Disney Truth

I feel inclined to offer my comments on a recent radio ad for Disney’s Epcot Center that presented two “fathers” sharing their experiences on vacation sites, one went to Epcot, the other to the Redwoods (National Park, I presume.)

The Epcot visitor brags that he’s been to China, Italy, etc., while the other has seen “only” Redwoods. The visit to Epcot, however, is an artificial, vicarious, consumerist attitude that never confronts the realities of true travel experience, but rather, offers only a glamorized, romanticized picture, sterilized of any “truth” by Walt Disney quality control.

While I do recognize some of the educational benefits of a “World’s Fair” approach where cultures co-mingle, I do not appreciate the manner in which Disney degrades the opportunity to experience the great California redwoods by emphasizing that there is nothing to see but “trees.”

Ironically, the ad continues to degrade the Redwoods trip by mentioning photographs of the one father in a souvenir store buying “stuffed redwoods.” It is exactly this type of consumer packaging that the Epcot Center is guilty of.

CRAIG KRULL

Los Angeles