If you’ve read my reading for any length of time, you know the impact Walt Disney has had on me. I can’t tell you how many I’ve written about Disney’s glory and how the firm has squandered Walt’s reputation.
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I know I’m a Disney fanatic, but it’s not just about wokeness and political comments. It’s also about how the company has made doubtful creative choices, made the tourist experience less enjoyable, and valued raising costs over benefit to guests.
I’m not alone in noticing this, sometimes. The child of a nation music star has released a new one called” What Walt Do State” that laments how Disney has strayed from Walt’s unique perspective.
Tyler Dean McDowell is the brother of country singer Ronnie McDowell and a brilliant singer-songwriter with a profession of his own. When he first signed to a brand, he kept his last name technique so that it wouldn’t look like his brother’s fame influenced any decisions to warning him, but as an independent designer, he’s proud to carry on his family history.
Tyler said that his two soldiers are his father and Walt Disney because both of them have inspired his personal imagination. His parents instilled in him a passion of the Disney Parks and resorts.
” My father, he was one of the first in our home to go to a Disney park”, he said. ” A lot of people don’t realize that he was in Vietnam. He served, truly. He was in Vietnam and finally went to Adak, Alaska, and finally back to Vietnam. But when he was on depart in California, I think that would have been’ 68,’ 69, he went to Disneyland”.
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” He had grown up seeing Uncle Walt, and then they went to the beginning of Epcot, and my family sort of went to Disney all the time”, he added. ” I mean, every year when I was born. But really, my mother — interesting tale —she found out she was female with me at Epcot. She talked to her doctor on a pay telephone that’s also it”.
Like me, Tyler was shocked when he found out that people really got paid to make the engaging sights at Walt Disney World. The Imagineers became another creative ideas for him.
Associated:  , Disney Has Turned Its Back on What Made It But Great
Only like so many Disney aficionados— or, as he calls them, “pixie dusters” — Tyler began to notice shifts in recent years that bothered him.
” A lot of people think that my concerns with the Walt Disney Company is their social position and points”, he said. ” And while that’s surely a part of it, I look at things like, you know,’ What Walt did say if he was it?'”
He points out a new change that allowed cast members to game visible tattoos and hairstyle or designs that distract from the” present” that these cast people put on while they work. He also cites additions and renovations at the resort that look generic and don’t have the same character as the original buildings.
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Politically correct changes bother him as well. For example, Disney replaced the infamous auction scene in Pirates of the Caribbean, in which the pirates bid for brides, with one where the pirates are auctioning off treasures to each other instead of just stealing them like pirates should. ( Additionally, the comely redhead bride became a grrrrl boss pirate telling the male pirates what to do. )
Last year’s announcement by JoshD’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, that the picturesque Rivers of America area of Walt Disney World’s Frontierland would become a” Cars”-themed area was the biggest catalyst for Tyler to write a song.
” Obviously, that gave me a moment of pause because I remember the old Disneyland show”, Tyler said. ” Obviously, I wasn’t there at the time, but I remember watching the reruns and stuff, and when they would describe Frontierland, they would say,’ Tall tales and true from the legendary past.’ Not race cars”.
Tyler believes that Disney has lost its way with storytelling. A” Cars”-themed area would work wonderfully in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where Pixar already has a presence. In Frontierland, cartoon race cars will stick out like a sore thumb next to the more realistic depictions of America’s frontier days.
Side note: Concerned Disney fans can take action. Here’s how.
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Speak up for Walt’s legacy ,# SaveMagicKingdom
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Make sure to express your sincere hesitation on … pic. twitter.com/F9Vr7tX024
— Joshua L Harris ( @JLHomni ) January 28, 2025
Tyler wrote and recorded” What Walt Would Say”, but there was one more task to achieve: filming a music video. Tyler and his cinematographer traveled to Walt Disney World and filmed in beloved parts of the Magic Kingdom, dodging Disney security all the while. The result is an evocative video that fits the poignancy of the song.
Recommended:  , Disney Legend Defends Splash Mountain and ‘ Song of the South ‘
It can be difficult to explain the attachment to Disney to those who haven’t experienced it for themselves. Tyler and I talked about how to describe why the purity of the parks is so special and worth defending.
” To those people who don’t understand because you asked that question, like those people who don’t get it, I would say it is art”, he said. ” The park needs to be treated as such. It is a living, breathing form of art.
” It has inspired generations of people. I am one of them, “he added”. Even my dad, who is not a huge Disney fan as much as he was when he was younger. It still inspired him to be creative. And that is important. It’s important to our humanity, to us as a culture. And it needs to be treated with respect, both by people who work there and people who don’t. People who get it. People who don’t. So that’s what I would say to them. It’s like,’ This is why it’s important. This is why I wrote the song.’ Because I feel the people who are running it don’t get it. They don’t care.”
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But will a song and music video make a difference? Tyler thinks so. He’s even heard from a legendary Imagineer who appreciated and loved the song, and he’s gotten a lot of positive feedback from Disney fans. Who knows? If” What Walt Would Say “gets into the right hands, we might see some positive changes at Disney Parks.
Check out Tyler’s music and other projects on X and Instagram and at his website.
Here’s the video for” What Walt Would Say”:
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