Customer Reviews

Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World (Library of Contemporary Thought)

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

Having grown up in Pinellas county Florida in the 60s it was easy to hate and be militant toward the obvious developers such as Hunt Corp., etc. In "Team Rodent", Carl Hiaasen provided me with the much-needed jolt to get over the quasi-hypnosis caused by a bunch of cuddly cartoon characters. Disney is nothing more than a corporate conglomerate that is wreaking far-reaching havoc on the environment under the guise of good family fun. Hiaasen's humor is not only welcome, it is necessary as it enabled me to get through the material that otherwise would have had me throwing up. I read this entire book on one flight and couldn't help but laugh out loud when reading about his scenario of the bull alligators in Bay Lake. People around me were giving me funny looks. It's not often a book causes me to lose control to that extent. There is a glimmer of hope offered when reading how the people in Virginia were able to thwart Disney's plans near Manassas. Unfortunately for Florida it's too little, too late. The only negative I could come up with in the book is the reference to orcas as "killer whales". A similar expose' needs to be done on Sea World. And by the way Carl: Let me know if you need any assistance with those bull alligators.

First of all I must admit that if I heard that Carl Hiaasen had edited the Dubuque, Iowa telephone book, I would rush out and buy it. I enjoy him because I love his humor, and because I share his environmental concerns. As a retired senior executive of a large corporation, I also have no illusions about the goals of business. We need gadflies, and Carl's buzzing about can only bring issues to the surface to be thought about and discussed. Disagree with him you may, but I see nothing wrong in presenting facts about the power and plasticity of the Disney world. Many folks want their big brother provided sanitized entertainment, and will evidently brook no criticism of the source of their pleasure. For myself I am interested to find out how yet another big business manipulates local governments and the press. It's fascinating to read how devoted fans will pay 25 to 40% more for a home because its built by Mickey and his friends, while disregarding the fact that the same guys built substandard housing in Miami. The way people are mesmerized by the fantastic plastic world of Disney sometimes scares me. Its like some dystopic future world from a science fiction novel.

I will agree that $8.95 is a lot to pay for 83 pages, but it sure is good quality Hiaasen.

As someone who witnessed, firsthand, the attempts by Disney to force feed their American history theme park down the throats of the good people of Northern Virginia, I can say that every word, comma, period and exclamation point in Carl Hiaasen's polemic rings clear and true. Also, sad but true, I have witnessed what Disney has done to Florida, as Hiaasen's so eloquently details in Team Rodent. In my and my collaborator Parke Puterbaugh's book, Florida Beaches (Foghorn), we detected the Disney fallout on nearly every beachhead on the Atlantic coast, and anyone who loves the Panhandle beaches better get ready to be disgusted because Disney (under the guise of a holding company) is getting ready to do to that area what it did to Orlando. I can say, from experience, that Disney is deceptive, sneaky, arrogant, bullying and they also lie regularly, when it behooves them. It would not surprise me in the least that the people who rated this book one star were hired by the company...or are stockholders.

I adore Carl Hiassen. I share his concerns. I join in his delight at the comeuppances that from time to time sock Disney in the jaw. (As a resident of Northern Virginia, I was quietly pleased at our qualified victory in beating back Disney's America project.) So let me say first that I'd recommend Team Rodent as sheer, exuberant Hiassen, with its "Peep Land," "Insane Clown Michael," odious black buzzards and other hilarious locales and characters.

Still, this is a slender book that wants you to believe it's much longer, better developed, and more convincing. It's Hiassen stretching everything he's got for as much as he can get (he's very good at this). He has an an anecdote or two for each short chapter, which he inflates--via the high-pressure air hose of Hiassenian hyperbole and prose--to the bursting point. What we're left with is the story of a large, powerful corporation in Florida behaving like--surprise!--a large, powerful corporation in Florida. That has convinced the broad masses to shovel money into its coffers in alarmingly large quantities. Surely, however, as a muckraker and satirist, Hiassen has divined something sinister, some fundamental filaments of rot eating through the Disney empire.

For better or worse, intellectuals are the guilty consciences of their times, and Hiassen performs this necessary service. His are the useful ravings of the "anti-developmentals," who serve as salutary societal T-cells and, consequently, as needed brakes on hyperdevelopment. (It worked in Northern Virginia!) Hiassen behaves here, however, as though he had much more to work with and as though he didn't have to expend much effort to clinch his case--the "preaching to the choir syndrome"? In the end, Team Rodent seems something Hiassen simply tossed off one morning over coffee from his sanctuary in the Keys. I'd have appreciated a fuller version--with bull alligators, dire prophesies, and smacktalk intact--and a fair chance to judge whether this material's "disturbing" and "entertaining" quotients equal "ultimately, compelling." Here it doesn't, not to a dispassionate observer.

