OC Weekly column

[Dr. Shrinker]

Here's an interesting commentary from the hipster OC Weekly, which currently has a story (called "Best of OC's Top 10", which I know doesn't make any sense) about our local landmarks.

http://www.ocweekly.com/features/bes...ber-one/26017/

Best part:

"Disneyland deserves to be on this list because no where else do you stand a better chance of seeing a child’s expression of pure joy than while watching them walk through the entrance gates, catching their first glimpse of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle or encountering one of the wandering characters. Disneyland deserves to be on the list because no where else can you see a look of pure joy on an adult’s face than when they see that look in their child’s face for the first time and know they were able to give it to them.

There is far too little happy in the world, and there is plenty of time and opportunity for us all to become angry teens, jaded journos and desperate adults clinging to the past; but Disneyland deserves to be on this list because it unabashedly, unashamedly reaches for happy. Does it always succeed? Of course not. Did you hear we all die in the end, too?

But happy is a wonderful thing to shoot for and there is no place in Orange County—this isn’t even close—that makes people, especially children, happier than Disneyland. If you have a problem with that, **** you. Grow a heart."

[bee1000]

"Disneyland deserves to be on this list because no where else do you stand a better chance of seeing a child’s expression of pure joy than while watching them walk through the entrance gates, catching their first glimpse of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle or encountering one of the wandering characters. Disneyland deserves to be on the list because no where else can you see a look of pure joy on an adult’s face than when they see that look in their child’s face for the first time and know they were able to give it to them.

You don't have to be a kid to have a look of pure joy on your face at Disneyland - it happens to adults, too (even adults without kids in tow)!

Nice to see an article written by someone who "gets" Disneyland (although the "****" part at the end is crass).

[Hyperbole]

(although the "****" part at the end is crass).

Aw, that was the best part!!!

[Max Fischer]

Aw, that was the best part!!!

I agree, that gave it some balls.

[RobotMirror]

That article is remarkably upbeat, positive, and un-snarky for the OC Weekly (especially considering their previous articles about Disneyland). Except for the last part, which is fully in character for them!

[HeyBaloo]

Awesome! Finally an article that is savy and smart regarding DL, what it is about, now and in our collective past. One of my favorite things to do at DL is people watch, teenagers let their "coolness" guard down, and there is always a couple in a tiff at the maingate turnstiles on arrival. DL smashes all sorts of people together with the common goal of happy, and like the story says, everybody sees exactly what they want to see, and thats where the magic comes in. Thanks OC Weekly.

[symbolic]

Love it!!

[Saddlesore Swanson]

That was great, thanks for posting that. And I also loved the last (actually second to last) line. Crass? Sure. But it definitely drives the point home with the language that was called for in that particular forum.

But as for choice pull-quotes, I gotta pick this one, esp. for MiceChat:

Disneyland should be on this list because, like the Mona Lisa and George W. Bush, everybody sees exactly what they want to see in it. If you’re one of those freaks who lives for the place and proudly displays all manner of Disneyland merchandise on your person and in your house, Disneyland is everything that America could be (clean, well-ordered, magical) and everything it has become (not quite clean enough, crowded and crass). Which is why your type is presently burning up the Internet with angry, desperate missives against Disneyland’s plan to convert Tom Sawyer’s Island into Pirates of the Caribbean Island—something you seem to believe ranks somewhere on the dastardly scale between Pearl Harbor and the day they stopped the spinning tea cups from spinning.

NOTE ADDED AFTER POSTING: That's funny, at first I didn't notice that the term "crass" was also in the quote I grabbed. That means today might hold the record for the number of times I've read/written the word "crass." Awesome. One more time: crass. Thanks.

[TP2000]

This really surprised me from the OC Weekly!

For the last 20 years as I moved around the country living in big cities there was always that hipper than thou weekly newspaper staffed by 27 year old former Journalism Majors who are either bitter that they aren't working for the New York Times yet, or bitter they can't quite kick the substance abuse problem they developed their Sophomore year. Any big city in America has these newspapers, and Orange County is no exception. They are rags filled with predictable leftist rants sandwiched in amongst Botox Parlor ads, snarky editorials, more leftist rants, Laser Teeth Whitening Parlor ads, vapid reviews of bad garage bands and the latest Junior College hangout, and a few smutty phone sex ads.

Very predicably, these newspapers will consistently ridicule and mindlessly criticize the dominant local industry that provides thousands of jobs for the community, donates millions to local charity, and supports the local tax base. If you work for a big, succesful company and pay your taxes and are nice to your neighbors then you are hopelessly uncool and deserving of the ridicule and contempt of the editorial board of the local hipster newsweekly. At these types of newspapers there is always some big local employer to make fun of and dislike... In Seattle they don't like Boeing and Microsoft. In Boston they don't like Prudential Insurance and any politician who isn't a Kennedy. In Atlanta they don't like Coca-Cola. In Portland they don't like Nike and Weyerhauser. And in Orange County they don't like.... Disneyland.

But then along comes this blurb about Disneyland in an OC Weekly article and it throws off the entire balance of hipster newsweeklies all over the country. I'm shocked and amazed!

I may have to breeze through the OC Weekly the next time I go to Chipotle Grill. Perhaps they finally broke out of the rigid, repressive mold that all big city hip newsweeklies fell into around the second term of the Reagan Administration? Maybe the staff of OC Weekly is trying to think independently and rationally about their local community? Maybe they realize a place like Disneyland is something kind of.... nice?

Amazing stuff. Thanks for bringing it to our attention with this thread.

[MickeyMania]

Well, the main arguement from the cynical crowd was that Disneyland is indoctrination to Corporate America, had waned over the years as more and more company logos and names on a plaque leave the walls.

More and more, Disneyland isn't brought to you by Coca-Cola/McDonalds/FedEx/Goodyear/Monsanto/Nestle/GE, so that arguement has lost merit.

Of course, it's a bit more expensive than it used to be, but it still holds more good intentions when it doesn't appear to be moving somebody's product.