Questionable Disney Quotes

Ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.

Your generation - you've not heard the Verve or Jimi Hendrix or Eminem, you've not read The Catcher in the Rye, you've not seen a classic film like Terminator or Blade Runner. All you've done is read dross, listen to crap and watch Disney movies with happy endings. And what kind of generation have we produced? A slow, simple, dull one who never questions anything. A stunted generation. It's devolution because in order for society to progress, you need to be able to debate ideas, to question, to see the dark and the light in things

You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.

You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT KING TRITON. Specifically, King, why are you elderly but with the body of a teenage Beastmaster? How do you maintain those monster pecs? Do they have endocrinologists under the sea? Because I am scheduling you some bloodwork... ...Question: How come, when they turn back into humans at the end of Beauty and the Beast, Chip is a four-year-old boy, but his mother, Mrs. Potts, is like 107? Perhaps you're thinking, "Lindy, you are remembering it wrong. That kindly, white-haired, snowman-shaped Mrs. Doubtfire situation must be Chip's grandmother." Not so, champ! She's his mom. Look it up. She gave birth to him four years ago... As soon as you become a mother, apparently, you are instantly interchangeable with the oldest woman in the world, and / or sixteen ounces of boiling brown water with a hat on it. Take a sec and contrast Mrs. Pott's literally spherical body with the cut-diamond abs of King Triton, father of seven.

Kitsch is much more than a question of style; it's a preference for consolation over truth. Disney's version of reality is not just cleaned up, it's pernicious. Unlike the best forms of art and philosophy, it undercuts the possibility of transformation because it portrays a world that's just fine as it is--or as it will be by the time the credits come up.

I looked down at my phone and saw another text from John. -Disney character you would sleep with? I smiled at that one. It was a silly question, but I answered it truthfully. -Peter Pan. I've always had a thing for the boys that never wanted to grow up. -Ouch. I hope that wasn't aimed at me. Because I’m a fan of Belle from Beauty and the Beast.Brunette and doesn't mind a guy that’s an animal? Hell yeah. wait for you

You know, there's this bullshit idea that you just magically know when you like someone romantically or sexually. But that's all it is - bullshit. Emotions are messy. People are messy. I imagine that magic makes it all just messier. And anything that isn't a clear-cut heterosexual romance out of a Disney film or a Hollywood romcom is constantly being put into doubt and questioned, because we are so used to seeing the same simple story repeated over and over again. That being straight or gay are the only options, that one person is right for you your entire life, that you just know you're meant to be, that couples have to be exclusive to be real relationships, that couples need to be couples, that romance always comes with sex. Life is not that easy. People and attraction are way more complicated than that.

If you ever mention something fun that you are going to do with your young children, and there is any time that will elapse between the very moment you bring it up and when you are actually doing the fun thing, you will be batraged with questions during that entire time period. If you tell them that you might go to Disney at some point in the coming year, you have opened a Pandora's box.

Your life is a story. You are telling it every single day. You don’t always realize it, but you are constantly telling others a story. The question we must always wrestle with is how well are you telling your story? Are you sharing a story that encourages others? Are you telling a story that gives others the freedom to dream? Is your story one that inspires hope and creates a desire to keep trying in a sometimes tough world? That

the only thing the hero knows about the girl is that she is beautiful. He shows no interest in her intellect or personality—or even her sexuality. The man is either a ruler or has the magic power to awaken her, and all she can do is hope that her physical appearance fits the specifications better than the other girls. In the original Cinderella story, the stepsisters actually cut off parts of their feet to try to fit into the glass slipper. Maybe this marks the origins of the first cosmetic surgery. Besides romanticizing Cinderella’s misery, the story also gives the message that women’s relationships with each other are full of bitter competition and animosity. The adult voice of womanly wisdom in the story, the stepmother, advises all her girls to frantically do whatever it takes to please the prince. This includes groveling, cutting off parts of themselves, and staying powerless. I was heartsick to watch Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” with my three-year-old daughter. The little mermaid agrees to give up her voice for a chance to go up on the “surface” and convince her nobleman to marry her. She is told by her local matron sea witch that she doesn’t need a voice—she needs only to look cute and get him to kiss her. And in the story, it works. These are the means to her one and only end: to buy a rich and respected guy. Women are taught to only listen to an outside patriarchal authority. No wonder there is so much self-doubt and confusion when faced with the question, “What do you want out of your life?” This question alone can be enough to trigger an episode of depression. It often triggers a game of Ping-Pong in a woman’s head. Her imagination throws up a possibility and then her pessimistic shotgun mind shoots it down. The dialog may look something like this: “Maybe I want to go back to school.... No, that would be selfish of me because the kids need me…. Maybe I’ll start a business.... No I hate all that dogeat-dog competition…. Maybe I’ll look for a love relationship…. No, I am not sure I am healed ye….” and on it goes.

