Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (23 page)

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with Bobbie’s plight, but since LEAGUE is a studio-sanctioned employees group, they did not feel it was their position to put Bobbie in contact with a lawyer to possibly sue the studio for harassment. Bobbie was later laid off, along with a number of others who angrily let Bobbie know that they felt they had been let go only to hide the fact that the company wanted to get rid of her.

As unfortunate as this incident is, disparagement of LEAGUE for its capitulation to the studio’s attempts to control and regulate the categories of sexual identity must be tempered by certain important factors. Expecting LEAGUE members to practice an idealistic “queer” experience privileges an academic and often abstract concept of sexual identity in the workplace over the actual lived experience of these individuals.39 LEAGUE’s members (and potential members) are
de facto
employees and thus imbricated and deeply involved in the economics of the company. While certain employees consider their work “only a job”

and not somehow part of their identity, many often look at their employment as “a career” and are deeply invested in the work they do.

From Walt’s founding of the company to the present day, Disney has worked to foster in its employees a sense that they are “members of the family,” drawing them into equating self-worth with the company’s overall performance. Consequently, lesbian and gay employees often have to balance their self-identity as homosexuals with their self-identity as Disney employees. It would be unsurprising to find that individuals often attempt to reconcile the two by acquiescing to the officially sanctioned boundaries of sexual expression (or separating their personal life from their work in order to “play by the rules” at the office).40 In the corporate world, lesbians and homosexuals of racial or ethnic minorities are often more consumed with trying to overcome the barriers placed upon them by their gender or race than with their sexual identity, which is not as easily perceived by superiors.41 Because of these already-placed hurdles, many of these people remain closeted as a way to keep from dealing with multiple “glass ceilings.”42 To substantially challenge company policies would potentially endanger any non-straight employee’s inclusion as “part of the family at the Walt Disney Company.” This stands in contrast to non-straight
consumers
of Disney who have no direct self-investment in Disney and thus have more leeway to accept or resist the messages presented by the company’s products. (Exactly how much leeway these consumers have is a matter discussed in chapter 5.)

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Even with these barriers, LEAGUE has already had a lasting impact. The stability and strength of the group over the past few years has helped many Disney employees to start the process of “coming out,”

providing confidence and support. Hicks knew of a number of people who made their first movement out of the closet by attending a LEAGUE meeting. One such person, he remembered, was marching with LEAGUE in a gay pride parade a year after his first tentative attendance.43 The impact of LEAGUE extends beyond the Walt Disney Company, for its success has inspired similar lesbian/gay/bisexual employee groups to form at almost every other major motion picture studio—and these various employee groups have been able to argue for and win domestic-partner benefits.44 The report that LEAGUE wrote on domestic-partner benefits has been used by a number of different organizations including the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District and Nestle’s Gay and Lesbian Employee Association. Although LEAGUE

works from within, and consequently often capitulates to the rules and regulations established by corporate society, it has unquestioningly helped better the lives of many lesbians and gay men.

MAIN STREET, U.S.A.: HOMOSEXUALITY

AT THE THEME PARKS

LEAGUE’s strength and resilience has helped it to stand as a model not only for the lesbian and gay employees at other studios, but for lesbian and gay employee groups within other branches of the Walt Disney Company. Although LEAGUE is open to all employees within the corporation—from Hollywood Records to the Disney Stores—most of its members are from within the motion picture and television divisions.

Soon after the founding of LEAGUE, lesbian and gay employee groups announced their formation at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The presence of LEAGUE announcements in the
Newsreel
alerted lesbian and gay employees in Florida, who gathered together to form ALLIANCE about five months after LEAGUE held its first meeting. Walt Disney World’s ALLIANCE has always remained completely independent of the studio’s employee group, but LEAGUE was quite involved in helping the employees at Disneyland get LEAGUE/Anaheim started.45 Although a number of park employees were eager for such a group, no one seemed to have enough time, energy or courage to get the F I N D I N G A P L AC E I N T H E K I N G D O M

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ball rolling. For example, some of the LEAGUE contingent that joined the March on Washington ran into some Disneyland employees, who were extremely enthusiastic, but nothing ever resulted.

