.

Ken Robinson

This stands outside of Vroman’s Bookstore on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena CA. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

Our Adolescent-Forever Class

One of the most important lessons I learned in prison, and the hardest one to apply to life outside the walls, is the ability to not judge people. Not like superficially, but like really really judge them. Look all around us now - remember those friends that voted for someone else? Maybe the Bad Orange? Still friends with them? If not, you’re a judge. 

In the post I wrote above, I engaged in the very activity I warn against. In this one, I did it again. 

"This is a Sunday post" said Captain Obvious.

What prompted all of this all-of-a-sudden soul-searching? 

Rolling Stone blames Millennials for the 'Disney Adult' problem

Wow, what a harsh accusation to read. But being clickbait, I dutifully responded. Then I had to go to the source piece

How ‘Disney Adults’ Became the Most Hated Group on the Internet

Headed west on the 10, good advice from a cigarette company, no? Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

DTLA from the 10 west. At least this billboard can help. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

And now the other side of the argument. 

Yes, I'm a Disney Adult. Let me explain

I had an interesting exchange with a friend via text about the SCOTUS ruling today. I will have a full post on that in the future I am sure. 

But this exchange really cuts at the heart of my writing. More specifically, the point and meaning of my writing. 

And if it’s just “understanding” without some net gain in compassion, empathy, or even garden variety kindness, that’s just an intellectual wank at best. Or something more nefarious, but I’m not ascribing those motives to you.

Choosing not to joke about the masturbation humor, the sentiment was very thoughtful. While appreciative of the benefit of the doubt I was given there, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this specific critique. It leaves me to wonder if the centuries-long habit of asking skeptical questions is now really truly dead? 

Asking questions is my form of freedom of expression. The fact that it completely bothers some people makes me want to just ask more. My anti-authority bullshit radar goes off, and it’s all over. I know they’ve conceded the argument when they call me a Nazi, racist, or white supremacist. That’s called a tap-out.

Listen to any talking-head show or read any poll question. The lead-in of the question, or “the frame” as the cable-heads talk, is setting the narrative. One’s answer, logically, would be steered by the implied intent of the question. For instance, 

Do you support theft? 

1. If it’s a mom stealing bread and milk for her baby? 

2. If it’s an oil company taking huge profits? 

Or like the story about an old man and a young woman Grandpa Smitty used to tell. 

Seems like the old man had an itch, so he asked the young woman if she would sleep with him for a million bucks? 

Oh yes, said the young woman. 

How about for a dollar? 

Of course not! What kind of woman do you think I am? 

We’ve already established that Miss, he replied. Now we’re just arguing over the price. 

My answer to that friend was this

Not the first time I’ve heard that critique leveled at me. I seek a greater understanding of individual stories to aid in my personal growth and my life. 

That’s a true statement. I’ve been called a troll more than a few times. It seems a whole lot of people with an identity-defining-belief system don’t like questions that could in any way upset that belief system. Ask Copernicus, Galileo, or Newton if asking questions and upsetting belief systems piss people off!

So, back to the Happiest Place on Earth, where we find a lot of pissed-off people. What a thing to be outraged over. Childless millennials bum-rushing the Magic Kingdom, destroying the precious childhood moments of other children. Quite noble. 

I’m not judging the morals of the bum-rushers, just expressing amusement over the dilemma they just happen to find themselves embroiled in. So First World. So Karen, as the RS piece points out. 

I will keep asking questions, and probably keep getting labeled a troll. Or worse. That tells me my questions are filtering into the belief system. I seek not to change but to understand. I seek not to tell but to know. I seek not to restrict you but to grow me. 

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In the Rolling Stone article I was reading, I clicked a link on Nicolette Larson. I have included her before in my playlists. I knew barely of her back story. 

A Lotta Love to Give: The Brilliant Voice and Too-Short Life of Nicolette Larson 

Her story is pretty cool and tragic. The subtitle hints at both extremes: 

She sang on some of Neil Young’s most enduring records and scored a Top 10 hit with one of his songs. Why didn’t her career live up to its early promise?

Dead at 45. Never bitter, it seemed, about not making it. Just bewilderment. Soft, billowy bewilderment at just not getting there. She left behind a husband and a 7-year-old daughter. And a lot of unfinished stray ends.

My opinion on Disney Adults changed over the course of writing this post. The final paragraph was a quote from a Disney Adult, and it convinced me to change my mind and post about it.

“There’s an expectation for Disney adults of what kinds of feelings they should have in the park,” he says. “People who think Disney is only for kids, they’re not thinking of how our sense of joy can evolve over time. And I think there’s an element of jealousy toward the Disney adult, that they are able to live so freely.”

Anyone that speaks so openly and publicly about freedom, and freedom of expression, has earned my respect. The refutations of the expectations of others on how to live a life of freedom are the perfect Fuck you, Karen.

Keep deciding to live free,

Ric