People always feel sorry for you if you’re physically sick. It doesn’t matter if you have cancer or a cold. People always feel sorry for you and ask you if you’re okay. You need money? You got it! You want to meet a celebrity? Of course you can! You want to go to a convention, ComiCon, Disney World, anywhere in the world? You’re going to go there. That doesn’t happen when you’re mentally ill. If you’re mentally ill, people look at you differently. People roll their eyes when you talk about how sad you are. People won’t lift a finger to help you. “Get a job,” they’ll tell you. “Stop being so lazy. Be grateful you don’t have cancer. Get over it. It’s in the past. You have no reason to be sad.” And that isn’t how it works. But, of course, they wouldn’t know that. They’ve never been mentally ill, they don’t know how you can be so permanently damaged by your past that your present is painful and your future looks bleak. They don’t understand that most days getting out of bed is a chore. They don’t get that sometimes getting a job is out of the question because you’re just too damn afraid to even speak to anyone. That isn’t something you can just get over. But no one knows that because mental illnesses aren’t a real problem apparently. Apparently, the fact that over 800,000 million people die from suicide each year isn’t a real problem. Apparently, the fact that 15% of the adolescent population self-harms isn’t a real problem either. And, apparently, it isn’t a cause to worry that one in 200 American women suffer from an eating disorder. And, as I stand on the balcony, staring at the glittering city, thinking about the short time I spent in Paperthin Hearts, meeting all of the damaged children, I wonder how in the world people don’t understand what a mistake they’re making when they assume that having cancer is worse than being depressed or anxious or wanting to starve yourself to the point of death. How is that a mystery to anyone? Cancer patients are told they’re brave. They’re all made out to be martyrs. They’re given everything they need. Almost all of them. Mental health patients? They’re lucky if they get the right treatment they need before their broken, bleeding hearts, desperate only for love, destroy a part of them that can never be repaired.

Dr. Fauci’s business closures pulverized America’s middle class and engineered the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history. In 2020, workers lost $3.7 trillion while billionaires gained $3.9 trillion.46 Some 493 individuals became new billionaires,47 and an additional 8 million Americans dropped below the poverty line.48 The biggest winners were the robber barons—the very companies that were cheerleading Dr. Fauci’s lockdown and censoring his critics: Big Technology, Big Data, Big Telecom, Big Finance, Big Media behemoths (Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Viacom, and Disney), and Silicon Valley Internet titans like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, and Jack Dorsey. The very Internet companies that snookered us all with the promise of democratizing communications made it impermissible for Americans to criticize their government or question the safety of pharmaceutical products; these companies propped up all official pronouncements while scrubbing all dissent. The same Tech/Data and Telecom robber barons, gorging themselves on the corpses of our obliterated middle class, rapidly transformed America’s once-proud democracy into a censorship and surveillance police state from which they profit at every turn.

I’m going to say this once here, and then—because it is obvious—I will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls’ staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl—regardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance—had been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being “distracted” at school? At best, blaming girls’ clothing for the thoughts and actions of boys is counterproductive. At worst, it’s a short step from there to “she was asking for it.” Yet, I also can’t help but feel that girls such as Camila, who favors what she called “more so-called provocative” clothing, are missing something. Taking up the right to bare arms (and legs and cleavage and midriffs) as a feminist rallying cry strikes me as suspiciously Orwellian. I recall the simple litmus test for sexism proposed by British feminist Caitlin Moran, one that Camila unconsciously referenced: Are the guys doing it, too? “If they aren’t,” Moran wrote, “chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit.’” So while only girls get catcalled, it’s also true that only girls’ fashions urge body consciousness at the very youngest ages. Target offers bikinis for infants. The Gap hawks “skinny jeans” for toddlers. Preschoolers worship Disney princesses, characters whose eyes are larger than their waists. No one is trying to convince eleven-year-old boys to wear itty-bitty booty shorts or bare their bellies in the middle of winter. As concerned as I am about the policing of girls’ sexuality through clothing, I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality. I recall a conversation I had with Deborah Tolman, a professor at Hunter College and perhaps the foremost expert on teenage girls’ sexual desire. In her work, she said, girls had begun responding “to questions about how their bodies feel—questions about sexuality or arousal—by describing how they think they look. I have to remind them that looking good is not a feeling.

