Every single day and every single night, while the poor suffer and the disgruntled gruntle, magic and wonder exists in the land of Disney World. Ironically, and yet unironically, the vast monument to human waste that is the park system, highways, restaurants, hotels and piano shaped pools all exist as a sort of beacon of capitalist hope for the future.

Over 27,000 acres of swampland turned human playground, the park and its separate parks the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios, are some of the most visited places on earth, ranking second only to the Eiffel Tower, and surpassing ancient wonders and structures like the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China. Millions of guests flow like sweet, slow moving molasses honey through the gates of each park every year, thousands every day; taking part in the largest human playground ever conceived.

The grounds of this park house thousands of full time workers, tons and tons of french fries and concession foods, private water and sewage treatment plants, highways, power plants, schools, grocery stores; Disney World Parks exists as its own separate isolationist city of vertical integration. The park is its own city, offering everything its guests could possibly need, or could even reach within miles. Disney even holds its own rights as a municipality in the state of Florida, meaning it acts as a city in itself. The park is the ultimate dream of a brand. Not only is Walt Disney an incredibly successful entertainment company, but it also has its fat, rodent hands in hospitality and resorts, restaurants, and cruises. The company exists as a true monument to the ideas of freedom to monopolize, a testament to the powers of a capitalistic society. Producing an average of 2.5% of the total GDP of the state of Florida, Disney is one of the most successful cities in the country.

Walking through the parks is like a deeply repressed dream come true. Children and adults run amok, surrounded by abundant food, accessories, toys and rides, all priced exactly at the point of the personal elasticity of the average patrons wallet. The prices are high sure, but just low enough still to make it reasonable to pay $25 for a Disney fanny pack. Every single inch of Disney parks is decorated and alive, filled with props and colors, every building small but made like a set of a movie to look larger then it is. The attention to detail in the park is absurd, surpassing the boring detail of reality in which a normal hotel lobby contains maybe two staff members and some cucumber water, the Tower of Terror’s fake hotel lobby is overflowing with spoopy setting-accurate props. Hats, newspapers, coats, all lying about as if the owners were just about to return. And remember, this is just a line; Disney could have just placed the park goers in a concrete room with metal dividers to slowly slither their way forward to the attraction, but no: At Disney even the line is a wonderful place of sights and sounds, making it more fun than ever before to wait 3 hours for a quick efficient roller coaster.

So it’s believable. It’s full and lush like a Garden of Eden if your faith revolved around deliciously fatty foods and goofy yet well written stories and experiences. The parks are fun, more than anything else talked about here they are super duper fun. Each day we recently spent in the parks was a time of wonder in magic. Kevin cried during every fireworks show, sometimes even accompanied by other overly emotional people like Mrs. Elefante the chorus teacher. In Animal Kingdom, a flock of thirty macaws flew over our heads, as if it truly where a magical animal jungle: which based on that experience coupled with the ever abundant animals like gibbons and tigers that are normally impossibly rare in the real world; it IS an Animal Kingdom. Hollywood town was alight with hundreds of kids of all ages running amok with lightsabers freshly licensed off of the newly acquired Star Wars licensing.

And after all the day’s excitements in which each ride, each and every restaurant is its own small little magic world, fireworks go off. Not once, but two fireworks shows every single night, every single park, every single day of the YEAR. All costing something like $50,000 per show. The true magic of these parks is not in the imaginary childish magic believed by anyone with a child still inside: the true magic of Disney is that somehow, all of this isn’t magic. It’s real. The likely swimming pools of Coke pumped into the park don’t just arrive by magic, but supplied through a real world magical deal that allows Coke products to be flooded into the park unopposed from competitors, as long as it’s all supplied for free. Disney commands such a powerful purchasing base of people on its parks every day, that it is surely worth the Coca Cola company to supply coke for free if it means that no other company’s product will be sold.

Truly, Disney is a magical place, which just like the details in the Tower of Terror Hotel lobby, is only believed if it is overdone. Fireworks like you can’t believe, everyone in character, different outfits for workers based on park location – switching from old fashion America to futuristic Tomorrowland space suits in just a couple of steps. After the parks close, expert teams of mechanics, painters, cleaners and restorers immediately go to work. The streets are steam cleaned, the garbage taken out in seconds by an army of janitorial staff. Scuba divers even lower themselves into the water attractions to pick out the trash, like little bits of shining abandoned treasure from the waters off the cost of the miniaturized Caribbean, in which a copyright marks the spot.

The magic of the place is believable because we want it to be real. I have the perspective of three lucky visits to a place of wonder most will never see. The first two were when I was very young, ten years ago and then again two years after that. Disney then was awesome, powerful and magical, seemingly an endless world of fun and rides, food and characters.

Now, at 18, I’ve grown up a bit more. Yet still a kid, I’ve seen deaths, worked awful minimum wage jobs, and learned of the horrors of genocide and murder across the world, some even perpetrated by the magical United States I call home. Returning to Disney was an interesting experience. The park is almost ironically, unforgivingly incredible, doing what it wants to entertain guests no matter what. In the past years I have learned of the horrible effects of the United States foreign policies, and the poverty that runs rampant across the world. In a world where 20,000 people starve to death a day, how does Disney World exist?

