Disney and Historical Events...
Aug. 11th, 2004 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearIn ARF, Seth H Holmes wrote:
> There were rumors that Disney wanted to buy KRF in Carver, MA a few years
> back. (Maybe it was because the plot was so Disney.) But TRF and Sterling
> are very different faires (or so I'm told having been to neither).
>
> Most people expect if Disney bought a Ren Faire, it'd turn into wussyville.
Actually, dark or bright, the innacuracies in most Disney historical works (and the deviation that their fairy tales have with the original Anderson or Grimm stories) is what concerns the "critics".
Take the two versions of Davey Crockett's story that they've produced (the TV series of the 50s and the recent Alamo flop). Both portrayed a Crockett of extremes. The 50s was extreme niceness and honor and dignity, and the 2004 was extreme humanity to the point of frailty, a flawed character not worth any sympathy or memory at all.
So where is the balance? Where is a REAL person in the two portrayals, the person who's (real) actions created the legend?
And if Disney can so screw up a single historical figure, of which much is written that contradicts BOTH portrayals, what will they do with an entire era?
Or all of history itself? (the main gripe, besides traffic, against them and their american historical park they were going to build near Manassas, VA in 1996)
Now, mind you, EVERY faire has positively tainted the renaissance, particularly foreign relations, Elizabeth's public niceness, and Henry VIII's popularity. Add to that better plumbing, cleaner food, and street people who've actually showered in the last 24 hours.
Certainly NYRF's Robin Hood, and the many fantasy kings that some faires like CRF have, are realms which pretty much state to anybody in the know that a Renaissance Festival is hardly "Living History" or "Historical Reenactment".
But if Disney were to get in on the act, the criticisms will be 10 times louder, and could hurt the other faires for their lack of accuracy in the process with all the attention brought to them over the issue.
So Disney getting into the rennie business is NOT something that I would like to see...
> There were rumors that Disney wanted to buy KRF in Carver, MA a few years
> back. (Maybe it was because the plot was so Disney.) But TRF and Sterling
> are very different faires (or so I'm told having been to neither).
>
> Most people expect if Disney bought a Ren Faire, it'd turn into wussyville.
Actually, dark or bright, the innacuracies in most Disney historical works (and the deviation that their fairy tales have with the original Anderson or Grimm stories) is what concerns the "critics".
Take the two versions of Davey Crockett's story that they've produced (the TV series of the 50s and the recent Alamo flop). Both portrayed a Crockett of extremes. The 50s was extreme niceness and honor and dignity, and the 2004 was extreme humanity to the point of frailty, a flawed character not worth any sympathy or memory at all.
So where is the balance? Where is a REAL person in the two portrayals, the person who's (real) actions created the legend?
And if Disney can so screw up a single historical figure, of which much is written that contradicts BOTH portrayals, what will they do with an entire era?
Or all of history itself? (the main gripe, besides traffic, against them and their american historical park they were going to build near Manassas, VA in 1996)
Now, mind you, EVERY faire has positively tainted the renaissance, particularly foreign relations, Elizabeth's public niceness, and Henry VIII's popularity. Add to that better plumbing, cleaner food, and street people who've actually showered in the last 24 hours.
Certainly NYRF's Robin Hood, and the many fantasy kings that some faires like CRF have, are realms which pretty much state to anybody in the know that a Renaissance Festival is hardly "Living History" or "Historical Reenactment".
But if Disney were to get in on the act, the criticisms will be 10 times louder, and could hurt the other faires for their lack of accuracy in the process with all the attention brought to them over the issue.
So Disney getting into the rennie business is NOT something that I would like to see...
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 02:55 pm (UTC)This rumour crops up with alarming regularity and I have yet to see any evidence of it panning out.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 02:57 pm (UTC)i was addressing the "wussyville" comment (which is a general criticism of Disney product-lines), not the specifics of the rumor itself.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 09:19 am (UTC)What *single* historical person's background... Not only did they get everything about Pocohontas, John Smith *and* even the area around Jamestown and Virginia in general completely wrong, but they went on to massacre England and every major figure they 'came across' there the following year.
(Um, only ever seen about 5-8 minutes of Pocohontas II... and was in *such* pain by that point that I had to turn it off, and have vowed that as much as I like some of the music from them, I'll *never* watch Pocohontas I or II, ever... Think my price would be *over* a million $ to convince me otherwise... seriously.