Walt Disney - Gayest Place on Earth?

[Samurai]

Wait, before you say anything, I'm referring to this link I found. It's kind of old, but here's the article: http://www.andelman.com/mrmedia/95/5.09.95.html

And BTW, when I saw Gayest Place on Earth, I mean literally: http://www.gayday.com/ (yes, there really is such a thing, I'm not making this up)

"Disney Comes Out of the Closet" is the trumpeting headline on the cover of the latest issue of Buzz magazine. Steven Gaines writes that not only is the Walt Disney Company in Burbank one of the happiest places on earth, "it is also one of the gayest."

"There are hordes of gay and lesbian people at Disney," one gay Disney employee told Gaines.

This isn't a broad overview story, either; Gaines names names, including: a production vice president; the studio producer of Working Girl and Cutthroat Island;, a supervising animator from Beauty and the Beast; the senior veep at Disney's interactive division; the head of the TV division which produces Home Improvement; and the senior veep for feature animation, who oversaw The Lion King. In fact, one gay rights activist claimed Disney chairman Michael Eisner has conceded that "as many as forty percent of the company's 63,000 employees might be gay."

Despite this, Disney and Fox are the only remaining studios in Hollywood that don't offer domestic partnership benefits to their gay and lesbian employees.

And for good reason: Any day now, somebody's going to thaw out poor old Walt. And when he hears his company is out of the closet, he's going to be pissed.

[Hey_yu]

Yeah, that article is old, but interesting read nonetheless... Just curious, how'd you find this article anyways?

[Samurai]

Just curious, how'd you find this article anyways?Believe it or not, I was actually doing some research on the media, and this article happened to be one of the articles that showed up under Mr. Media...

[BigKPFan76]

I didnt know they had that until just recently. It is extremely contriversial (for good reason!) because they have it going on while families are there, and they do things that cannot be discussed here without either getting booted or heavily censored. It is disgusting to say the least, I'm sure Walt is turning over in his grave over this.

This post is in no way is against gay people, I would feel the same way if it were straight people commiting sex acts in front of families and children..........it is just disgusting either way!! I'm surprised that the law hasnt said anything about public indecency or any other crimes.

[loyalheart]

it's funny because, it doesnt seem like the employees (except maybe one) make a big deal of it. So why do these activists?

[shoujoaifan]

I didnt know they had that until just recently. It is extremely contriversial (for good reason!) because they have it going on while families are there, and they do things that cannot be discussed here without either getting booted or heavily censored. It is disgusting to say the least, I'm sure Walt is turning over in his grave over this.

This post is in no way is against gay people, I would feel the same way if it were straight people commiting sex acts in front of families and children..........it is just disgusting either way!! I'm surprised that the law hasnt said anything about public indecency or any other crimes.

?

They are not doing sex acts infront of anyone. This is about some Disney employees being gay and a link to the GayDay site. None of that has anything to do with gay people having sex infront of families, just like you said straight people wouldn't do.

[BigKPFan76]

?

They are not doing sex acts infront of anyone. This is about some Disney employees being gay and a link to the GayDay site. None of that has anything to do with gay people having sex infront of families, just like you said straight people wouldn't do.
Well, then you have only heard half the story, but beyond that....what does this thread have to do with Disney Animation? None as far as I can see.

[Hordesman]

Am I the only person who recalls Nathan Lane's comments on his Lion King character when the movie first came out (no pun intended)? It was in USA Today.

Anyway, Disney does pursue this type of 'fan service'. There's a book on the subject called "Tinker Belles and Evil Queens". Is the mass media going to pick up on Dean Deblois or Andreas Deja getting interviewed in gay magazines? No, but it means "More Tickets Sold". And if Disney objected to this publicity? Well, they don't have to offer film images for these articles. They can keep people in red tees from entering their parks on designated "Gay Days".

[Tommy Lawson]

I am moving this thread to Cafe Toon Zone because I feel the discussion is more appropriate for this forum, and not all of it deals with Disney Animation.

[EinBebop]

I think I read this story in "Mouse Tales", how on Gay Day many of the gay people would like wear... I think it was a red shirt. So straight people who made the mistake of wearing a red shirt that day would go and complain, and Disney would give them a complimentary t-shirt. The only thing is, all of the people who complained got the same complimentary t-shirt, and once word got around, the shirts might as well have said "I'm not gay" written across the front, as the people were subject to mock and ridicule.

