Reading Response to Hiassen's Team Rodent

The style of the writing and argument in Team Rodent made it such an enjoyable and agreeable piece.  His recurring quips throughout the book made the book go buy very quickly and made me laugh very frequently.  In comparison to the Giroux pieces, especially the second one, Hiassen's work was much less accusatory and it made many more concessions to the positive (or at least not inherently negative) aspects of the Disney corporation.  This made the argument much easier to get on board with because it did not feel like one sweeping generalization, and it instead had reasons.  Additionally, because the book was a string of examples, he defended his claims very strongly.  Hiassen's personal connections to Disney - the family trips, the journalist trip, living in the state, etc. - all add to his credibility and perspective.

Chapter 2, "Insane Clown Michael," detailing the release and near-immediate take back of The Great Milenko album was hysterical.  I can't decide if I buy into the conspiracy theory, though.   I probably do more than I should.  The fact that Disney recalled the album so soon after release in response to the Southern Baptist Church's outcry is not fully believable.  Disney doesn't typically seem to respond to its critics, so I find it easy to believe in the idea that it was a "sly public-relations trick" to "reassure Middle America that it knew exactly where the lines of decency were drawn" (p16).  The lyrics were also so ridiculous that it'd be hard to believe that it was a serious attempt at an album release.

Chapter 4, "The Republic of Walt," blew my mind.  The concept of the Reedy Creek Improvement District being run by Disney and having the abilities to form the same municipal systems as, say, Philadelphia, is wild.  One of the biggest surprises for me though comes from the fact that Disney has not actually taken up many of the allowed duties (like having cemeteries, a judicial system, schools, etc.).  Additionally, the fact that Disney "composes its own building codes and employs its own inspectors" borderlines on terrifying (p27).  Disney's building codes could comply with nothing and be unsafe (but cheap!) and it seems like no one can question that.  The rest of the secrecy exposed in this chapter also scares me.  The fact that Disney heavily prioritizes their PR image over the well-being of their employees is very telling of why people like Hiassen and Giroux hate Disney.  This showed very well in the example about the employee who spyed on the 6 female dancers and was allowed to continue doing so until Disney felt it should intervene.  Then they settled on an undisclosed sum the night before the trial!!!! That is some sketchy stuff...

I appreciated Chapter 5, "The Puppy King," because Hiassen didn't put the blame for the dalmatian issue on Disney.  This was important to me because it showed that Hiassen was reasonable and not blaming Disney for everything, whereas I feel that Giroux would have twisted it to blame Disney.  

Chapter 7, "The Future World," stirred up a lot of reaction in me.  First, the idea that, "Celebration invokes nothing so much as a small-town neighborhood of the 1950s, remembered overfondly" was very telling of a lot of the problems people have with Disney (p51).  The idea that Disney glosses over and gentrifies history showed very well in the word "overfondly."  Soon after, I was appalled by how much people were willing to pay for these houses just because of the name Disney, and then that they were sloppily built.  Reading that just after reading that, "when Disney does something, it does it right" really emphasized the blind, "childlike trust" that people have in Disney (p53 and 52 respectively).  

Throughout the whole book, the idea that people are paying for safety, both at a large monetary cost and at the cost of a real, new experience showed a large and true concession on the part of Hiassen.  Hiassen, it seems, isn't fond of those fake, safe experiences, but he understands why people would be.