Walt Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and so many animated classic feature films that to list them here would exceed intro word-count limits, was also an accomplished futurist. His Epcot* was the largest construction project on Earth at the time it was built. Disney thought he was building a utopian community of 20,000 residents, an example of ideal living for the future. After his death, his company disagreed, and built 141 acres of parking lots instead.
However, his film versions of Snow White, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast all deal with themes and narratives that Jung might call archetypal, and I will call predictive of the Tea Party. It may just be that I've been spending too much time with my 3 year old, or Disney saw something that plays itself out over, and over again (at least in my mind).
Plus, some things I learned this week..
Frustration Fuels The Tea Party
It seems to me, and you're welcome to (civilly, please!) disagree in the comments if you'd like, that conservatives en-masse have come around to acting on the frustration they discovered following the GB years. What frustration, and why, is a matter I've recently spent some time thinking about.
Why So Frustrated?
Imagine being told all your life that big government is a bad thing, and that one political party has as its core value the reduction of that big, bad government. You begin to believe the rhetoric and the strategies/tactics of those who tell you they are leading the way to smaller, better government. Because, as you've come to deeply believe over time and through incessantly consistent messaging, the only conceivable good government is small(er) government. And the smaller the government, the better the government. And, that for this reason, government literally can't be small enough.
It's never bothered you that a smaller government is the opposite of a government that prosecutes drug wars, oil wars, and abortion wars. That non-intrusive government is the opposite of government that says you can't serve in its military if you're gay or lesbian, and neither can you marry the person you choose because the government won't let you. These contradictions haven't bothered you because the drumbeat of small government is good government has been so insistent, persistent, and consistent in your ears. That drumbeat has been strong and seductive your entire life.
So convinced have you become that what others point to as observed failures of the "core principle" become, for you, examples of the failure to implement the core principle fully enough. The principle hasn't failed time and time again, but the weak-willed and weak-minded people pursuing it have failed the principle. The precept of small = good is so perfect, so completely conceived, so certainly accepted, that any evidence against it is quickly interpreted as evidence against those who failed to fully commit to it.
And, really, who can blame you? After all, this is what you've been told to be true your entire life.
What Disney Has Taught Me About The Tea Party
In the past few weeks I've seen more Disney movies than I have in the past few years. My 3yo daughter has memorized every song from several classics, and loves singing them, and even better, singing along with them.
Sometimes, she'll ask, "Daddy, why does the evil queen give the poisoned apple to Snow White?" Or, "Daddy, why does Ursula want Ariel's voice?" And, "Why does Gaston want to kill the Beast?"
I used to answer one word, and wonder how to explain it to her, I'd say, "Because they're jealous, sweetheart."
Now, I wonder if I should mix it up a little bit and add "frustrated" to my list of responses.
Snow White
The Queen orders the Huntsman to kill Snow White. He can't do it, so she disguises herself as a hideously ugly old crone to deliver a poison apple to Snow. (Yes, I've heard her song(s) so many times now we're on a first-name basis). Her motivation is to remain the prettiest in the land by knocking off the current title holder. She may have the greatest internal pollster in the history of fairytales, by the way. He gets it right every single time. Ironically, though, she dies, still frozen in her ugly face.
Cinderella
Cinderella seeks bipartisanship at every turn, even going so far as to incorporate her evil stepsisters' discarded beads and ribbons into her own gown for the ball. But, when the stepsisters see how beautiful that gown has become, they tear it to shreds to eliminate her potential threat to their capturing the heart of the prince at the ball. Their mother, Cinderelly's stepmother, not only approves of this tactic, but passively-aggressively encourages, if not provokes, it.
Beauty and the Beast
Gaston wants to marry Belle not because he loves her, or even makes any effort to understand her, but only because she is the prettiest in the village. And after all, doesn't he deserve the best? When she falls hard for the Beast, the Beast has got to go. In plunging a knife into his back, Gaston slips, loses his footing, and plunges to his own off-camera demise. Seems that Disney had a thing for evil characters falling from heights in rainy weather at the moment of their greatest triumph.
