Fantasyland: Gender Discrimination, Potter Envy, and Smelly Burps

Disney's Fantasyland expansion has lately come under fire for favoring girls over boys. The original plan was to big build with princesses, fairies, and other feminine favorites.

All that changed - though Disney won't admit to it - with the wild success of Harry Potter at Universal. Most boys would rather fly with Potter than dance with Pocahontas. The nightmare vision of families passing up Disney for Universal because their male children now think it's 'cooler' seems not to have occurred to princess-obsessed executives, at least not until the past few weeks, and these very same executives also seem not to have realized they already own the perfect Potter counter: Marvel.

But that's another story.

Teri Sizemore, author of the wonderfully written blog, DisneyGene, has a different view of Fantasyland (and the Disney business model): she says that Fantasyland should cater to little girls because the boys can skip over to Tomorrowland and enjoy Stitch burping in their faces. Boys - especially when they near puberty - have plenty of fantasies of their own, she seems to say, and so why dilute the dreams of young girls everywhere to wander in a land totally given over to the delicate denizens of their fantasies.

An obvious solution is to bisect Fantasyland: girls on the left, boys on the right. It makes sense, but it doesn't feel right, does it?

Teri thinks the princesses are the 'backbone' of Fantasyland. I think fantasy is the backbone of Fantasyland, and fantasy should be blind to gender as it is to reality. When you ride Peter Pan's Flight, do you ponder whether it's a 'boy' ride or a 'girl' ride? Nah. I've seen plenty of boys there; and I've seen plenty of girls loving every reeking fume of Stitch's chili dog gas, too.

So what's the solution? There isn't one. Or rather: it's whatever Disney does. In the meantime, it's fascinating to read everyone's take on the issue, and Teri Sizemore's take is a great place to start.

MORE: Disney Gene (Teri Sizemore)

Main Street Architecture: Stop and Smell the Arboretum

Main Street is one of my favorite Disney destinations. Actually, it's not a destination but rather a conduit: and maybe that's why I like it. Early on a warm, sunny day, the Castle in the distance, there's little I enjoy more than a quiet stroll (or mad dash) down Main Street.

Of course, late on that same warm, sunny day, there's little I enjoy less than returning in the opposite direction when Main Street has become a conduit out of the park. Let's not dwell on that.

Even though it lacks rides and other must-do attractions, Main Street has a lot to offer Disney historians like Maxime, who today published in her blog, DesigningDisney, a short article about the architectural inspiration behind City Hall in Disneyland Paris.

According to Imagineer Eddie Soto, City Hall is based on New York City's old Western Union Telegraph Building, and Maxime provides the concept art to prove it. Most of her article, in fact, is a brief history of the Western Union building, with vintage pictures set alongside current pictures of Disneyland's City Hall. She finds time at the end to steal a glance at the adjacent Arboretum, too.

If historical vignettes are your thing, Maxime has several more in the chute, each part of her 'Town Square' series that continues September 12 with a look at the Storybook Store.

MORE: Designing Disney (Maxime)

Getting to Disney: Danny Cox Has Wings and Wheels But No Caboose

Let me add a new immortal phrase to the literary canon: Danny Cox has no caboose.

In an article that appeared recently on the Examiner, Danny Cox evaluted the relative merits of flying or driving to Disney World, but he ignored a viable third option: riding the rails.

I hate to fly. Whenever possible, I travel to Disney aboard Amtrak leaving Philadelphia in the afternoon and pulling into Orlando early the next day. The cost of a sleeper cabin is substantially more than the cost of a flight, but it's relaxing, the meals are free, and I can take all my bags into the room with me.

But I've flown, too. And driven. I know people - the Mad Max'ers - who drive to Orlando over insane distances as their kids mature, pass puberty, and fill out college applications in the backseat.

I spent what seems the best part of my childhood in the backseat (as my father drove his latest big-ass Ford slowly, ever so slowly, from its dock in Scranton, Pennsylvania).

