The Denial River
It feels kind of apt that I am once again thinking about the question of when I want to return to the Disney theme parks as a guest. On one hand, the news we’ve seen this week from Disney is frankly quite encouraging.
Shanghai Disneyland opens on Monday, May 11, and will do so at very limited capacity, with clear social-distancing guidelines, specific rules regarding character interactions and ride safety, and face-mask requirements. Yesterday, Disney announced that they would reopen Disney Springs, the shopping and entertainment site at Walt Disney World, on May 20, with very similar guidelines, right down to the face masks being required for guests and Cast Members.
This is, to paraphrase an oft-quoted Walt Disney speech, a hard fact of the world we’re living in now. Wearing masks on our faces is not ideal. It’s not particularly fun. I’ve gone out to do some shopping and buy takeout from local restaurants, and worn a face mask every time. No matter what, even with a cloth face mask I can wash (from a Central Florida farm that I encourage you to support), it’s never exactly fun. But I know I’m safe.
Safe from people like this.
I have also seen people state, with absolutely no irony in their voices, that wearing a face mask is against their constitutional freedoms. Leaving aside the fact that I’m not sure I ever caught that part of the U.S. Constitution — y’know, the part where you have the freedom of having to wear a face mask, that specific amendment — what this kind of comment, or the one above, suggests is that what people want is the freedom to be selfish.
And in America, you absolutely do have the right to be selfish, to be so inconsiderate as to not care about whether or not you’re endangering your own life or the life of others. You have the right to imply that wearing a face mask limits the magic of the Disney parks. Just as I have the right to imply that you’re a selfish asshole.
It’s too early to say if Disney will hold the line on this guideline in the continental parks. (Call me crazy, but I don’t see a whole lot of people outside of America bitching and moaning about this requirement at the international parks.) I hope they do. As the week has progressed, I’ve realized that whatever my concerns are about returning to the parks, it’s not an issue Disney can fully grapple with. Disney, being a business, wants to make money. Lots of money. They were already known for being a safe haven, literally and metaphorically. Disney no doubt is fully aware of the pitfalls of becoming a new hotspot for the coronavirus. Seeing as such a prospect would likely make them lose lots of money, I imagine they want to be as safe as possible.
My concern, thus, is about enforcement. How strict are they going to be? And how swift will they be in punishing people who don’t follow their new guidelines? I hope they’re very swift indeed, for the sake of those of us who may find face masks unpleasant, but dying or contracting a virus that may spread to and kill other people vastly worse.
I sincerely hope this newsletter is preaching to the choir. I hope you’re reading this and thinking, “Listen, you don’t have to convince me. Next time I go into any crowded place, I’m wearing a mask.” I hope so. But there’s a lot of willfully horrible people out in these 50 states.
I’ll leave you with this: the basic comment I keep seeing is that this will ruin the magic of a Disney trip. Wearing a face mask will make it so the bubble of the parks is burst. And listen, I get it. But I got bad news: the bubble of the Disney parks is already burst. Maybe after a vaccine is here, and we’re all inoculated, the bubble can be blown up again. But for now…the bubble’s already gone. It’s evaporated.
And if you don’t think so, you’re in denial.