Tenaya Stone Spa and Cultural Appropriation

VJ

VJ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thought this article would spark an interesting discussion.

If Disney had spoken to the tribe, they would have learned some seriously disturbing context that might have changed their entire design direction. Touching the Tenaya Stone? Not a good look. Chief Tenaya’s child was stoned to death by a battalion of white settlers in the Yosemite Valley. And while the Miwuks don’t believe in touching or blessing stones, they do believe that stones are ancient ones, and ancient ones have memories. If that’s true, then a stone from Tenaya Lake—the lake which was named not really in honor of Chief Tenaya but after a bloody, defeating battle—probably doesn’t have good memories.
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Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
DrAlice said:
Disney trying to add a stupid backstory to everything, and it finally bites them. You know, sometimes a spa can just be a spa.

I can't believe how incredibly stupid they are with this. Seriously, doesn't anyone there know how to use google? It's mind-blowing how out of touch with reality this is.
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Yeah, I have to say that even the concept of basing a spa around supposed spiritual practices of Native Americans should have raised red flags large enough to stop this from moving beyond a proposal. Just basing it around the natural environment of the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, or whatever would have been fine and looked pretty much exactly the same.
 
Disney Analyst

Disney Analyst

Well-Known Member
DrAlice said:
Disney trying to add a stupid backstory to everything, and it finally bites them. You know, sometimes a spa can just be a spa.

I can't believe how incredibly stupid they are with this. Seriously, doesn't anyone there know how to use google? It's mind-blowing how out of touch with reality this is.
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It's really an easy thing to avoid... or so you'd think. Sigh.
 
No Name

No Name

Well-Known Member
From a different point of view, the Imagineers had a nice research trip and met some wonderful people who gifted them a stone. The parallels the author is clearly trying to make to the US govt. signing treaties with supposed tribe leaders to then kick them off their land is a little extreme. Andrew Jackson was a racist war hawk, Dawn Jackson is a Native American cultural advisor. Hah. I didn’t realize how well that sentence works until I typed it.

The crime part is mildly interesting but until something is confirmed, I’m not ready to get carried away by the author’s heavy angle here. I’m a pretty big advocate for Native American rights, traditions and welfare but I trust the person at Disney for now.

Gotta love the irony of a complicated backstory backfiring on Disney though.
 
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M

MoonRakerSCM

Well-Known Member
Stupid stuff from all sides on this one here.

I love the thought though that they spoke with 'one guy' and went with it. Reminds me of Star Trek: Voyager and Chakotay. The show writers hired a native American consultant for the show and the character. Turns out the guy they hired was a fraud and practically everything he was telling them was nonsense.

A Cuchi Moya.
 
TP2000

TP2000

Well-Known Member
This is disastrous. I will defer to @Dear Prudence here because she is far more adept at the indigineous peoples of the Southwest than I am, but I do have a long-term interest in the Salish speaking tribes of the Pacific Northwest. And she and I have had some fabulous offline conversations about that.

But if I may offer my personal thoughts as a dorky white guy....

Just by reading this Fodor's article (Fodor's for chrissakes! A legendary name in travel!), this is another huge mess that Disney created for themselves. Again. :rolleyes:

They couldn't just have a luxury day spa with Craftsman design and decor. They had to go all in on some faux and cringey backstory, and so they chose a tribal people from the Yosemite Valley but did it half-butt. And clearly didn't care enough to double-check on a few things.

They deserve the heartache and back-tracking they'll have to do on all of this. Or at the very least, remove all of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation iconography and cultural references they used so sloppily.

Newtwo said:
Percentage of people who actually go to the spa and will care : 0%
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I would have to disagree.

I have my fair share of trendy, hipster day spa experiences under my belt in the last decade, from Whistler ski havens to Portland's Pearl District to Rancho Mirage corporate resorts to San Diego's Hillcrest gay ghetto. It was this short paragraph in the Fodor's article that cut me to the bone and rings of great truth...

"The wellness industry is often criticized for appropriating rituals from Indigenous peoples, but Disneyland proudly debuted its new spa with a big rock not inspired by but literally from the Indigenous and sacred land in Central California, and plopped it right into Anaheim."