David Kord Murray, a former rocket scientist42 who worked on projects for NASA and later became the head of innovation at Intuit, made a study of connective creativity in his book Borrowing Brilliance. According to Murray, “The nature of innovation [is that] we build new ideas out of existing ideas.” Murray cites Einstein, Walt Disney, George Lucas, and Steve Jobs as prime examples of innovators who “defined problems, borrowed ideas, and then made new combinations.

Knowing is a vital part of learning and sharing a vision of what we want to create together. But “how” questions are on the doing side of the model. As in playing tennis, we learn how by doing. There is no other way. We can read books on tennis techniques and strategies. We can get a good tennis player to show us how he or she does it. We can watch players on TV for hours and analyze every stroke. But only by doing will we ever be able to learn how to do it. We may make mistakes but mistakes actually teach us more than our successes.

No question, prowling the Russian steppe for wolf meat and potato vodka takes a certain amount of admirable grit. Far more frightening to me, though, is the prospect of exploring the comely mermaid fantasy of Ariel’s Grotto inside the walls of a twenty-six-square-mile temple of consumerism dedicated to celebrating synthetic American culture at its overcrowded, fake-dreams, corndog-and-cotton-candy-inhaling worst, pushing a CEO-manufactured, ultraconformist mass “fantasy” presented fait accompli to American children. If it turns out there’s more horror to shrink from in Disney World than in Africa, I for one won’t be all that surprised.

imagine a written version of the Cinderella story that begins and ends with a simple paraphrase of the Disney movie but contains, in between, a 10,000 word poem called “Cinderella’s Lament”—a brilliantly written feminist manifesto challenging most of the sexist assumptions in the original story. Imagine that the poem is written primarily from Cinderella’s perspective but includes speeches by the stepmother and stepsisters as well. The Cinderella of the poem (let us imagine) is as radical as the Disney version is safe. She questions some of her culture’s deepest values and beliefs that women should marry men, that rich and handsome princes are automatically desirable, that a man can love a woman even if he can’t remember what she looks like. The other characters in the poem are, of course, horrified by her unorthodox views, and they do everything they can to contradict her. Every time she speaks, they rebut everything she says. But Cinderella is a clever debater, and she holds her own. They go on arguing and arguing until the Fairy Godmother shows up and angrily puts an end to the debate. “I spent a lot of time and effort catching you a prince,” she tells Cinderella, “and you had better marry him fast if you don’t want to end up a pumpkin yourself.” Cinderella knows when she has been beaten, and she submits—not to a better argument, but to superior physical force. She marries the prince, and they live happily ever after—except, of course, they don’t, and we know they don’t because we have been made privy to Cinderella’s deepest thoughts.

we needed to look closely at Lucasfilm and we needed his cooperation. We’d sign a confidentiality agreement, and we would do it in a way that wouldn’t raise too many questions

Ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don't understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.

times Nancy scrunched her eyes shut and concentrated on letting her powers go to work. But no answers floated into her mind. She ended up saying, “It’s not clear at this time.” Robert and Nola looked disappointed, which made Nancy feel bad. But they paid anyway. After that Nancy told customers to stick to yes-or-no questions. “My powers work better that way,” she explained. “Okay.” Nola fished out another quarter from her pocket. “Will I get to go to Disney World over spring break?

Managing creative processes starts with the understanding that it’s not a science—everything is subjective; there is often no right or wrong. The passion it takes to create something is powerful, and most creators are understandably sensitive when their vision or execution is questioned. I try to keep this in mind whenever I engage with someone on the creative side of our business. When I am asked to provide insights and offer critiques, I’m exceedingly mindful of how much the creators have poured themselves into the project and how much is at stake for them.

You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don't understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.

The first rule is not to fake anything. You have to be humble, and you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not or to know something you don’t. You’re also in a position of leadership, though, so you can’t let humility prevent you from leading. It’s a fine line, and something I preach today. You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence

It’s a hard thing to do, especially in the moment, but those instances in which you find yourself hoping that something will work without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work—that’s when a little bell should go off, and you should walk yourself through some clarifying questions. What’s the problem I need to solve? Does this solution make sense? If I’m feeling some doubt, why? Am I doing this for sound reasons or am I motivated by something personal? CHAPTER 5 SECOND IN LINE FOR THE NEXT three years, Michael ran the company without a number two.

