Nishiyama 1

Regina Nishiyama

Dr. Loren Higbee

ENGL 1301. 114

10 September 2021

Disney World’s Magic

The most magical place on earth: Orlando, Florida's very own Disney world. A mouse

promises you that once you step foot here, all your dreams will come true in the "most magical

place on earth," but is that true? Do you genuinely believe that just by stepping foot inside one of

their parks, everything you ever wanted would be yours? Or is it all a hoax? All of Disney

World's slogans include some fantastical illusion to make people feel like they are in a whole

different world, but their advertisements forget to mention three crucial things: the lines, the

weather, and the expense.

Walt's world promotes itself through advertisements loaded with pathos. They try to sell

emotions. A fitting example of this would be their Superbowl advertisements. After a nail-biting

game, the winners are rained on by confetti; the MVP is usually lifted and tossed around by the

rest of his team while he carries the trophy over his head and exclaims with pure joy, "I'm going

to Disney World!" The advertisement is supposed to infect you with pleasure and make you

think, "Wow, if I want to be just as happy, I need to do one of two things: win a super bowl or go

to Disney World." Of course, the most realistic of the two is to go to Disney, so that is what you

will do, right? Another famous pathos slogan of theirs is "where dreams come true." This gives

the impression that a trip to Disney is like being granted a wish by a genie. Of course, you wish

for all your dreams to come true. It is something you have thought of since you were a child. So,
 Nishiyama 2

if Disney promises your dreams to come true in their parks, the only logical thing to do is drop

everything and go to Disney.

Disney is famous for not only being the home of Mickey Mouse but for its thrilling rides.

You will want to ride them repeatedly, but that can get difficult because of the hour-long

queues. This minor detail may take some of the "magic" away from the fantasy land, but

Disneyworld will never advertise it. One example of this would be on Disney's website when

they try to sell you a visit to Magic Kingdom. They advertise Space Mountain as a "high-speed

roller-coaster adventure which will see your journey into the furthest reaches of the galaxy and

back!" They never mention that the average wait time for this attraction is 50 minutes. They try

to bring out the fun and excitement you will have on the rides to distract everyone from the fact

that you spend more time waiting in line than on the actual ride. Of course, if people knew this,

Disney would lose out on a lot of business, so they need to conceal this from the buyers' eyes.

When you think of Disney World, what is the last thing that pops into your head?

Mosquitos, heat, humidity, and rain should be among some of your answers. Florida has six

months of pure moisture and heat; in fact, even their winters are a mild version of summer in

some places. This significant fact is often hidden from tourists coming to visit Mickey. Disney

never mentions that their land is built on a swamp, which is usually very humid terrain full of

mosquitos and rainy days; they allude to being their own world. An example of this would be a

2017 commercial where "A Whole New World" plays in the background as one of Disney's

resorts is being filmed, making you think you are in a whole new world. Many of Disney's cast

members have even told stories where adults ask the cast members to control the weather

through the "Disney dome." Some Disney guests believe the park is placed inside a dome, and

that cast members are able to control the time of day and the weather of this dodomeem. These
 Nishiyama 3

guests prove that those who visit Disney assume it has special out-of-the-ordinary abilities

because of Disney's meticulous advertisements.

The average four-member family spends around $5,000 for five nights at Disney World; a

ticket for one person alone is $230, this does not include food, transportation nor any other

add-ons. With that kind of money, you could have bought seven of the latest iPhones or have

invested it all into a stock that would later make you twice as rich. The point is, Disney World

will never tell you through its advertisements that you will probably need to sell your kidney to

afford the cheapest package they have to offer. On Disney's website, they say, "it is easy to see

why Walt Disney World is the perfect family holiday." They say it is perfect, but what would

make it perfect would be lower prices. A vacation to Disney's parks may be unequaled because it

has something for everyone, but it is not affordable. In other words, they try to distract customers

from the price to make them believe that all that money will be worth it in the end to visit a

mouse and his friends.