[Hordesman]

I think I read this story in "Mouse Tales", how on Gay Day many of the gay people would like wear... I think it was a red shirt.
http://www.ajaxx63.com/gayday2.html :D

[Czar Gato]

Okay, this is total nitpicking on my part, but shouldn't the title be "Walt Disney Land/World- Gayest Place on Earth?"? Seeing as the word "place" refers back to "Walt Disney", but Walt ain't a place as far as I know. :D

[Eddie G.]

Despite this, Disney and Fox are the only remaining studios in Hollywood that don't offer domestic partnership benefits to their gay and lesbian employees.That sucks.

And for good reason: Any day now, somebody's going to thaw out poor old Walt. And when he hears his company is out of the closet, he's going to be pissed.Is that last comment based on anything, becuase I think saying what a dead man's opinion would be is pretty dumb.

Anyway nothing in the article really shocks me, I've noticed that there is a large homosexual population across the entertainment industry. Not a stereotype just my own experiences.

[sun]

It was announced today, that Eisner, is leaving in 2006, maybe then people will be treated fairly..as this thread discusses...Eisner has always been anti union, and not treated all of his employees fairly..Maybe a new person will..

[EinBebop]

It was announced today, that Eisner, is leaving in 2006, maybe then people will be treated fairly..as this thread discusses...Eisner has always been anti union, and not treated all of his employees fairly..Maybe a new person will..Eisner's a businessman first, and a humanitarian... err, somewhere down the line. Despite the whole benefits issue, he's actually considered to be homo-friendly.

[ToOn~g@l]

My grandmother had the misfortune of going to Disney World on Gay Day a few years back and believe me, she was not happy. She wrote a letter to the Disney company telling them how mad she was and to get rid of it or something to that effect. They wrote back telling her that they had chosen Disney World because they wanted to have a fun place to go for a weekend and where they could meet others as well. She also said a few other things about what she thought about that but I ain't repeating it.

[Merrytoon]

I always wanted to go to a gay day. Hopefully I'll be working for Disney next year and get my chance. I'd also like to add that "Gay Day" is "unofficial" and not organized by disney itself, but by a group of disney-loving gay people.
I remember reading an article about "The Hunch Back of Notre Dame" when it came out (no pun intended) that mentioned lots of "Out There" T-shirts being sold on Gay Day.

[EinBebop]

I'd also like to add that "Gay Day" is "unofficial" and not organized by disney itself, but by a group of disney-loving gay people.It's unofficial as far dissatisfied customers are concerned. In reality, they do help promote and cater to this event. Pretty smart in a weasely kind of way, I must admit.

[Hordesman]

Is that last comment based on anything, becuase I think saying what a dead man's opinion would be is pretty dumb.
Walt fired Tommy Kirk ("Old Yeller", "Shaggy Dog", "Swiss Family Robinson", and "Absent-Minded Professor") in 1964 for being gay.

But it sounds like it's gotten better since then. "About 70 of the Fortune 500 companies nationwide permit unmarried partners to join company health plans, and many of them are household names: Apple Computer, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, NYNEX and The Walt Disney Company. "
http://www.afajournal.org/archives/24020000270.asp

[Merrytoon]

It's unofficial as far dissatisfied customers are concerned. In reality, they do help promote and cater to this event. Pretty smart in a weasely kind of way, I must admit.
Here's what the official site says on the matter:
Does Disney sponsor Gay Day?

No. Disney is an "innocent victim" of circumstance. They managed to create an excellent vacation resort that appeals to almost everybody in the world, and gay and lesbian folks are no different. Because they get so much attention from all factions over Gay Day, Disney actually goes out of their way not to do things that are perceived as catering towards Gay Day. This is unlike any other time of the year when Disney will actively market towards specific, targeted groups to increase their attendance at Disney properties. If Disney really didn't do anything different during Gay Day than they do any other time of the year, they would advertise to the Gay and Lesbian market and they would actively seek to book entertainment appealing to the gay and lesbian crowds. Gay Day is now the busiest time of year at Disney, and the highest revenue producing time of year as well for Disney's parks and attractions.

By the way, Disney does actively sponsor and promote "Night Of Joy," a private event at The Magic Kingdom that is marketed towards Christians and actively sold through church groups. Off the record (and sometimes on the record), a very large number of Disney cast members have related hundreds of horror stories about the rudeness and bad attitude of many guests at Night Of Joy. It's an amusing contrast to Gay Day, when even the most homophobic cast members often really enjoy the fun and friendly atmosphere all over Disney property during Gay Day weekend.


