“What’re you doing for the long weekend?” my coworker asked as we noshed on some mid-afternoon marinated olives.
“I’m going to Disneyland!” I said, and did a little soft shoe.
She frowned. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
Uh-oh. “Um, yes?”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know you have children.”
“I don’t.”
She shook her head. “Then why on earth would you go there?”
I popped an olive in my mouth as I mulled over the possible responses: Because I like it? Because my husband likes it? Because I got a relatively cheap package deal through AAA? I looked at my coworker, a serious, scholarly woman who will someday run for county supervisor on the Green Party ticket. She doesn’t own a television and had never heard of SpongeBob Squarepants and American Idol before I enlightened her. I realized that my penchant for Disneyland wasn’t going to cut it with her—I needed a cover.
“Actually,” I said. “My friend works at the Getty Museum, and she’s curating her first show, so we thought we’d go to Disneyland too…”
“I see,” she said, her approval of my plans hitching up a few notches. We chatted more about my friend’s exhibition (medieval monastic manuscripts—heavy duty indeed), and pretended our conversation regarding the Magic Kingdom had never happened.
Even though I’m growing older, I’ve noticed that my fondness for such stuff as amusement parks, romantic comedies set in high schools, and certain kinds of television shows hasn’t changed. In my twenties, my affection for Disneyland was considered kind of charmingly funky. In my thirties, visiting the Happiest Place on Earth of my own free will and sans enfants is…not so charming, apparently. I’m not sure what this says about my maturity level, but I do know that whenever I reveal my predilections to certain of my peers, I usually need some sort of excuse—a beard, if you will.
For example: My favorite TV show of all time is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a cult classic with a loyal fan-base of smarty-pants intellectuals, some of whom have deconstructed its philosophical, moral, and feminist underpinnings in academic publications. Respectable, right? Not to everyone. Those in the “Dr. Phil is a golden god” camp think I’m a snob for watching a show with a complex mythology (although they wouldn’t express their opinions as such. They would say, “I don’t get it. Isn’t it, like, about vampires?”).
Those in the “don’t own a car or sense of humor” category, think I’m puerile (“Don’t you have better things to do with your time than watch a show about someone named Buffy?”). In my defense, for I do feel the need to be defended, I give a reliable explanation: “Well, I’m a writer, and Buffy is really well written.” Honest—give it a chance! To the first category of peanut gallery critics, this answer is further evidence of my snobbery, and to the second it’s a pathetic display of my delusions. If only I had children, I could use them as excuses (“They make me watch it”). Both sides would accept this more readily than the truth.
There are, of course, the rare exceptions. Take Harry Potter for example: I believe it was around the publication of book three that I noticed several of my fellow downtown commuters on the subway with their noses buried in the heavy tome. These were not parents buying the book for their kids—nor were they hipsters or fantasy geeks—but normal, average, business-suited men and women with the Wall Street Journal tucked under their arms, momentarily forgotten in favor of a good bit of storytelling. And some of these people were middle-aged! For the first time since reaching adulthood, I didn’t feel like a freak because my tastes sometimes run to the juvenile.
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Fortunately, I’m married to a man who also likes kid stuff. No, he doesn’t have a Peter Pan complex—at least, not yet. He pays his bills and goes to his office-manager job and hunkers down with his responsibilities. On weekends, he holes up in his art studio. Later, we go to dinner and maybe see a movie; or we return home and watch a DVD together or read on our own.
The night before our Disneyland/Getty trip, we packed our bags in high anticipation. “Disneyland, here we come!” my husband hooted. “Yee haw!”
“And the Getty,” I said, waving the brochure. “Don’t forget the Getty.”
“The Getty, here we come!” He raised his arms above his head so I could high-five him. His view is that all of our adventures deserve the same, unapologetic enthusiasm no matter how high- or lowbrow they are. “Illuminated parchment! Go, monks!” he huzzahed.
We checked in at the Grand Californian Hotel and strapped on our Park Hopper Passes. A “cast member” cheerfully patted down my backpack, and we were in. I watched with glee as adults and kids alike got wrapped up in trading pins or collecting character autographs or chugging churros. We remarked on the cleanliness, the pinkness, the goofiness of the place. We like the sheer fakery of it, the detailed craftsmanship—sure, it’s plastic craftsmanship, but it’s not shoddy. There’s something about so much manufactured happiness—it’s sort of endearingly fatalistic (“Might as well ride Pirates of the Caribbean one more time, because tomorrow I could get hit by a bus!”). At Disneyland I’ve witnessed fake happiness give rise to genuine bliss. Just watch any child get her coveted photo op with the perpetually smiling Minnie Mouse.
On the other hand, the amount of electricity and fuel it must take to keep the parks going disturbs me. So do the overpriced bottles of water; all the garbage piling up in Orange County’s landfills from Disneyland alone; the amount of garbage each American produces in a day, a week, a year; the environmental impact of theme parks across the country; the way Disney movies corrupts traditional fairytales and myths… But I’ll remain myopic for now. It’s not that I’m not aware; despite the ecological horrors (okay, they have put up more recycling bins, I’ll give them that), I still like Disneyland. (And as for the illuminated medieval manuscripts, they were pretty breathtaking, too.)
In the end, it’s a simple matter of taste. No one can account for it. I can’t explain why I greatly admire James Salter’s writing yet one of my favorite movies is The Parent Trap (the Dennis Quaid version). To be honest, I think it’s rather cool: I go to Disneyland because I have fun there, not because I have to treat my niece or nephew, not because some child has dragged me, grumbling and peeving, and forced me to dole out Disney dollars from my wallet—as I forced my parents—for theme-park detritus like overpriced Mickey ears. In a few years, I’ll be forty. Maybe by then, the judgmental attitude of a few of my peers will have changed, or I won’t care enough to think up a cover like going to the Getty whenever they give me that disapproving squint. Or, my husband and I will have some kids of our own, and our desires, true or feigned, won’t matter anymore.
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