[note]Pages 146-147 are missing in the archive.org version. The complete article text is available via the Vanity Fair website (see second link.)[/note]
<i>A half-century ago, Walt Disney imagined a place where the glories of the past would meet the promise of the future, where adult Huck Finns and Princesses could bring their little ones and all live their separate fantasies together. The world Disney was selling no longer really exists, but the customers at Disneyland and Disney World are still buying. As he keeps a prudent distance from Other People’s Kids at the Florida resort, Dave Hickey has an epiphany about its powerful mix of image, illusion, and icon.</i>
It’s my third morning in Mr. Disney’s world, deep in the heart of cracker Eden, out on the plain of the wet palmetto, and I have seen the Mouse. I have seen the children playing with the Mouse in the speckled shade of an acacia tree. I have wandered through the silver effervescence of their squeals, peals, gurgles, and giggles and found it a pleasant place to be. I have also seen bikers and their bitches, decked out in boots and leathers, borne aloft with giddiness at having their picture made with Goofy. I have seen antiques-store queens from the serious South posing ceremoniously with Chip ’n Dale, and, seeing all these things, I could only wonder if, in this hateful moment, Disney World just might be the happiest place on earth. At this, my inner child threatened to split for Las Vegas, and, properly chastened, I set off in search of Scrooge McDuck and the ride where you swim through the money. I couldn’t find it. I decided that this attraction, should it exist, was almost certainly tucked away on the corporate campus out in the San Fernando Valley.
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