And here's ust some info from the official site about the who's why's and wherefore's







Who started Gay Day and why?

Once upon a time, before the Internet was on everyone's lips (and in everyone's home), and before computers were as affordable as microwave ovens, there was a group of people in Orlando that regularly chatted amongst each other on a computer bulleting board system (BBS) called Compu-Who (a victim of the Internet's proliferation, now defunct). This group got into the habit of gathering together regularly in real life for fun events, such as trips to the park, casual bowling, and nights out in clubs. It was for fun. No political statements. No protests. Nothing but unadulterated Disney fun. Once it was decided that we should go to The Magic Kingdom together, we worked out a date that seemed to be convenient to everyone interested, and it was pretty far in advance for our usual planning habits. As is true with most every group, there's a core group of people that do the leg work in organizing something... not everyone has the time or energy to spend doing such things.

One member of that core group was Doug Swallow. At the time, Doug was an active board member of Gay and Lesbian Community Services of Central Florida, Inc. (GLCS) which had recently formed out of the merger of Gay Community Services of Central Florida, Inc. (GCS) and The Center (a separate group that had created a walk-in gay and lesbian community center in Orlando). GLCS had recently entered into a new lease for a free-standing building and had scheduled a number of activities there in celebration of the opening.

One of those activities was a presentation by Bob Morris, then of The Orlando Sentinel, who gave a presentation about working with the mainstream media, colored with some of Bob's classic sense of humor. Previously, Doug had created a lampoon newsletter aimed at the many problems Universal Studios had during their initial pre-opening period, and Bob had regularly mentioned tidbits from it in his three-times-a-week column in The Orlando Sentinel.

After the meeting was over, Doug spoke with Bob about the Compu-Who gathering at Disney and mentioned he had started putting up posters about it to bring in more people from around the gay community in Central Florida. Bob loved the idea of what he could do with that in his column, and featured it in the issue that came out the week before the scheduled date. The media circus that followed has been unstoppable over the years.

Always to be counted on to put their foot in their mouth, anti-gay factions picked up on it and started blaming Disney for it. Morning radio hosts used it for drive-time humor, though not usually in the best light. Radio talk show hosts, especially Jim Philips who hosted (and still does) a very popular talk show in the afternoons (now on WTKS RealRadio 104.1), picked up on the controversy and made it part of their daily shows.

In subsequent years, Doug spearheaded much of the advance publicity and promotion. Doing things such as ensuring the press knew of the event, creating and distributing flyers and posters around Central Florida, posting information online in places like CompuServe and the blossoming Internet Usenet newsgroups, and creating t-shirts to sell to finance these activities. To be sure, Doug always had a lot of help, sometimes from the strangest places, but there's usually one or two people behind any successful event who take it upon themselves to fill in wherever needed in whatever capacity, and that is what Doug did.

The rest, as they say, is history. Of course, with success, come the evil villains or the masked men. You'll often hear many differing versions of this history, since everyone has a different perspective on it. However in recent years, as the event has become a potential money-maker for commercial interests, these stories have begun to get wilder than previously imaginable.

[If you're joining us from the FAQ (http://www.gayday.com/faq/default.asp), this is where you should continue reading.]

One such story involves the organization behind the Gay Community Center on whose board Doug was serving while the idea of Gay Day took root. As a focal point for the gay community, it was only natural that information on an event as large as Gay Day at Disney be made available through the community center. Where the line blurs, however, is the implication by some that The Center took an active role as an organization in helping Gay Day. Through the years, quite the opposite has been true. In fact, in 1994, the board of GLCS (remember, The Center and GLCS were one in the same), in what had degraded into a regular and recurrent bout of infighting decided that they "could not" endorse or participate in any way with Doug's activities for Gay Day because another group (The Alliance, it was called, and originally had been an organization for gay and lesbian Disney Cast Members) was simultaneously doing the same (and trying to take credit for starting Gay Day, and/or turning it into a success).

Year after year, this sort of attitude prevailed at GLCS. (This was during the years after Doug had left the board of the organization and moved to New Jersey, where he now resides.) Finally, in 1998, a series of blunders on the part of the board of GLCS left the organization leaderless, broke, and on the brink of dissolution. They discovered a huge some of money had been embezzled. To their credit, some of the original leaders of the organization in its early years stepped in to turn things around (and they did a successful job doing so, though some might say the group has lost the trust of the Orlando gay and lesbian community, as well as lost its focus in serving them). The current organization, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Center of Orlando, Inc. (GLBCC), came into being. In the process, they finally figured out Gay Day and the tens of thousands of visitors to the city were an opportunity to be taken advantage of. What, in the past had been impossible to beat into their collective heads had now become a bright idea and a focus for their efforts to raise money.