Wrapping It Up
I could add Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, and Princess and the Frog (my personal new favorite!) to the mix, too, but here I'll wrap it up instead.
The Tea Party believed the hype. The people now wearing tea bags from 3-cornered hats actually believe(d) that smaller government is better government, and that the smaller it gets the better it gets. They even got their wish! A fully-blown evangelical born-again Jesus-Christ-is-my-favorite-philosopher President and two conservative Republican chambers of Congress. WOOHOO! Let the days of small govt. begin!
Yes, I abbreviated government in that last sentence on purpose. Seemed to me the easiest place to begin would be with ernmen. Now if we can only lose the period that makes the abbreviation grammatically legal! Just imagine the efficiency gains our typing fingers would realize!
A Missed Beat
But, somewhere on the way to being the prettiest in the land with the hottest girl in the village and the prince all wrapped up at the ball, the drummer missed a beat. What do you mean govvernmmentt got larger during those years? What do you mean we fought these wars under false pretenses? What do you mean we finally got our dream scenario and it ended in a nightmare, a Black Muslim Fascist Socialist President instead of the utopian conservative society we had been promised for our entire lives?
And they are out to elect some people they think will act on what they have been told. Where establishment conservatives have failed to do what they told the people was necessary to be done, the people are out looking for some non-establishment types who will actually go and do it. People who claim to be as wedded to the prime directive as they are. People who don't look past the core principle to the complicated places of consequences or long-term effects or contradictions, because the stories they've been told for decades don't include those things. So why bother? Best to keep it simple. Like in fairytales.
They are looking to hire people who will be so true to the core principle that finally, it won't be failed.
Why I'm Less Frustrated
But, I know what happened to Gaston when he finally acted completely on his principles. He slipped and fell. Ursula didn't even see that huge boat coming right at her. Queen Grimhilde died just moments after her greatest success, poisoning Snow White. That she dies the ugliest woman in the queendom, given her particular obsession, is one of my favorite twists of irony in any Disney film.
I don't read him often, but Ross Douthat said this about the conservative prime directive, their failure to make progress towards it, and its impact on the Tea Party candidates just yesterday in the NYT:
"Conservatives have justified this failure with two incompatible theories. One is the 'starve the beast' conceit, which holds that cutting taxes will force government spending downward. The other is the happy idea that tax cuts actually increase government revenue, making deficit anxieties irrelevant...The real world hasn’t been kind to either notion."
He then somehow concludes that means the Republican Party should become even more extremist in its prime directive rhetoric, and that the Tea Party people are just the ones to take it there.
Sounds to me like a Disney movie practically writing itself. And that Ross Douthat has never seen one.
TWLTW:
- *Epcot was named EPCOT Center only until 1994, when its name changed to Epcot. In 2009 it was the 6th most visited them park in the world.
- The man behind Omni Hotels and Gold's Gyms is one of the billionaire backers of the newly pro-Tea Party Karl Rove and Mary Cheney and their Ursula-like efforts to move votes where they want them in a few weeks.
- Fans of Stephen King, it was just announced that The Dark Tower will be a film trilogy tied together with multiple television series and special events over a number of years. Scripted and held together by Akiva Goldsman. Very ambitious effort, he says they are committed to being faithful to the full series in all details. I'll believe it when I see it, but this one is enough to keep me awake at night.
- A live action film biopic of Maleficent Faery, the evil fairy that curses Sleeping Beauty into pricking her finger, has also been greenlit.
- A block of wood hasrarely looked so elegant, been so practical, and cost so much.
- Videos of some amazing slow motion insects taking flight. Two examples:
and
- Any videogame playing child of the 80s may find this really, really cool.
- Southwest buying Airtran may lead to 2million more passengers per year for the combined company. I've always had great experiences on Southwest.
- I think my favorite part of this music video, other than the puppies, is the moment when they collapse the cups. It happens so smoothly I missed it the first time through.
What Did You Learn This Week?