slappy magoo
Well-Known Member
I love the cultural divide the pond provides. You get outrage at a rather insignificant nipple and ya hoo peed up behaviour, but can see no issue with selling semi automatic weapons in a supermarket or letting any law pass if it is "gods will". So exposing kids to drink / drunks is just another example at how society is wrapping kids in cotton wool and ill preparing them for the big bad world. Who decides what constitutes a kid anyway?
And just incase you have never served its not military people that start wars its the politicians. (or the money men that fund them).
My view on PI is shaped by the fact that Britain has one of the worlds worst drinking cultures, yet is one of the most heavily regulated. People blame drink for yobbish behaviour, its not the drink but a lack of fear for the consequences and a lack of respect for others. Far more to dowith the greed is good culture of Thatcher and Regan than the products of Mr Daniels and my native land.
Just an opinion of course.......
First of all, don't be lumping all of us in with the aghast crowd during Nipplegate. Most folks I know rolled their eyes the same way you did. It's just that some people, whether they were truly shocked or not, played it up to a political end. Not everyone over-reacted, or reacted at all.
I'll also go as far as to say, you're right about how we as a nation sometimes cater to a "kid crowd" too much, when it comes to bending over backwards to "protect" kids from images and songs some people think we ought not to see. I grew up not caring much about music, spending all my money on Richard Pryor albums and watching horror movies all night long on cable, and I'm relatively not screwed up...
But when it comes to Pleasure Island, I'm not just talking about protecting kids from the vision of adults imbibing, or hearing some off-color jokes or songs. I'm genuinely talking about their physical safety, as drunken idiots aren't paying attention to where they're walking, or getting into fights, or thinking that a 13 year old wouldn't mind a little bump-n-grind action. Even in the hap-hp-happiest place on earth, there are people who prey on a tourists' sense of safety, or other tourists who feel like they can do anything they want on their vacation, after all, they paid for it, so loutish or perhaps illegal behavior should be exucsed. Come on! It's a party!
Pleasure Island was originally conceived as one big bar area, one big party. You can walk out of a bar with a drink, finish it & buy another on your way to another bar to drink some more. I would suspect that, even "across the pond," you won't find many pubs with a large under-16 clientele, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. They're considered to be a place for grownups, even if those grownups are acting childish. Pleasure Island really shouldn't be any different, even if it does happen to exist in WDW.