Once the delivery was over and we were led to our hospital room for the night, Jordyn was famished, so I went down to the cafeteria to find her something to eat. I scoured for something that she might actually be able to stomach but retreated back to our room empty-handed, opting to perhaps order from the Jerry’s Deli across the street. I walked across the hall to the nurse station, where there was one nurse on duty, a large woman with Hulk Hogan’s build who barked at me in a thick eastern European accent, “CAN I HELP YOU?” “Yes . . . um, can you tell me if Jerry’s Deli delivers here?” She stared at me with her ice-cold eyes and growled, “I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHO IS DELIVERED HERE.” I smiled, realizing that she’d misunderstood my question, and said, “Hahaha . . . no . . . does JERRY’S DELI deliver here?” Looking like she was about to leap over her computer and strangle me with her giant, professional-wrestling hands, she raised her volume and repeated, “I TOLD YOU! I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHO IS DELIVERED HERE!!!” I scurried away in fear, walked across the street, and ordered a sandwich for Jordyn while standing next to Jennifer Lopez. Another night in Los Angeles. My mother was right, being a father to a daughter was indeed the most special relationship of my life. I was soon well versed in the art of a smudgeless pedicure, how to tie the perfect ponytail, and how to identify every Disney princess just by the color of her dress. This was easy, I thought.

This isn't Disney bitch stop finishing my sentences and let me talk” he bites before continuing “if it's coming back shouldn't he have remembered it all by now?” he questions, I pout thinking about it.

Vader’s on that ship,” Luke said. “Now don’t get jittery, Luke,” Han told him. “There are a lot of command ships. Keep your distance, though, Chewie, but don’t look like you’re trying to keep your distance.” Wondering how he should accomplish this tactic, Chewbacca barked a question to Han. “I don’t know,” Han replied. “Fly casual.

Remembering Han’s inclination to shoot first and ask questions later, Luke glared at his friend and stressed, “Quietly. There might be more of them out there.” Apparently surprised by Luke’s concern, Han grinned confidently and said, “Hey…it’s me.

What do cats and Druun have in common?” she said, thinking aloud. Sisu paused, as if giving the question serious thought. “Um…they have no…souls!

The queue also answers a question for curious theme park guests. Look for it the next time you are there. In Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the lead parrot Jose asks a question during the show: “Whatever happened to Rosita?” The answer to this question can be found just to the left of the Autocanary Air Quality Analyzers in the Ventilation Room, where you’ll see a golden cage hanging above three burlap sacks. The name on the cage is marked with Rosita, who apparently became a canary in the mine. What

Actress of

One Direction

In 1997, executives at Disney came to us with a request: Could we make Toy Story 2 as a direct-to-video release—that is, not release it in theaters? At the time, Disney’s suggestion made a lot of sense. In its history, the studio had only released one animated sequel in theaters, 1990’s The Rescuers Down Under, and it had been a flop. In the years since, the direct-to-video market had become extremely lucrative, so when Disney proposed Toy Story 2 for video release only—a niche product with a lower artistic bar—we said yes. While we questioned the quality of most sequels made for the video market, we thought that we could do better. Right away, we realized that we’d made a terrible mistake. Everything about the project ran counter to what we believed in. We didn’t know how to aim low. We had nothing against the direct-to-video model, in theory; Disney was doing it and making heaps of money. We just couldn’t figure out how to go about it without sacrificing quality. What’s more, it soon became clear that scaling back our expectations to make a direct-to-video product was having a negative impact on our internal culture, in that it created an A-team (A Bug’s Life) and a B-team (Toy Story 2). The crew assigned to work on Toy Story 2 was not interested in producing B-level work, and more than a few came into my office to say so.

Word spreads like wildfire in a town as small as Cedar Ridge, and by the time I make it to work, the streets of downtown are bustling with locals and tourists alike, all asking the same question. It’s sort of like being in the opening sequence of a Disney movie, but instead of singing about the funny girl who likes to read or the street rat who stole a loaf of bread, all of the colorful townspeople are wondering whether or not their neighbors have heard about the Bogman. And of course, everybody’s answer is “Yes.

good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “Do I have enough information to actually build this project?” If not, keep asking more questions and doing more research until you do.

Many in Hollywood view Disney as a soulless, creativity-killing machine that treats motion pictures like toothpaste and leaves no room for the next great talent, the next great idea, or the belief that films have any meaning beyond their contribution to the bottom line. By contrast, investors and MBAs are thrilled that Disney has figured out how to make more money, more consistently, from the film business than anyone ever has before. But actually, Disney isn’t in the movie business, at least as we previously understood it. It’s in the Disney brands business. Movies are meant to serve those brands. Not the other way around. Even some Disney executives admit in private that they feel more creatively limited in their jobs than they imagined possible when starting careers in Hollywood. But, as evidenced by box-office returns, Disney is undeniably giving people what they want. It’s also following the example of one of the men its CEO, Bob Iger, admired most in the world: Apple’s cofounder, Steve Jobs. Apple makes very few products, focuses obsessively on quality and detail, and once it launches something that consumers love, milks it endlessly. People wondering why there’s a new Star Wars movie every year could easily ask the same question about the modestly updated iPhone that launches each and every fall. Disney approaches movies much like Apple approaches consumer products. Nobody blames Apple for not coming out with a groundbreaking new gadget every year, and nobody blames it for coming out with new versions of its smartphone and tablet until consumers get sick of them. Microsoft for years tried being the “everything for everybody” company, and that didn’t work out well. So if Disney has abandoned whole categories of films that used to be part of every studio’s slates and certain people bemoan the loss, well, that’s simply not its problem.