Eventually, in August of 1993, LEAGUE put in a call to Disneyland’s version of the studio’s University, Cast Activities, and looked into setting up and announcing a meeting. Since LEAGUE already legitimized the right for such a group to exist, there wasn’t a repeat of the travails Sass Nielsen endured. In fact, Garrett Hicks, then co-chair of LEAGUE, was frankly surprised at the level of assistance he received in planning this first meeting from Cast Activities. Hicks worked through an extremely enthusiastic female employee of Cast Activities, who told him, “‘I have so many people that are asking about this, I’m so glad you guys are finally doing this!’ She made sure the announcement ran two times in the
Newsreel,
she got this meeting room for me, she showed up at the first meeting.”46 Although still in communication with LEAGUE, LEAGUE/Anaheim now functions on its own, dealing with issues and concerns that are unique to the employee base of the park. Yet, since both function within the same corporate system (and since the studio’s group has helped foster Disneyland’s group), how sexuality is conceived of, monitored and regulated within ALLIANCE and

LEAGUE/Anaheim is often quite similar to how it is managed within LEAGUE.

Day-to-day life for lesbian and gay employees of the two theme parks is quite different and distant from the workplace atmosphere of the motion picture and television divisions. First and foremost, Disneyland and Walt Disney World are physically separated from the Walt Disney Studios. While the studio is in the heart of Burbank, just over the hill from Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles (conventionally thought of as more liberal areas of the United States), Disneyland is situated in the middle of Orange County, one of the most conservative communities in the state of California. Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida, is located in the middle of the “Bible Belt.” The letter signed by fifteen Florida lawmakers in late 1995 referred to at the beginning of chapter 1 adequately sums up the dominant social atmosphere of the state. Written specifically in response to the announcement that the Walt Disney Company had finally decided to extend domestic-partner benefits, the letter states, “We strongly disapprove of your inclusion and endorsement of a lifestyle that is unhealthy, unnatural and unworthy of special treatment. Those who 118

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practice homosexuality are engaging in a lifestyle that should not be given the same status as heterosexual marriages.”47 Most employees of the parks live in the immediate surrounding areas and hence often carry with them these prevailing attitudes towards homosexuality, even though officially the Walt Disney Company does not discriminate against homosexuality in its hiring or promotion policies.

The strength of “traditional” or conservative attitudes towards homosexuality within the parks may also come directly from the upper management team at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Even as Team Disney was vitally rehauling the studio’s employee base (firing over 400 people by early 1985), Eisner and Wells did not feel the need to make such a major sweep through the parks. Even in the darkest times of the company, both Disneyland and Walt Disney World maintained a steady (if, at times, unspectacular) profit. Often, the success of the parks had helped erase the red ink spilled on the film production end. As company board member Sid Bass claimed, “The executives at the park remembered how Walt had done it.”48 Symbolic of the “old school,” Eisner and Wells kept Richard Nunis on as head of the entire theme park operation; Nunis had been involved with Disneyland before construction was even completed in 1955 and had risen to take over the division by 1971.

Nunis was not the only theme park executive to stay on as Team Disney formed. Consequently, the division’s upper management still retained an almost exclusive white male heterosexual profile. Having been around prior to the opening up of the company to lesbian and gay employees, these executives have been conceivably resistant to this change. For example, Joe Flower reports that park managers at Disneyland were resistant to the idea of the
Captain EO
3-D film attraction that debuted in 1986, complaining that the film’s star Michael Jackson was

“a wimp, he’s a fag, he’s gay.”49 Just before the entire company included sexuality in the EEO policy, one fired park manager successfully sued to be reinstated, claiming discrimination for being homosexual. According to the employees of the parks that I interviewed, there still remains an unspoken glass ceiling that keeps women, homosexuals and people of color from advancing to higher positions at the parks. In their opinion, an openly homosexual employee is unlikely, if ever, to be promoted to a supervisory position, much less an executive position. In an extreme example of some homosexual employees acquiescing to the unspoken regulation of sexuality, one former employee of Disneyland F I N D I N G A P L AC E I N T H E K I N G D O M

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claimed to know of two gay men who married women in order to protect their future in upper management at the park. Most of the homosexual work force at the theme parks have not gone this far, and some have found a space to be both open about their sexuality and stay employed. Yet, most of this latter group are part of the day labor force.

