| ||||||||
|
The
Tyranny of Happiness PAGE
2 That's what really bothers me about Disney. It isn't the commercialization of childhood, or the fact that they saddled us with that triumvirate of talent: Britney, Christina and Justin; not the anti-feminist patriarchal message pervasive throughout fairy tales, it's the happily ever after. Would it have been so hard to just say "ever after?" And they lived…. ever after. I would like to add: and they endured the challenges that most people face. Divorce, career disappointment, the constant battle against hirsutism, the insidious pull of gravity on your most favorite assets, the gasp that escapes your lips when you look down and see that your mother's hands have been mysteriously grafted onto your body, and the eventual march to the grave. Yes, endurance isn't that the value that we should be passing on to our children? That's when it hits me, exactly what a sad, sad, person I have become, who but a sad sad person wouldn't want their child to claim their rightful place in this Disnified landscape, and I determined that we were going to get some of this Disney happiness even if it killed us. And then I remembered those hairs on the pirate's leg as it dangles above the boat at the Pirates of the Caribbean and I did what any mother would do. I bribed my son with the promise of a new toy. If he could just see those goddamned hairs we'd turn into that happy Disney family I saw on that fucking commercial on TV. From the moment we loaded in to that pirate ship I knew we were in trouble. Ezra began to wail a wail so piercing, featuring actual fear and trembling, accented by screams of terror, it was as though I had removed his spleen and was filleting it in front of him. Other parents shook their heads and cast scornful looks at me. Babies were smiling, not my child. By the third display he was whimpering like a wounded dog. I rubbed his back and said, "It's ok, it's ok," as I mouthed, "I'm sorry," over and over again to those around me. And I began to see the ride for what it truly is. Why wouldn't he be miserable, I thought, this pirate ship is a morality tale of the order of "scared straight"-- that TV show about how drug use ruins your life. All these ghouls had lived dissolute lives and we were now bearing witness to their sentence in this watery purgatory. It was as we passed under what I had always considered the coup de grace of Disneyland, that pirate's leg that as a child I had observed in awe at the meticulous detail to, I now saw clearly as pubic hair pasted on an animatronics dolls leg. Then it occurred to me that Disney is all a morality play. When they say happiest place on earth, they literally mean that this is all one can expect from life on earth. The truth is, nobody looks all that happy in Disneyland except the cast members. True, I've seen a passing look of glee, a fleeting glimmer of excitement, but real happiness, I don't think so. Disneyland was intended to be an endurance test, each of us traversing varied and wondrous lands, one in the numberless faceless crowd of humans hoping to be entertained on a brief illusory ride-- the enjoyment of the rides mitigated by the hours of waiting in lines, plus the trauma inducing imagery-- all part of Walt's plan. My god, I've done a semiotic study of the Magic Kingdom, I thought. I've decoded Disney, isn't this what Susan Sontag has done for photography? If only I could make it through an entire volume of hers, I'd be able to say for sure. I want this to be over, my son started chanting and, after what seemed like four hours of character building entertainment, it was. We were delivered out of the darkness and into the light of day. We
found ourselves running toward the exit and the resumption of our real lives which
now seemed much better by comparison. I stopped for a double espresso as we all
headed back to the car. Piling in, my son announced, "I can't wait to go
back." "What did you like about it?" I asked. He replied, "The
escalator to the parking lot." Maybe it was just the coffee or the recognition
of the resiliency of my child's spirit, but I smiled my first genuine smile of
the day. Jake and family were spent, their eyes glazed with the satisfaction of
having done Disney, a weary but satiated exhaustion which was not unlike porn
star Annabelle Chung's expression after she had done 236 guys, Ezra was beaming,
extolling the virtues of the escalator, and for one moment it was, perhaps, the
happiest parking lot on earth.
|
I
hate happiness. Particularly jocularity on demand. I have always refused to smile
on cue. When I was a child we posed for family portraits at the local suburban
shopping mall photography studio. My grinning parents and cousins all look like
the typical middle class suburban family while the expression on my face would
suggest that I'm about to be marched on a pogrom from our shtetl in Russia. I
love melancholic novels, depressed poets, and pessimistic prognosticators. I like
sad songs, weepy movies, I'm a sentimental drunk. My idea of a good time is drinking
a double espresso while reading Death in Venice. Venice is my idea of a rollicking
good time town. I was never a waitress. Not perky enough. I had just enough natural
attitude to work the door of a popular NY nightclub in the late '80s. In fact,
I probably turned you away, for no reason at all, just because you really, really
wanted to come in. I was never a cheerleader, never an ingénue, never the
homecoming queen. Although one year in high school I was voted to the homecoming
court but alas, see paragraph 2, I was so stoned the night of the ceremony I couldn't
find our football field and that was the end of that. I was never a shiny happy
person, although I have been both shiny and happy even at the same time (although
to achieve both has been in the performance of acts that are still considered
illegal in certain states.) Happy meals, happy faces, don't worry be happy. Given
the state of the world, perhaps if we had a little more worry and a little less
happy we'd be better off. Is the insistence upon the value of happiness a peculiarity
endemic to the American psyche? After all, it does read: life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, an interesting note is that the precursor to the declaration…
whilst liberte, egalite, fraternite... Alas no mention of happiness anywhere.
I have never been to Euro Disney, but I did read that they had to make a lot of
concessions- allowing facial hair on the cast members and serving wine with meals,
I just hope the employees were able to keep their sulky European attitudes. 
