Theme Park University: Surely I am not the only one who has noticed this. As Disney Parks have reopened around the world, they’ve gone to great lengths to ensure the safety of their guests and cast members. They’ve added many new safety procedures such as new cleaning protocols, social distancing markers and enforcing all guests and employees to wear masks at all times with no exceptions.
1 comment:
This is SUCH an interesting question. When it comes to face characters, Disney cares above all (pretty much) about character integrity. I can imagine that in some ways, masking face characters could mar this. We also aren’t clear on what safety measures they’re taking with cast members to subvert this exception. Maybe they’re having character performers test every day to ensure safety. You could argue that if face characters are masking, then it sets an example for kids. However, why would Belle be wearing a mask, but Goofy isn’t? Then they’d have to produce gigantic masks for every single costume. There’s no easy answer to this, but I will reiterate: it’s all about character integrity. The IP of Cinderella doesn’t wear a mask, therefore Cinderella in the park shouldn’t be wearing a mask in order to remain faithful. Same goes with Daisy, for example. If you’re wearing a pin that has Daisy on it, Daisy in a mask will not match the Daisy face on your pin. Not sure how solid this logic is, but I would imagine it has something to do with their choice to leave face characters unmasked. It was interesting to see the way Disney played out masks and distancing at the parks.
Jordan Pincus
Post a Comment