EPCOT and the Gift of Shame

Back in 2012, Disney received considerable backlash against one exhibit at Epcot.  You know what I'm talking about...

Close, but not what I was getting at.

It was, of course, Disney's attempt to educate and inform and shame kids about nutrition, exercise, and life choices.  Habit Heroes opened in February of 2012, and promptly shut down in February 2012.  It's sponsors, Florida Blue and Anthem (BlueCross + BlueShield), seemed appropriate enough, being a health insurance group and all.  So how did it all go wrong?

This makes me want to eat more sweets.

We can debate all day and night until we are blue in the face whether or not the attraction is insensitive to people who are obese, and that genetics come into account when talking about obesity, and that the attraction aims for an unrealistic standard of what is "fit" and "strong" and "healthy" and an abundance of more quotation marks.  Naturally, everything and everyone has the best of intentions when it comes to presenting a touchy subject like childhood obesity.  Execution is key, and it looks like Disney missed the mark, initially.  I am aware that they have since re-opened it, with the guidance of various organizations to make it less about "fat-shaming" which could lead to teasing, ridicule and bullying towards overweight individuals, and in turn cause the child to lash out at society and lower their self-esteem, but more about doing what you can do to be and stay healthy, and improve your self-esteem.

Walking around Epcot will give you all the exercise you need.

As Epcot tries to make strides to inform, educate and help the public by promoting good nutrition and health, exercise and strong decision-making, it doesn't help their case that the food served in the Walt Disney World, in a broad sense (of course there are healthy options there, too) is anything but nutritious and healthy.  But it all comes down to choice, but sometimes we can't help ourselves, and we need to have a churro in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

They said it shouldn't couldn't  be done.

But the food of Walt Disney World will be saved for another blog post...

We all know that Epcot is trying to teach kids about things that are important, at least they tried to.  Habit Heroes was one such attempt, but let's not forget their predecessors: Food Rocks & Wonders of Life.  However, since these attractions ceased to exist, they brought about merging the two in an unholy union and called it Habit Heroes.  But as times change, Disney needs new ways to reach out to kids.  And of course anything that the Disney Corporation does is followed by intense scrutiny.  When we look back 20 years at Food Rocks, it taught us a similar lesson, although the shaming was down to a minimum.  Instead of using caricatures of the different types of good, bad, skinny, fat, whatever people, it was all presented via food.  The most it shamed was the pile of junk food that played that loud, hard rockin' music and looked like garlic that had gone bad.

It only really offended hard rock acts from 1985.

Now there was a little shaming, but not like shaming a kid because they are fat.  It was more like, junk food is the devil, and plays loud, distorted music, and is bad for you.  Still had a pessimistic approach in an otherwise optimistic, campy pop-culture music revue with food.  Although it didn't rock, because it was cheesy.  Now you want to talk about the best approach to the subject matter, you have to look further back, when Disney was built on optimism.  And her name was...

No shaming, just lots of fun.

Kitchen Kabaret possessed the enduring Disney spirit of the early 80s.  Their approach was fun, lighthearted, and well-intended.  There was no mention of the downsides of food, no mention of anything remotely bad, just telling you to eat your fruits and vegetables, make sure you get some protein and diary, and of course, carbohydrates.  No preaching of any kind, it was truly a remarkable example of a simplistic approach with a fun, entertaining and educational quality that didn't talk down or shame its audience, but rather just provided some good facts about nutrition and made you want to sing along.

And vaudeville humor that everyone got.

 As with changing times, it's not enough to just present information in an entertaining way, we have to go one step above and create more characters that reflect a problem within ourselves, and more cookie-cutter, melodramatic villains to drive the point home.  To go slightly on a tangent still pertaining to this train of thought, the evidence of this shift is all more apparent in rides at Epcot, most notably Journey Into Imagination With Figment, or whatever they are calling that pavilion these days.

I can't keep up.

It used to be a fun, exciting exploration into our own minds with the Dreamfinder, being of jolly and fanciful demeanor, who welcomed you along on his journey into imagination.  He created a little purple dragon with childish delight, and never was there any conflict, nay-saying or anything to discourage the behavior within the realm of imagination.  As conflicted as things got is when you got to the horror/mystery/suspense section of the ride, but that was only to try and contain things that scary to us within the books, but even then it was still an example about how our imaginations can run wild and get out of control to create a sense panic and paranoia and fear, all within our minds.

Tales of fright.  Oh shit.

 Conversely, the newest incarnation of the ride follows an uptight professor trying to educate you on the fundamentals and principles of your senses, not so much anything about imagination.  Of course Figment, that loveable little scamp who has become an irritating nuisance wants to join, and Eric Idle says absolutely not.  And throughout the ride he is at odds with Figment trying to teach you about imagination, until finally Eric Idle gives up and they all sing and dance and do whatever it is that they do.  In summation, the overall trend of these rides lean towards what the new Journey Into Imagination is doing: creating that conflict until someone shows the wrongdoer the ways of what they should be doing, and embrace life and learn and love and so on and so forth.  Same can be said about Mission: Space and the original Test Track.  You have a task or mission at hand, something goes wrong, element of danger, everything is okay.

The was thrilling enough, why do we have to go through this?

A glimmer of hope seems to be on the horizon, and no, it's not the resurrection of Horizons.  No, the rides that are springing up are avoiding the conflict and storytelling of the rides, and just presenting them for what they really are.  When you take a ride like Soarin' and Test Track 2.0, there's not so much a story involved about trying to better ones self, or overcoming some adverse situation, but rather just a simple, straightforward approach.  You fly over California, and there is no one trying to shoot at you or escape from some evil force.  And Test Track is just you in a fast car.  Although I still hate that stupid truck that comes out of nowhere.  It is sad to see that we desire thrills and danger in our rides rather than critical thinking and understanding and appreciation for benign, simple easy-going rides, like Horizons.  The most conflict that ride had was almost being late to their Grandson's birthday.

Good to see that Tom finished welding the laser locks to the sub.

Even though my tangent spiraled a little bit out of control, the point remains the same: having the approach of clear-cut bad guys and ignorant people isn't helping Disney advance their message of being a healthy, well disciplined individual.  Perhaps it is what children of this generation are accustomed to, like any movie, comic book or cartoon where they need a bad guy as some sort of concrete representation of "evil," instead of approaching the subject optimistically, without alienating one group in doing so.  The Living Seas said it best: "For answers to our past, and keys to our future..." We must look to the past to change the future, so take a hint from what EPCOT Center originally did, and use that knowledge to change the future.