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DISNEY ISN’T PUNK, BUT HE’S PUNK ENOUGH FOR ME

Walt Disney was an American boy who grew up on a farm in Missouri where he loved animals and nature. The things he wanted, it turned out, were things that everyone wanted and he became very powerful through the strength of his art. Through his understanding of the basic urges and desires of people all over the world, but especially Americans, he rose to a place that no other American artist has gone. I should also add that I consider that I consider Walt Disney to be America's most important and best artist. The punx and counter-cultural types I was friends with would always turn up their noses when I brought up the importance of Disney. They equated all success with corporate evil, therefore

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Snow White

to them is the equivalent of a Big Mac or an oil spill. They didn't see Walt Disney as a guy who grew up poor, ran away, had an uncompromising vision for which he suffered, and ultimately conquered mediocrity with his personal idea of beauty. With each big new project he would risk sinking his own company, focusing only on the project at hand.

Snow White

almost broke the company. So did Disneyland. So did a few other things. Ray Bradbury tells the story of coming back from France and recognizing a spire that was copied from Notre Dame on top of Sleeping Beauties Castle. He told Walt that he'd never noticed it before and asked how long it had been and Walt claimed it had been there since he built the thing. It was more or less unrecognizable unless you were looking for it, but Walt put it in because he wanted it there. Beauty, no matter what it costs. When Walt died he was working on EPCOT—not as it turned out, a multicultural foodcourt, but as a real functioning city of the future. As soon as he died his plans for an actual city got scaled back to something manageable and stupid. It's been pointed out that Walt's plan for the city for the future didn't account for crime and it could have easily led to

Over the Edge

-type insanity as many planned communities have. Walt was good at solving problems and I think that if we'd had just five to ten more years with the man he would have showed us some amazing things and continued to try to improve the world, usually succeeding. I'll never understand punks who work and live in homes but constantly have the crust stink to them. It always seems like a contest where everyone tries to out-loser the other. Who's dirtier, who works the least, who's most fucked up, who got molested the hardest, who stinks the most. And then these same people who live like nihilists have the nerve to yammer on about how things oughtta be. I waver back and forth between believing in nothing and seeing beauty as the only redeeming force in life, but at least I try not to be a DICK about it. I don't know why I'm shitting on punks. At this point punk just means you feel alienated for some reason and are also angry. Everything after that is gravy--gross dirty gravy. Ultimately being punk is feeling outside of society and Disney was about creating things that could be understood and loved the world over. Some people might call Disney a fascist but I think all art is a little fascistic. At least good art is. Ultimately there's nothing to say here. Worship beauty or worship nothingness, both are fine. NICK GAZIN