The real irony of someone encouraging you at Disney to get off your phone and be present vs to Disney today actively encouraging you to stare at your phone all day and not be present has not been lost on me.
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In fairness, you were pretty cracked when I found you
This is it in a nutshell. About once per trip this happens to me, where Iâm going along doing my thing and not trying to cross anyone but then suddenly find Iâm doing something wrong. Last trip it was a CM on Main Street repeatedly trying to usher me in the opposite direction to where I was trying to goâŚI got pretty mad until I realized they were trying to create an empty path for performers to walk through. So just say so or ask everyone to pause for a moment, donât tell me to turn around and go the other way! Now that my DS20 is majoring in industrial engineering and I realize what that is, I think of it as being âindustrial engineeredâ - they are trying to manage crowd control at the expense of the individualâs experience. Or maybe I just get into an oblivious state sometimes and need to be jerked back to reality! DH would agree with that 
. In the Alice situation maybe they didnât want people stopping there and blocking the path? But still no need to be so rude, my intent was to pause 5 seconds tops.
Reminds me of another just bizarre situation from my December trip. It was nearly fireworks time in MK and DS13 and I were looking for a place to stand, and it was wall to wall nuts. We followed the open pathway until I realized the CMs were ushering people to the exit, or maybe through a shortcut to near the train station? Anyway that wasnât where we wanted to go so we turned back and found a nook in the wall of people. Then behind us comes a woman with an orange cone in her hand saying âexcuse us, excuse us, these people need through!â with another woman and her son behind. There was nowhere for us to move to but into the mass of people so we jumped on their train and headed into the crowd. At one point the womanâs son must have gotten ahead of me because she seethed at me âI donât know where you are going but you are between me and my sonâ, and I said, âmy son is ahead of him!â We ended up stopping and watching the fireworks and later I turned to her and said, who was that with the orange cone? âJust a random lady who was helping me outâ, she said. Not a CM. So maybe I need to add my own orange cone to my packing list??!! Actually after that nuttiness and now with omicron we are booked for dinner at CG this Sunday and will safely watch from there!
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It might a good thought, but Iâm gonna disagree here in the name of âauthenticityâ. If whomever is donning the costume can nail the character so itâs indiscernible from the source material, then rock onâŚhowever, you canât pull a Muppets 3D and have Max from the Union step in.
Iâm all for representation, but it needs to be at the heart of the character, not a isolated change to the existing one for the sake of âwell, itâs representation.â I think itâs safe to say that when you tell a child (or really, anyone) theyâll be getting something theyâre familiar with, changes (for better or worse) isnât going to go over as well as just leaving it as what they were expecting. This is why Comic movies are heavily scrutinized when it comes to casting. Once in a while, youâll get your surprise joys (Hugh Jackman, Gal Gadot), but often, if they donât live up to the already established expectation, it can be hugely problematic (Jesse Eisenberg, Topher Grace )
If Ariel suddenly starts looking like Luisa or even Gaston solely at the park, we have a problem. And if Luisa(if she ever appears) suddenly looks like Ariel at the park, we have the same problem. NOWâŚif they would suddenly change appearances in their respective stories? The problemâs now solved. (Case in point, Arielâs new look in her up coming movie. Iâm totally fine if I see that Ariel show up in the Parks, but she better look and act like her from the movie and not some hybrid of the old and the new either. You can go with either version, but you have to commit to that version, and certainly not a wholly different version)
I donât care if itâs a prince, a princess, or even a fur character. One of my ultimate disappointments back when I was a kid when we went to Disney was I wanted to meet Mickey in the Tuxedo with the red pants. As that was the one shown in all the commercials, all the brochures â all the marketing: Tuxedo Mickey was THE Mickey in Disney World. And for the whole trip, I met with mickey in a chefâs hat, a space suit, a sorcererâs robe, in shorts and a t-shirt, and on and on and onâŚbut it was never âMickeyâ.