You have a job. They’re expecting you to turn this business around. Your inexperience can’t be an excuse for failure. So what do you do in a situation like that? The first rule is not to fake anything. You have to be humble, and you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not or to know something you don’t. You’re also in a position of leadership, though, so you can’t let humility prevent you from leading. It’s a fine line, and something I preach today. You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.

but those instances in which you find yourself hoping that something will work without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work—that’s when a little bell should go off, and you should walk yourself through some clarifying questions. What’s the problem I need to solve? Does this solution make sense? If I’m feeling some doubt, why? Am I doing this for sound reasons or am I motivated by something personal?

Disney                Question 16.    Stag Party was the original name of what?     A         Top Gear

«Non vuoi parlare un po’ di più della questione dell’autismo? Continuo ad accennarlo, ma nessuno vuole discuterne con me.» Angel scrollò le spalle. «Tu senti il bisogno di parlarmene?» Il giovane considerò la domanda. Ne sentiva il bisogno? In troppi volevano che etichettasse i suoi sentimenti, i suoi meccanismi di difesa, il modo in cui riusciva a stare sul palco e a cantare esprimendo emozioni che non era in grado di catalogare dentro se stesso. «Non proprio.» «Una cosa...» disse Angel. Il petto di Corey si contrasse. Ecco. Le aveva già sentite tutte. Com’è? Provi emozioni? Cos’è quella gigantesca collezione di fumetti? Come fai ad avere una conoscenza enciclopedica dei film della Disney? Sei sempre così maleducato? Le solite domande. Ma si trattava di Angel, e lui non era quel tipo di persona. «Dimmi,» lo incoraggiò, nonostante la tensione che provava dentro di sé. «Ti è piaciuto quel bacio? Puoi... ti andrebbe di rifarlo?» Angel sembrava nervoso. Nonostante spesso Corey fosse incapace di leggere le emozioni altrui, era chiaro che il ragazzo non riusciva a mettere insieme una frase. «Eri bellissimo,» disse Corey, o meglio, buttò fuori tutto in una volta. «Ricordi quando stavamo cercando dei vestiti? Eri proprio davanti a me, stavi saltellando dentro e fuori dai jeans e volevo toccarti, la sensazione del materiale mi stava agitando, così mi sono concentrato su di te e il pensiero che le camicie mi facevano male ha cominciato a sparire. Volevo baciarti allora e volevo baciarti quando è successo, anche se forse tu non eri dell’idea. È una cosa bruttissima, vero?» Angel scrollò le spalle, indicò la chitarra e Corey gliela passò. Il ragazzo la appoggiò delicatamente sul cuscino accanto a loro e con un movimento fluido saltò in grembo a Corey. Gli prese il volto tra le mani e gli posò un bacio sulle labbra. «Okay?» mormorò Angel. «Posso stare così?» Per tutta risposta, Corey gli artigliò i fianchi e si protese per dargli un altro bacio

They should both have known that it couldn’t work, but they willfully avoided asking the hard questions because each was somewhat blinded by his own needs. It’s a hard thing to do, especially in the moment, but those instances in which you find yourself hoping that something will work without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work—that’s when a little bell should go off, and you should walk yourself through some clarifying questions. What’s the problem I need to solve? Does this solution make sense? If I’m feeling some doubt, why? Am I doing this for sound reasons or am I motivated by something personal?

Every time a question came up about what had gone wrong at Disney over the past years, what mistakes Michael made, and why they should think I’m any different, my response could simply and honestly be: “I can’t do anything about the past. We can talk about lessons learned, and we can make sure we apply those lessons going forward. But we don’t get any do-overs. You want to know where I’m going to take this company, not where it’s been. Here’s my plan.

Managing creative processes starts with the understanding that it’s not a science—everything is subjective; there is often no right or wrong. The passion it takes to create something is powerful, and most creators are understandably sensitive when their vision or execution is questioned.