Word: disneyized
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...WALT DISNEY...
Many beyond the Disney inner circle harbor doubts about the idea of an honest history park. Can slavery, Civil War slaughter and the doleful fate of American Indians be blended with the traditional marvels of Disney entertainment that will also include Mickey, Minnie and the gang? "Serious fun," Disney chairman Michael Eisner calls it, and his experts rightly point to such a blend in Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida. "This is not to be a Pollyanna view of America," insists Robert Weis, a principal Disney imagineer. "But we want people to leave the park feeling good about their country...
...hurried journey to break ground in 1995 and open Disney's America in 1998 will be rough every inch of the way. Opposition comes from history buffs, environmentalists, old meddlers like Ralph Nader and a lot of residents who moved to the area to get away from things like the mouse. Not the least of these is the Piedmont Environmental Council, with various Mellons and DuPonts and Jackie Onassis on the membership rolls. It has ponied up $400,000, with a goal of $1 million, for what board chairman Charles Whitehouse calls "the fight of our lives...
...Disney has deep pockets too. The mouse costs an estimated $50,000 a day, employing such notables as Jody Powell, former press secretary to Jimmy Carter and now a top public relations operative. Ironically, Powell was one of the leaders in a 1988 campaign that stopped millionaire developer Til Hazel from dropping a shopping mall right onto the second Manassas battlefield. Powell claims that nine of his ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and mall construction would have put pizza parlors on the crucial Stuart's Hill. "He must have needed the money," complains Snyder, one of Powell's erstwhile comrades...
...They were going to bulldoze Confederate bones for that mall," protests Powell today. "Disney's America is four miles from the battlefield. People out there are fooling themselves if they think development is not coming along that Highway 66 corridor. This is about as good as you can get." That may be true, but it is hardly a solace for those whose imaginations still hear the crash of muskets and see General Thomas Jonathan Jackson standing like a stone wall...