I wonder if this will effect all the parents that bring their girls dressed up in Princess costumes... CMs are always saying, "Oh look how pretty Snow White is!" when they see them... That ruins the magic for me when I see 50 different Snow Whites a day... Maybe I should write a letter to Disney complaining... Or they should ask them to change their outfit... :hammer:
Maybe it's because I'm not a hardcore 'Disney is the Best' person, I'm siding with Santa on this one. In protest, next year for MNSSHP I'm coming dressed as Santa! :xmas:
That’s not the point and you know it. In fact, you’re being deliberately misleading & faceitious. Even a small child probably won’t confuse a kid dressed as Snow White FOR Snow White. At the very least, there won’t be a large crowd of kids following that kid dressed like Snow White around. But a grown woman, of an appropriate age, dressed as Snow White, telling guests she IS Snow White, going out of her way to sign autographs AS Snow White, is bound to call attention to management, who would be concerned that, even with the best of intentions, she might say or do something inappropriate. Call a sensitive kid “Dopey.” Call a kid on meds for severe mood swings “Grumpy.” Lead kids towards the ladies’ room because
she’s got to go. The sort of stuff CMs are trained to deal with, but a stranger is not. You can bet WDW management would pull that woman aside and ask her to change or at least stop telling people she is Snow White & signing autographs.
Whenever a business hires someone to play Santa, they have to assume liability for that guy in whatever he says or does. I wouldn’t be surprised if, every year, every mall in America has to investigate at least one claim of inappropriate behavior by their Santa. Most of those claims are probably groundless, brought forth by people who are either unstable or looking for a payday. But they still have to be investigated. Now add an unhired Santa into the mix…
(Sorry, for the straw-man arguments, but it’s the hypothetical that WDW has to worry about in a situation like this.)
What happens when someone dressed like Santa walks into someone else’s business? Forget about the reaction of children, think about adults. If you were grocery shopping, and the guy waiting for turkey at the deli in front of you was dressed as Santa, or at least dressed in Santa’s “colors” of red and black and white, and he was TELLING people he was Santa. Your reaction would probably be one of the following.
1: The guy’s crazy. Stay away. Keep the kids away.
2: The guy is coming from (or going to) a paying gig where he played Santa.
3: This store hired a guy to play Santa shopping at our local Piggly Wiggly & interact with the customers. How cute!
Now, no matter what YOU think, SOME people are gonna think #3. They might even let their kids say Hi to Santa, pose for a picture with Mom’s camera-phone (“Daddy, look who WE met in the Piggly-Wiggly!”). Now what if that Santa then said or did something you find wholly inappropriate, or offensive, something you wouldn’t want to expose your child to? The Piggly-Wiggly’s management isn’t REALLY responsible for what this Santa said, but that doesn’t change the fact that some customers will hold them responsible. Maybe try to sue for creating an unsafe environment. It’s a lawsuit they might not win, but still, Piggly-Wiggly management has to deal with ALL the negative PR, people saying they’ll never shop there again because any ol’ child molestor with a white beard could walk in and take a kid to his van down by the river…
Now, other people have made the point that someone probably can’t abduct a child in WDW. Security is too strong, and this guy was making a big enough scene that he wasn’t going to walk off with a kid incognito. They have a valid point. But that doesn’t mean he can’t do some damage. He could’ve said something Anti-Semitic or racist. He could’ve called for a rise against the government (I mean, I do that all the time, but never dressed as Santa ? ) He could’ve grabbed some MILF’s derriere. He could’ve started running, & everyone following him would have resulted in a stampede. At the very least, he could’ve walked smack-dab into the area where someone Disney hired to BE Santa was. (“You confused my kids by having 2 Santas in the same place at the same time! I’m gonna sue!”) Every possible scenario has to go through the minds of WDW’s security and management as they try to decide how to delicately handle a potentially unsafe or awkward situation.
And while we’re visiting the Land of the Potential Lawsuit, riddle me this: This guy sorta kinda dressed Santa-ish didn’t act crazy. What a relief. What if there were a disturbed individual visiting the parks that day who has some obsession or irrational thought about Santa? WDW will have handlers with their hired Santa to protect him if someone has Claus-related issues. This freelance Santa does not. Someone who thinks Santa is the devil tackles this Santa and makes him eat Main Street Curb in front of dozens or hundreds of now-scarred children, who are people going to blame? Who are people going to sue? The crazy guy with no money? The Santa recuperating in the hospital with no insurance? Or Mickey Mouse’s deep-pocketed employer?
We can be wide-eyed and breathless as we talk about the Disney “magic” all we want. Truth is, the magic is as carefully controlled as the lighting & room temperature in a Vegas casino. And if anything occurs to disrupt the control, WDW will take quick steps to neutralize it, minimize its impact & keep their magic going. And someone going out of his or her way to create a large crowd or scene risks WDW losing that control. You claim they should’ve let this guy tell strangers he was Santa. I’m saying, WDW had to prepare for anything to go wrong, they would’ve had to deal with any negative fallout if something bad HAD happened because of someone not trained to be talent “in the Disney way” insisted on making his presence known. If you think they should’ve afforded this guy any courtesy, I say it should’ve been no more than this: offer to buy the guy a new outfit, something that looks even less santa-ish than what he had been wearing, in exchange for him to stop saying he’s Santa and creating a scene.