Unfortunately, in the process, they collectively decided they had started Gay Day, were responsible for making it a success, and felt only they could commercialize it as a source of revenue for the organization. That's not to say that is all bad. Gay Day at Disney is ripe for such exploitation, and deservedly so. Bringing some order into what has traditionally been a very grass roots collection of disparate events would be a good thing. The unfortunate part is how they operate to the exclusion of anyone who might sell or provide something they see as competitive, and how they cannot keep themselves from taking credit for things that in light of the facts is simply the opposite of the truth. They're painting a rosy picture over the organizations worse years where they didn't just do nothing, but actively did many things that could have hurt the event.

There's a pattern of this behavior with the current organization, too. GLBCC takes credit for starting the Orlando Pride Parade, when it really was the tireless efforts of Joel Strack (who, as a very active member of Orlando's gay community and a Disney Cast Member himself, also provided Doug with a considerable amount of help during the early years of Gay Day). It was Joel who spent his own money producing t-shirts to promote the beginning of the parade. It was Joel who tirelessly went through the permitting process to get the necessary permits for the parade itself, and it was Joel who rallied the flag to get businesses and organizations involved in the effort. Again, as a focal point for the community, of course much work was accomplished by disseminating information at the community center, and uncountable hundreds of volunteer hours went into answering questions from callers about the forthcoming parade. But that's supposedly what they are chartered to do... to facilitate the growth of the gay and lesbian community as a whole. To be a resource... an information resource. Through it all, where was the GLBCC board? Comfortably sitting in their "board room" congratulating themselves on all their hard work, perhaps?

Most people never see or hear about this sort of maneuvering. They fly into town, enjoy dozens of activities in a non-stop 96 hour party, and fly home with hundreds of stories they share with friends. The next year, they come back with dozens of friends in tow, and the cycle repeats. It's superfluous to anyone's enjoyment of Gay Day. As well it should be. Unfortunately, on occasion, someone who has the eyes and ears of a large number of readers or viewers gets suckered into repeating a revisionist history of Gay Day.

If you doubt portions of this, we invite you to read the news (http://www.gayday.com/news/default.asp) itself over the years. There are certainly the usual inaccuracies of reporting, but throughout, you generally find the threads of truth all coalesce together. It was written, and therefore we make it available as a resource, without any worry about the need to hide something, unlike some others.

Gay Day at Disney is a grass roots collection of disparate events, all happening the same weekend. This produces an atmosphere that would be impossible to create with a single "controlling" organization, and allows the creative freedom of hundreds if not thousands of individuals and companies to coalesce together to produce what we all refer to as Gay Day. Let everyone do what they do best, we say. Jeffrey Sanker, Mark Baker and Watermark rarely hear complaints they don't do a good job throwing a party! So the same weaknesses that allow organizations such as The Alliance or GLBCC to attempt to rewrite history and "take over" Gay Day also are the strengths that keep those misguided attempts from being successful.

We have everyone who is anyone coming to Orlando during Gay Day creating some of the most elaborate and enchanting events and parties. Through the tireless efforts of staid promoters such as Jeffrey Sanker, Mark Baker, Watermark, and the up and comers like Intrigue Productions, with the thousands of hours of work by owners and employees of gay businesses like Southern Nights, The Parliament House, and a myriad of others who have, in their time, been focal points in the Orlando gay and lesbian community, the tens of thousands of hours of experience and hard work by Disney Cast Members and managers, and the countless individuals spreading the word about the event to their friends, Gay Day has become the success... the world-renown success... that it is today.

First and foremost, we dedicate this web site and all our efforts to being a fountain of information from everywhere we can find it about Gay Day. We unabashedly attempt to make it turn a profit, or at least to not be a loss, however our goal is getting everyone cooperating, working together, and acknowledging everyone's contribution to that effort. It's not always the easiest thing to do; at least not as easy as it is to say, but it seems to be working just fine, and if it isn't broken...

There is a welcome place for efforts such as those of GLBCC and its tireless volunteers, but it can all be done without trying to rewrite history, and without diminishing the efforts and contributions people have made over the years, in spite of their predecessor organizations actions.

[Tash]

Is that last comment based on anything, becuase I think saying what a dead man's opinion would be is pretty dumb.Either way, Walt isn't frozen. (You'd be surprised how many people think that's true)