Some gay men who started their work at Disneyland at hourly

wage found a better chance for advancement by diverting into Imagineering, the division that devises the various attractions for the theme parks. Although directly tied to the parks, Imagineering is separate from the executives managing the parks, and, in trying to foster a creative and unrestrictive environment for its designers, Imagineering is somewhat less concerned with the sexual orientation of its employees.

Yet, issues of sexuality are still monitored and managed in this division using the same economic incentives (raises and promotions, or the obverse, demotions or layoffs). Kent, an Imagineer who had begun by portraying Peter Pan in parades, found this out when the division asked him to relocate to France to help design EuroDisneyland in the early 1990s.50 Although Kent had a partner, he had not officially come out to anyone in the company. The company had a policy of financing the move for a relocated employee’s spouse, or paying for quarterly visits—a policy which Kent questioned, since he wasn’t “legally married,”

as he told his superiors (avoiding an overt confrontation over his homosexuality). According to Kent, his superiors were livid when he turned down the assignment after they refused to alter the policy, informing him that looking for his replacement took “considerable cost and inconvenience” and that if he didn’t accept the assignment, “we’re not sure we’ll have another assignment for you.” Possibly as a result of this fracas, flying spouses back and forth is no longer offered to relocated employees.

In another incident, a slide presentation at an Imagineering holiday party inadvertently made a joke using a sketch of the seating arrangement on slave ships bound for the American colonies.
Eyeopeners,
the Imagineering division’s newsletter, apologized for the affront and upheld a commitment to not discriminate against race, creed or gender.

Livid at the exclusion of sexuality on this list, Kent went directly to Marty Sklar, the head of Imagineering, and in no uncertain terms came out while protesting. To his credit, Sklar agreed with Kent and, from that point on, consulted with Kent regularly. When a local troop of Boy Scouts planned a trip to the Imagineering offices and workshops, Kent 120

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informed Sklar of the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory policy towards homosexuals. Sklar canceled the visit.

Garth Steever, a manager working within Disneyland, also came out to his superiors in a dramatic way. One of the female ticket sellers working under his supervision was let go, and she accused him of sexual harassment. In order to defend himself against this accusation, Steever met with the Disney lawyers and told them of his sexual orientation.51 Although obviously not the most comfortable method of coming out on the job, Steever was able to use the situation to his advantage.

Although many of the people Steever worked with might have had ideas about his homosexuality, the situation was similar to the Armed Forces’ “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Much as Judith Butler describes social discourses creating overlaps and contradictions in speaking about sexuality, the park’s economic interests (worries about being sued) ended up creating not only a space for Steever to be openly gay but created a
need
for him to be gay. Forced by circumstances to declare himself openly, Steever (like Kent) felt obliged to speak for other homosexual employees who didn’t feel secure enough in the workplace to come out.

Still, even before coming out officially, Steever related the hardship in moving up the corporate ladder at Disneyland when superiors silently assumed he was gay. The discrimination was never outspoken, but executives could claim that because Steever hadn’t at that point formally announced he was gay, they couldn’t have discriminated against him. Still, Steever lists many indications of attempts to discourage his advancement. After passing through the supervisor training courses held at the Disney University, he was assigned to the Main Street, U.S.A. section of the park—notoriously one of the toughest areas to manage. (Since the entrance to the park is Main Street, this area is responsible for admissions and also handles most customer complaints.) After succeeding, Steever was told by
his
supervisor that he was expected to fail at this position (as had a previous openly gay management hopeful that Steever knew). Becoming a full manager, Steever has made his way into the upper division but feels that the process was inordinately stressful, that he still has to fight for “merit” pay hikes given on a regular basis to other managers at his level, and has been told sur-reptitiously that his evaluator “doesn’t like his lifestyle.”52