Given the aforementioned, Walt Disney World's publicist does an excellent job

distracting from the negative by using pathos-loaded advertising. Their strategy for business is

filling people with emotions to convince them to forget about the heat, the long lines, and the

enormous amounts of money spent. In the end, they do an excellent job of diverting people from

the endless lines, alluding to being their own world so that you imagine your vacation's weather

to be perfect, and blurring over the prices so that people are convinced that the prices are

irrelevant. In other words, Disney does not only use its advertisements as persuasion but also as a

distraction.
 Nishiyama 4

Work Cited

Cassie. “Top 10 Myths About Walt Disney World - Disney Dining Information.”

DisneyDining, 10 Feb. 2018, www.disneydining.com/top-10-myths-walt-disney-world/.

Mouse Hacking. “How Much Does It Cost to Go to Disney World in 2021 - 2022?” Mouse

Hacking, Mouse Hacking, 3 July 2021,

www.mousehacking.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-go-to-disney-world.

“Space Mountain.” Thrill,

www.thrill-data.com/waits/attraction/magic-kingdom/spacemountain/.

“Walt Disney World Theme Parks.” Disney Holidays,

www.disneyholidays.com/walt-disney-world/theme-parks/.
 Nishiyama 5

Reflection Essay

In this paper, I needed to analyze a community and figure out some critical or

eye-opening information about the community's genre. My newfound skills involving the

interpretation of communities would come in handy when taking social issue classes. You may

need to write about a protest and how they use poster boards or slogans to get their message

across. It may also come in handy when taking a culture class when you need to write using their

language or accent. I would not want to come across as offensive, so I would use what I learned

from the book, Everyone's a Writer in chapter thirty-one, "mixing language and dialects."

Analyzing communities would come in handy in any class you may take, but some less than

others; for example, the demand for analyzing your math class and the formulas, as its genre, is

not as high as it would be in a social studies class.

Analyzing communities comes in handy because you can better approach unfamiliar

communities if you know how to dissect them. For example, if I were unfamiliar with the

protesting community, I would stop to analyze them and figure out that their genre includes

slogans, posters, and chants; they can get their message across through these mediums, and I

would better know how to interact with them. It will help me approach writing tasks in the future

because I will need to remember "why," why did the author include this, and "how" how this is

useful to the audience. Overall I was able to understand better how a genre and a community go

hand in hand. Each community, which includes people brought together due to one common

denominator, has its genre. Genres are used throughout communities to get their message across

to their group members or for other communities to understand what they are about.

One of the bigger things I struggled with was being able to make my sentences easy to

read. I was trying to include too much information in just one sentence that it would get
 Nishiyama 6

confusing. Getting my message across clearly for others to understand was difficult for me; in

my head, what I was writing made perfect sense, but when I asked others for their opinion, they

would have a hard time understanding me. Out of this essay, I discovered that I am very good at

thinking outside the box and finding things that will be interesting for readers. I think my

examples and my overall topic are not one someone would automatically think of when they see

the essay's subject. When people think of Disney, they automatically picture Cinderella or

Mickey Mouse, but I looked past that and found different and intriguing points. Overall what I

learned from myself is that I may need to take more time to think about how others will

understand the message I am trying to get across. I also learned from my peer's review that my

examples are interesting to readers, which means I can keep readers engaged through my writing.

From this essay, I learned that as a writer I must not put so much stress on my first drafts.

I can mess up and make it messy; as long as I get something written down on the first draft, I can

use it later to make a cleaner second draft. I also learned that I write best in a school

environment; it took me a week of sitting at my desk at home not knowing what to write about

until I decided to switch my environment and write my essay in class. After just one hour of

class, I developed my community and genre; I gained a sense of what I would write about in a

different environment.

My identity as a writer also grew stronger. I developed more confidence after tackling

what I thought was a challenging and broad topic; I produced a decent first draft and an even

better second draft that my peer's enjoyed reading. In the end, this essay was able to open my

eyes to the fact that anyone can be a writer, and not all writing is good at first; you need to be

able to find what works for you to develop your best piece of work.