People, it’s supposed to be the Happiest Place on Earth, not a location to vent your jingoistic prejudices du jour.
Fearing an anti-France backlash because of the French government’s strong stance against the U.S. in the Iraq war, Disney is quietly increasing the security presence around the France pavilion at Epcot, and reassigning some of the young French nationals with French-speaking Italians and Canadians. Based on the behavior of some visitors to the area, unfortunately, park officials seem justified in having serious concerns. One MousePlanet staff member recently witnessed a group of rowdy American men storm through the pavilion as they shouted epithets and made obscene gestures at the cast members.
And we’re going to get those Canadians, too, because Chretien has been snarky about Iraq! And the German pavilion is next! And China? Free Tibet! Morocco! Dirty Moslem swine! Japan? Remember Pearl Harbor! Mexico? Remember the Alamo! And Norway? Um … er … well, we’ll think of something, so you just watch yourselves!
As ironic a dictate as it might be in conjunction with DisneyWorld, grow up, people.
(via BoingBoing)
Oh lord. Drunken rowdies at Epcot. That’s never happened… (It must be nice to have an awful lot of money to spend to just cause trouble at some place and get kicked out — I live a half-hour away from the “Magic Kingdom” and I can’t afford to go at all!)
I was a cast member at the French pavilion from december 4th 2002 to november 22nd 2003, so I was there the all way and saw some people behaving stupidly, yet I also met great people to talk to and even if we didn’t always share the same point of view, it was always interesting to have this kind of conversations.
Now for the rowdy americans thing, these poeple were later escorted by security, filed and ask not to show themselves at any Disney theme park ever again. Security got a little tight at the pavilion, but not to the point we ever had to ask cast members from any other pavilion to join the french crew, so no french-speaking italians or canadians ever worked with us.