I have had many spa experiences performed by kindly and softly-talking white girls in hip western locales, and several times my cringe radar goes off and I think "Uh... Madisyn, dear? This seems pandering and appropriating to the ancient culture you're pretending to honor as you hustle for a gratuity..."

And God knows, to some folks here in this commuinity I'm allegedly a giant bigot and white nationalist and racist and hateful mysogynist and all around an Official Bad Person. So if I can identify that level of cringe and appropriation and general bad taste in a hipster day spa, I'm sure others can too. 🧐
 
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mickEblu

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
TP2000 said:
This is disastrous. I will defer to @Dear Prudence here because she is far more adept at the indigineous peoples of the Southwest than I am, but I do have a long-term interest in the Salish speaking tribes of the Pacific Northwest. And she and I have had some fabulous offline conversations about that.

Just by reading this Fodor's article (Fodor's for chrissakes! A legendary name in travel!), this is another huge mess that Disney created for themselves. Again. :rolleyes:

They couldn't just have a nice spa with Craftsman design. They had to go all in on some weird and cringey backstory, and so they chose a tribal people from the Yosemite Valley but did it half-butt. And clearly didn't care enough to double-check on a few things.

They deserve the heartache and back-tracking they'll have to do on all of this. Or at the very least, remove all of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation iconography and cultural references they used so sloppily.



I would have to disagree.

I have my fair share of trendy, hipster day spa experiences under my belt in the last decade, from Whistler ski havens to Portland's Pearl District to Rancho Mirage corporate resorts to San Diego's Hillcrest gay ghetto. It was this short paragraph in the Fodor's article that cut me to the bone and rings of great truth...

"The wellness industry is often criticized for appropriating rituals from Indigenous peoples, but Disneyland proudly debuted its new spa with a big rock not inspired by but literally from the Indigenous and sacred land in Central California, and plopped it right into Anaheim."

I have had several spa experiences performed by kindly and softly-talking white girls in many hip western locales, and several times my cringe radar goes off and I think "This seems pandering and appropriating to the culture you're pretending to honor as you hustle for a gratuity..."

And God knows, to some folks here in this commuinity I'm allegedly a giant bigot and white nationalist and racist and hateful mysogynist and all around an Official Bad Person. So if I can identify that level of cringe and appropriation and general bad taste, I'm sure others can too. 🧐
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Oh of course this Rock everyone cares about! But when Chris got slapped? Crickets
 
TP2000

TP2000

Well-Known Member
DrAlice said:
Disney trying to add a stupid backstory to everything, and it finally bites them. You know, sometimes a spa can just be a spa.
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No kidding! It's a day spa. Make it look nice and match the hotel. Outfit it luxuriously and train the staff to be experts at their craft. Don't try and make it some fake, fabricated backstory about a sacred space that you obviously know nothing about.

The land this day spa is on was the Kanga Section of the old Disneyland Parking Lot. Hey TDA, how about you use that as a theme instead of insulting and appropriating the indigenous peoples that live 300 miles to the north?

Kanga's Knot Spot? Kanga's Care Corral? They pay people to come up with crap like that. 🤣

parkinglot_map1994dl.jpg


DrAlice said:
I can't believe how incredibly stupid they are with this. Seriously, doesn't anyone there know how to use google? It's mind-blowing how out of touch with reality this is.
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Did I already say "No Kidding!"??? Because... no kidding. This is what you get when you employ people who are too focused on creating fabricated backstories that might impress someone on Twitter or Instagram for about 4 seconds so long as they don't do some research. Instead, these people need to be focused on just creating a great experience for the customers. without layering on fakery and cringey virtue signaling.

I want to feel sorry for them. But this latest chapter is just so stupid, that I can't. :cool:
 
waltography

waltography

Well-Known Member
Pure hubris of the team who designed this spa to not only willfully and shamelessly appropriate Indigenous culture, but to also do it poorly, painting the beliefs of Natives who are still alive in broad strokes Pocahontas-style.

Even more aggravating is how the spa was already beautiful without the fake Indigenous roots, and the context only makes the experience feel ugly in comparison.
 

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