Danny presents three common-sense criteria to help you decide whether to wing it or wheel it: distance, money, and lodging. The third criterion, lodging, is less relevant, since people who stay off-site can (and often do) rent a car, though the rental expense itself then becomes a factor.

Trains, clearly, are the red-headed stepchildren in this scenario. When I travel by rail to Orlando, I rarely meet more than one or two families en route to Disney with me. Most likely that's because train stations are far less ubiquitous than airports, and the best rail experience of them all, the Auto Train, is convenient only for those living near Lorton, Virginia, its point of departure.

So let's forgive Danny Cox his lack of locomotive love, especially because he has plenty of Disney love that he shares almost daily in his column for the Examiner and that every Disney traveler (wing, wheel, or rail) should make their first port of call. (Sorry for bringing ships into this...)

MORE: Examiner (Danny Cox)

When Mickey Covets Harry: Loopholes in the Disney Commandments

Around here Sunday means Disney commandments, as in can't get enough of them, not even after the popular hullabaloo last Thursday about JL Knopp's (she of TheDisneyDrivenLife) incomplete set of seven, few of which I bother to obey.

The original ten commandments, of course, were brought down by the Big M: no, not Moses, but Marty Sklar, Disney's former chief Imagineer and official Disney Legend. Hard-core fans will have heard of Marty Sklar and quite possibly have his ten commandments memorized and litanized.

For those still in the dark, you'll find a handy transcript (entitled "Your Fast Guide to Mickey's Ten Commandments") on BoingBoing, a site co-edited by author Cory Doctorow that pulls in nearly 5 million visitors per month on the basis of snark, pop culture, and demented humor. Love it there.

(Or for a small fortune you can hire Marty to lay down the law at your private event.)

Marty's commandments make good business sense - for example, "Know Your Audience". Everything he says has a safe, solid, corporate ring. "Avoid Overload." "Avoid Contradiction". "Keep It Up". (I wish they had kept up 20,000 Leagues.) But nothing about coveting thy neighbor's theme park attractions, a wise omission that green-lights the Mouse to drool over Universal's Harry Potter in good conscience.

Once Marty did Moses, however, everyone got into the act. You'll need a big secular stick to beat off the wanna-be commandments found on many Disney sites, including a whole pew of them on WDWForGrownups, where you can nod your head sagaciously as you process "Thou shalt eat ice cream" and "Thou shalt smile".

(Hope Robert Niles of ThemeParkInsider isn't reading this!)

I'm here to help. Let's boil the core beliefs down to a single commandment, all you need to satisfy your particular 'Disneity' (Disney + Deity): Thou shalt read the Disney Dispatch.

Which you've faithfully done. Blessings! (Now go eat some ice cream.)

MORE: Disney Institute (Marty Sklar)

Disney Dispatch Top Hullabaloos of the Week

Based on retweets, comments, and my own perverse sense of humor, here is a list of the top hullabaloos from each day of the previous week:

Sunday The Disney Boycott: Hammering the Corporate Hydra: A woman in Minnesota decides to boycott Disney for a year and discovers it ain't so easy.

Monday Murphy the Dragon: Down? Drunk? Dead? We Just Don't Know: Details of the fall from grace (right onto his face) of Disneyland's Fantasmic dragon.

Tuesday Those Wonderful Rides Out There in the Dark...: Disney dark rides and attractions, with a nod to Jimmy the hanging corpse.

Wednesday In Search of a Happy Haunt We Find a Doctor of Biblical Studies: The discovery of a blog with intellectually rigorous discussion of the Haunted Mansion.

Thursday Disney Commandments: If You Break Them, Do You Go to Universal?: Seven commandments thou shalt obey while at Disney and how I can break five of them yet still be a good person.

Friday Disney Hates Your Mother and Wants to Kill Her: In which a reporter for the British Daily Mail implicates Disney in the 'demise' of family values and suggests the Mouse has matricide on the mind.

Saturday Stop, Hey, What's That Sound(track)? Disney Music, Plentiful and Free: A fantastic collection of Disney sounds, soundtracks, and music. No joke.

Now let's get on with some new hullabaloo...

MORE: Disney Dispatch (Bob McLain)