Changing Hawaii

By Diane Yukihiro Chang

Friday, October 16, 1998

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New book on Disney:
fantasy or fact?

IF eyeball rolling is fatal, avoid the TV set until well after Election Day. There are too many political ads that are so exaggerated, they are painful to watch. Two genres dominate -- the ones saying their opponents are the worst people in Hawaii and possibly the world, and the ones claiming that they themselves are the greatest thing since sliced sweetbread.

The truth is somewhere in between.

It was important to keep that truism in mind when reading Peter and Rochelle Schweizer's, "Disney: The Mouse Betrayed" (Regnery Publishing). A Star-Bulletin reporter recently plopped the new book on my desk as a joke, since I often take my daughter to Disneyland or Disney World for spring break.

Some joke. The self-proclaimed expose -- subtitled "Greed, Corruption and Children at Risk," and carrying the jacket disclaimer, "PARENT'S WARNING: This book contains material not suitable for children" -- was very disturbing.

If one takes the contents of the "investigative report" as gospel, then the Walt Disney Co. and its CEO, the way-too-rich Michael Eisner, have transformed the legendary "icon of wholesome entertainment" into:

Amusement parks that are rampant with employees who are pedophiles, Peeping Toms and sexual abusers, and whose Gestapo-like security personnel try to cover up criminal misdeeds.

Places of work that compromise safety -- even on the seemingly safe Dumbo and Peter Pan rides -- in a relentless pursuit of profit.

A Walt Disney World on-site firehouse in Florida where the company doesn't care that new recruits undergo an initiation rite and ongoing sexual harassment from firefighters that includes being "sphincter viewed."

Animation and motion picture departments that unabashedly steal ideas (the phenomenally successful "Lion King" was supposedly ripped off from Osamu Tezuka, a famous Japanese animator), and which produce and distribute films that are pornographic and sexually disturbing.

A music division, Hollywood Records, that signs up immoral, stoned and drunk artists, who sing foul-mouthed, violent tunes that urge impressionable young people to commit suicide and to worship Satan.

Omigosh. As I absorbed the revelations of the authors -- Peter Schweizer, a media fellow at the Hoover Institution, and his wife, Rochelle, a media consultant -- my mind raced with panic. What kind of den of iniquity had I exposed my precious kiddie to all these years?

Then I got to Chapter 17, and my perspective snapped back like a Duncan yo-yo.

ACCORDING to the authors, the Disney Co. is rife with homosexual employees, ranging from executives and creative types, to those who operate the rides, play the costumed characters, and who dance and sing in the musical extravanganzas.

The Schweizers also huffily point out the blatant celebration of "Gay Day" during Gay and Lesbian Pride Month" at the Disney amusement parks, and that the company provides employee health benefits for the partners of homosexual employees.

Oh yeah, eyeball-rolling stuff, all right. Because what's so awful about that?

Remember when reading "Disney: The Mouse Betrayed" that it's "slightly" unbalanced. It's as slightly biased as those irritating political ads dominating the airwaves, as slightly prejudiced as the homophobic murders of gay men dominating real life.

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Diane Yukihiro Chang's column runs Monday and Friday.
She can be reached by phone at 525-8607, via e-mail at
DianeChang@aol.com, or by fax at 523-7863.