Disney Video Sociology

So we watched a Walt Disney World planning video last night.

Actually I should say I sprung a Walt Disney World planning video on Liz last night.

The sad part is that it was pretty hokey; even my own interest was waining, so I couldn’t fault Liz when I saw out of the corner of my eye that she had picked up her iPhone and started scrolling through something more interesting.

So I quickly turned it into a sociological experiment: I pointed out that one of the video’s hostesses spoke perfect English, with just a hint of a Mediterranean accent. Was she Greek? Turkish?

The iPhone went to the coffee table. Liz was back in the game.

We determined that her parents emigrated to Canada sometime around the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 when she was young, like say 6 years old.

Liz was hooked. We investigated each time they used African American actors. Asian American actors. Grandparents. Honeymooners.

It’s actually a pretty interesting experiment, because every actor’s casting was a clear choice, likely debated by a team of experts and executives and marketing people.