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Team Rodent : How Disney Devours the World
written by Carl Hiaasen
Studio : Ballantine Books
by Ballantine Books
Release Date : 1998-05-05
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Released : 1998-05-05
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780345422804
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 104 reviews)
List Price : $9.95
Our Price : $4.64
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Product Description |
"Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it's unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness. . . . Disney isn't in the business of exploiting Nature so much as striving to improve upon it, constantly fine-tuning God's work."
--from TEAM RODENT
TEAM RODENT
How Disney Devours America
"Revulsion is good. Revulsion is healthy. Each of us has limits, unarticulated boundaries of taste and tolerance, and sometimes we forget where they are. Peep Land is here to remind us; a fixed compass point by which we can govern our private behavior. Because being grossed out is essential to the human experience; without a perceived depravity, we'd have nothing against which to gauge the advance or decline of culture; our art, our music, our cinema, our books. Without sleaze, the yardstick shrinks at both ends. Team Rodent doesn't believe in sleaze, however, nor in old-fashioned revulsion. Square in the middle is where it wants us all to be, dependable consumers with predictable attitudes. The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America's values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company, and not the other way around." |
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Americancivilwar.com |
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Let's get one thing straight: Carl Hiaasen doesn't like the Walt Disney Company. Whenever the giant entertainment conglomerate stumbles, as it did with its proposed Civil War theme park in Virginia, Hiaasen cheers. When a rhinoceros mysteriously dies at Disney's new theme park, Animal Kingdom, Hiaasen secretly hopes for the worst, because, as he writes, "no scandal is so delectable as a Disney scandal." A native of Florida, author of such thrillers as Lucky You and Strip Tease, and a journalist for the Miami Herald, Hiaasen comes by his dislike for Disney honestly. He has witnessed the relentless success of the Disney machine firsthand with the development of Disney World and other properties around Orlando. In Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World, Hiaasen paints a witty and sarcastic portrait in this nonfiction account of a company who can control the press, manipulate local governments, and because it's Disney, get away with it. Team Rodent is a quick, entertaining read that even the most loyal Disney shareholder (except maybe Michael Eisner) will find enlightening and amusing. --Harry C. Edwards |
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he Rat skewered by facts |
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Hiassen puts his background as a jounalist to work. With the combination of quality research and his legendary ascerbic wit someone finally skewers the Rat kingdom as it deserves. |
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Hiassen book |
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My book was delivered shortly after I ordered it and arrived in very good condition. I haven't read the whole book yet but soon will. Americancivilwar has always delivered without any delay and never has been damaged. |
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"Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil." -Which is ripe for satire. |
This little 83-page tract against The Walt Disney Company is intended to entertain more than inform or even proselytize. Carl Hiaasen grew up in Florida, where Disney reigns supreme. Disney has devoured Florida, the United States, and, Hiaasen predicts, will gobble up the world. So he relishes a Disney scandal, and he's collected a few of them in "Team Rodent". Hiaasen sees something evil in Disney's obsession with being good -or appearing to be good. What he finds most objectionable are the lengths to which Disney will go to "superimpose its own recreation-based reality", "a sublime and unbreakable artificiality", on the real thing. So "Team Rodent" celebrates Disney's failures and exposes its hypocrisies.
Hiaasen is not pleased that Walt Disney World acquired its own government by creating its own municipality in Florida. "The Vatican with mouse ears," some say. He takes swipes at Michael Eisner, Disney's board of directors, its housing developments, adult entertainment, animal cruelty, abuse of power, and anything else that might blot the company's image. Hiaasen has some good things to say about Disney too. This isn't a polemic so much as an exasperated, amusing critique. I think he could have said more about the strange requirements of employees at Disney's theme parks. But I've hated everything Disney since my family dragged me to Disneyland when I was four. So I think "Team Rodent" is pretty funny. |
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A brief comment |
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Hiaasen is mostly known for his bitingly funny and wacky novels, but here he delves into the essay genre in a funny, extended rant on the evils of the Disney empire. I enjoyed the book but it could probably have been cut down by one third or even half and it would have been all right. Many of the things he talks about are true, but much of it is satire, too, just like his fiction. His discussion of how the Disney World parks insisted on having their own police force, however, separate from the Florida police, almost makes his overall thesis credible. :-) If you're new to Hiaasen I would read one of his fiction books first rather than start here. But if you're a fan, it's still worth reading for its funny take on Disney and on Florida too. |
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A Review from someone who has LIVED in FL |
Before you spend $9 on this book you need to know that it's less than 100 pages. This is not so much a book but a critical essay. Many Disney lovers have obviously read and reviewed this book and written scathing reviews, you will notice that most of these reviewers live far away from the Disney machine. I grew up in Florida and lived for 4 years of it in Orlando, less than 20 minutes from Disney. Many of my friends worked there, we dealt with the Disney machine on a daily basis.
This essay may seem to be a vicious stab at the wholesome goodness that is Disney, and many who spend their hard earned money on their yearly trip to mouse land will be incensed, outraged at the audacity of Hiaasen to point out that Disney is not the loving arms of your parents, it is a mega-glomorate that is a master of shifting perception and hails above all, the almighty dollar. If you live there then you know the sickening scales that you are forced to live on, you can't truly hate Disney because it employs either directly or indirectly just about everyone you know, but if you live there, you know the truth about what they stand for and it is appalling. Along with the thousands upon thousands of tourist who flock there every year under the delusions that they can behave however they please both on and off Disney property because "They are spending their hard earned money here." They trash our beaches, wreak their cars on our roads while reading maps or screaming at their children, they behave rudely and expect to be waited on by everyone. They load their cars full of trinkets from the roadside stands, harass our wildlife then sue when they get bitten. Yes, Disney turned Florida into what it is today, for better or worse. We Floridians accept that, but it is also nice to have individuals like Hiaasen to point out that the frosty eyed tourists need to wake up and realize that this is a COMPANY out to make MONEY.
Enough about that, Hiaasen does a wonderful job of using typical Florida cynicism to point out what most people in Florida already know, Disney wants your money and they are willing to brainwash your children to get it. Your money WILL end up in their hands eventually. He brings to light the creepy business tactics, the cultish behavior, the third Reich mentality that those of us who have been close enough to smell the beast know is there. Did you know the Tower of Terror fell and killed a bunch of people in the late 90's? Nope? I only know because I knew people who worked there at the time... never even made the papers. Did you know that up until recently no on dies on Disney property? You can be in 7 different pieces but you will not be pronounced dead until off their property.
Back to the book, this is extremely well written, extremely cynical, and certainly not worth $10. Get it from the library or a used bookstore mainly because of how short it is. But it is a great read, I highly recommend it.
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