The ONLY time I saw the real Mickey (read: the one in the Tuxedo) was from afar in a show. And it was the only true disappointing thing of that whole trip, and so much so that I remember it years later. So while I saw âmickeyâ, it was never as good as getting to meet the Mickey I was expecting to see.
So while a nice idea in theory, when it comes to something like the established characters, I think itâs better if they continue to go for the goal of âthe cartoon come to life.â
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I think I agree here. In the photo in question I honestly had to look closely and HARD to decide if I think Alice looks mannish. I mean I guess when I looked that hard I could concede that maybe she does
But thatâs kind of my point. Is the average guest going to look that closely that it should matter? I hardly think so. But there might be one who will and for whom it will matter in that representation way youâre talking about here.
So I guess what Iâm saying is donât go out of your way to put someone so clearly and obviously not right for a role - using your example a ?Luisa for an Ariel - into a role just for the sake of doing so. But if it works (and Alice here does), embrace it and let it go.
Also: Who is Luisa?
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Luisa is the hella strong woman (read: built like a weightlifting champion) in Encanto. So opposite body type of Ariel.
I found this humorous coming from a poster with the screen name Baloo 
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Ah. Have not seen that yet.
Maybe this weekend. We are having a blizzard.
We have always tried to view new releases as a family and that is so much harder now that they are older. DD17-almost-18 is hardly every home anymore. But with the weather weâll be âstuck insideâ at least for all of Saturday
( I am giddy over this storm!!! )
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Of a fictional character?
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Your point is seemingly at odds with itself, though. On the one hand ârepresentation is presented in how a character does not look how exactly they are in the cartoon/movieâ vs âso close to the cartoon/movie that the average person canât tell so anyone can play it.â
Theyâre mutually exclusive. If most canât tell, then thereâs no special representation achieved.
But we are in agreement if you choose âif you look and can act the part, itâs yours.â
yes.
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When I think of the magic of Disney itâs the interactions with the characters and CMs that in my mind are missing. While understandable, it still sucks. My sonâs first trip he was pulled inside the ropes of the electrical parade and got to flip the switch to turn the lights off for the parade and then all of the characters interacted with him as they went by. In other trips the smiles from interacting with his favorite character Pluto have been replaced with a masked face and Pluto standing 20 feet behind him at best. Admittedly we were spoiled with the FPP+ system as we had it figured out and rarely stood in line for anything. Most recently our trip in August was pre-Genie and we stood in line ALOT more than we were used to. We are used to riding things multiple times as quickly as youâd like and unfortunately that doesnât seem to be the new normal. It seems like now if you get to ride something once you should be happy with it. This isnât to say that you canât find Magic on your trip. In August, it was watching Happily Ever After for the last time for me. We keep hoping that at least most of the magical moments that we were so accustomed to return i the near future.
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My point isnât at odds with itself. I never said put anyone in the role and call it good.
What you have said in the end - if you look and can act the part itâs yours - aligns with my thinking and the point I was trying to make, though it may appear from your understanding of what I said that perhaps I made that point poorly.
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I think its also how the arms are folded. They looked âbulked upâ. Still a believable Alice. But I see what you see. Not as âdelicateâ as I picture Alice to be.
Giddy?!?! I am dreading itâŚ.(but I may be overly sensitive because our furnace shut down yesterday and we were without heat for several hours before someone was able to come out and fix it and I REALLY donât want to lose power this weekend!)
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Well I hope you fare well.
I believe winter has no right being a thing if it doesnât have the good sense to snow. Iâm also in NH - not sure where you are - but snow is kind of a thing here.
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Iâm in Massachusetts
I want snow for Christmas, but thatâs about it!
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Well honey. Buckle up. Youâre about to get the lionâs share.
Stay warm 
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Yup. Peapod order ready to be picked up tomorrow, Hubby has the snowblower at the ready and I am getting the hell out of dodge on Wednesday for a conference in Orlando 
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