‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales’ Film Review: Disney’s Magic Kingdom Takes a Hit in Sobering Documentary
thewrap.comis a Disney.It’s a self-conscious film, to be sure, driven by a combination of passion and guilt. It’s also a scattershot one that could have viewers wondering if it’s a film about the Walt Disney Company or a film about American capitalism.
The answer, of course, is that it’s a film about the Walt Disney Company and it’s a film about American capitalism, because it finds the same things wrong with both of those entities.At first though, “The American Dream” is focused fully on Disney, and particularly on its first amusement park, Disneyland.
Before Abigail Disney even introduces herself, she brings in a woman who worked at Disneyland for 45 years, and the first half hour of the film is devoted to a number of park workers: A couple who both work there but live with her mother because they can’t afford a house or apartment, others who need to work two jobs but still can’t make ends meet, many who are forced to frequent food banks set up specifically for Disney employees.In the city of Anaheim in Orange County, the city council routinely gives Disney huge breaks, including building an enormous parking structure for the resort, leasing it to the company for $1 a year and letting Disney take 100% of the revenue.
Meanwhile, the company pays park workers $15 an hour, despite the fact that an MIT study showed that a living wage in Anaheim is more than $24.“The Disney Company is ground zero of the widening disparity in America,” the film says, but for a long stretch it seems content to be a case study of that one company.
Read more on thewrap.com