Instead of looking at the imbalance, the hipster or environmentalist activist view “Disney’s terrible people are dying all this food is being wasted my parents will never be proud of me waaaaaaa” I look at a different perspective. Disney is not a bad place of waste, it is an incredible place of monetization, economic efficiency; it is the American dream, or at least the dream of any company, in perfect form for all to enjoy. Disney performers  -as we learned when we were getting ready to march in the Magic Kingdom parade, an event in which I teard up I was so happy and will remember the rest of my life. Disney is the largest employer of live performers in the world, and they do an absolutely incredible job. Everyone is smiling, happy, and just so talented. Disney isnt a concentration of wastefulness and greed, it is a concentration of the most talented people on earth performing and working their hardest to give every single person visiting the park an experience that they will always remember.

 

Disney can’t be wasteful, it would be bad business. The food is used efficiently, the apparel and food is stored and used appropriately, and the workers paid and given breaks fairly. As an incredibly successful business, any concerns of wastefulness can be ignored completely.

The greatest parts of the Disney experience, is that you fit in no matter what. Disney might be one of the most ethnically, socio-economically, and intelligently diverse places on the face of the planet, anything goes at Disney. You can be who you want to be, wearing short shorts and running around with a lightsaber as I did, fanny pack wrapped snuggly around your waist, sticky from candy. Also at Disney, are thousands of thousands of disabled people in kids, all accommodated in every possibly way imaginable. Anyone can be a princess, anyone can be a prince, no matter what. This is the most magical part of Disney World; it is built to make everyone find their inner child no matter what. I watched the blind, the wheelchair inclined, the mentally handicapped, all smile and laugh and play. I’m in tears writing this out, as it is the most touching thing about the Disney company. They want to be able to make everyone, every single person happy, no matter what. That’s the way it should be.

The Walt Disney brand is one of the most recognizable names in history. Starting with just one man with a dream and a mouse, the Walt Disney company has become synonymous with the animation and movie business as a whole. Recently buying out Marvel, ESPN, and Lucasarts, Disney is showing no signs of stopping production, the company as a whole is planning over 20 movies in the next 5 years through its various productions and licenses. Recent Avengers and Star Wars movies were absolute hits, calling back to age old and exciting movie storytelling while becoming something truly new. Disney is in full stride.

Each new Disney movie is likely researched and examined by advertisers, merchandisers, concentration groups, think tanks, and executives. Each new movie fits a market share, slides into an economic niche to fill a need on the market. Every single new animated princess movie is organized and thought about for years, planned to work through and yet surpass and go around political, racial, and economic boundaries of society. Disney’s movies are created by the most powerful, talented performers, composers and writers in the entire world, and they have all the resources of Disney to make anything they want. All they have to do is sit down and say what story do you want to write, what world do we want to tell, what culture do we want to explore, what feelings do we want to convey, what people do we want to support, “What dream do we want to make come true?” Disney is the most incredible dream granting machine on earth, made possible only by the lovely capitalist freedoms American culture and government provides.

 

In the end, the magic of Disney is undeniably incredible as a child. I have memories of eating at EPCOT in Turkey, feeling as though I were in actual Turkey, even though the waiter had to run to Belgium to get mayonnaise for my little brother. Now as a young adult, understanding what it’s like to work crap hours and get crap pay, the real magic of Disney comes out. Disney world, in all its strange ironic majesty is magical not because of actual magic, but because it does such an incredible job. The singers, the characters in costume, the ride attendants, the props, the scenery, the castles, the treehouses, the fireworks, the music, the fun, the games, the company makes every single person have fun. The park guests don’t just believe in the magic, they want too. Everyone wants to be a prince, a princess, everyone wants their kids to be royalty, to laugh and play. The majority of the park guests save up for years to bring their kids and family to Disney world, and knowing this Disney puts on the greatest show of a lifetime every single day and every single night.

And every single night Disney world reaps in a killing of cash. The park and company is not only an incredible experience bringing happiness to millions every month, but it also is an incredibly successful business. THAT’S THE BEST PART. Disney stands a monument to making a killing, and it all started with one’s man dream to make people happy. Walt Disney wanted to conquer the world with laughter, art, and magic, and he did. Disney is an incredible realization of the American dream, a complex of both making millions happy and satisfying the needs of every type of person and ethnicity and disability, but also making a ton of money. It is absolutely incredible, and would not be able to happen anywhere else on earth. Mock America all you want. Sure VIetnam was terrible, Iraq pretty bad, Syrian going poorly, but at least we have Disney world, and it couldn’t be anywhere else where such a strange ,incredible place can exist.

Disney world is truly like a little world of its own: complex, political, and with its own resources to be spent and bought and cared after. The occupants of this world are magical characters, friendly attendant, and thousands of scary animatronic animals. Disney is a magical place, and the older perspective shows that it can still be magical no matter what the age. Magical not through real supernatural magic, that would be to easy, too simple. Instead, Disney works through incredible real magic, the magic of capitalism! The magic of hard work, planning, and showmanship, of taking pride in what you do, of dedication to the idea of perfection, the idea of making sure every single guest has a once in a lifetime experience.

Disney world is a fun place, fun for the whole family, my memories there will keep me happy for years to come remembering back, as so many across the world do. I truly can’t wait to bring my kids there, letting my daughter be a princess, my son be a prince, or anything and everything they want to be, as long as they are happy who cares. Disney doesn’t; doesn’t care who you are, just wants to help you have a fun time. The magic of Disney’s dream granting powers comes as a dream realized itself, the dream of Walt Disney himself to entertain and make millions laugh. As big as the place is , as mythical as the Walt Disney name has become over almost 100 years, it’s hard to remember:

“It all started with a mouse” -Walt Disney