Only Hiaasen could turn Disney into the vile and soulless entity presented in "Team Rodent" and still make you chuckle. I suspect that most lucid people have had the occasional flickering thought that perhaps the Disney Corporation seemed a bit too omnipresent and omnipotent to be so wonderful, and here Hiaasen explains exactly why that is the case. To be fair, this book isn't just a roasting of the mouse, it is also a roasting of the American culture that so embraces the overcleansed Disney ideal. Hiaasen's writing, as usual, is witty and clever, and sometimes snort-milk-out-your-nose funny. Humor aside, I found the book deeply troubling because I saw so many parallels between the way that Disney and Big Tobacco run their businesses and buy off their enemies. This book will certainly make you laugh, but hopefully it will also make you think.

Well, call me guilty of schadenfreude -- but I really enjoyed this book. The thing is, everybody loves Disney. It is like speaking heresy during the inquisition to say that Disney may not be perfect! And, assuming that the author's stories are true, it is sorta fun to see the great organization given some grief for its relentless building and "never explain, never apologize" philosophy.

The thing is, when I and my friends went to Disneyland as children, I just hated the place. And I felt so "in the closet" on the issue. I mean, no kid admits to hating Disneyland! But it seemed so crass/crowded/overblown to me. And then, when I saw the movie "The Shaggy Dog," I was just blown away by the incredible lack of ethics I saw (note the reaction of the heroine when it turns out her father is the villain). After that, I was always suspicious that Disney might not have our best interests at heart -- that, God forbid, its goal might be simply to make a profit. So, OK, that really isn't a bad goal for a corporation.... But neither does it mean that their stuff is so perfect. So, I liked the book. Perhaps Mr. Hiasen and I are the only two Americans to feel this way -- but I believe he is correct. Very amusing reading.

This book is just a collection of articles clubbed together as chapters (like kick-ass) with Disney the center focus. Not as entertaining as his fiction, but for as somebody who's read all of those and who loves his writing style, this is a great crutch to get you through to his next publication date.

Hiaasen's writing isn't so much an attack on Disney, as it is a satire of our own foibles. If he attacks anything in this book, it's the American "sweep it under the rug and don't talk about it" philosophy of complacency. Let's face it, Disney is a world where sex doesn't exist and appearances mean everything. Hiaasen just wants people to look under that rug and get back to reality.

There are a lot of things that go on in this world and our country that most people are totally oblivious. There is a dark underbelly that seethes with evil. Granted, every organization of every kind is going to have some problems. The difference is what those groups do with those problems: do they hide them, or do they expose them to the light and move on?

Hiassen asserts in TEAM RODENT that there is a lot going on with the Walt Disney Company that most people don't know about and would be shocked to learn. TEAM RODENT offers a few examples of the evil that lurks withing the mighty Mouse House and suggests that if the opportunity arises to stand against the Goliath Rodent, people should.

I throughly enjoyed reading Hiaasen's book. It was short (like all the books in the Library of Contemporary Though series), but provocative. The accusations were sprinkled with just enough humor to make one laugh, yet not forget what was read. I was not at all upset by Hiaasen's bias against the Mouse House because it added to the flavor of the book. Besides, I have thought for a long time that Walt Disney would not be very happy where his company has been headed the last fifteen years. Just look at what Disney did with children's radio and Radio Aahs; that would make an excellent chapter in TEAM RODENT.

Interesting reading that will probably provoke a few thoughts, produce a laugh, or both.

He starts to make some valid points (take it from someone who attends the university across town) and tells some entertaining stories, but it is poorly organized, overly short, and under researched. He could have put together something far more powerful with much sharper teeth. Come on Carl, we know you have more to say.

This is a book that was begging to be written. Just because a company has a family-friendly, good citizen image, doeasn't make it so. I am highly amused by the negative reviews, especially since they so emphatically proclaim "I DON'T WORK FOR DISNEY, BUT..." But what? But it's OK to commit corporate crime? It's OK to rape the environment under the banner of a children's character? It's not OK to write about it? These Disney-drones (for who but an employee would feel the need to proclaim they didn't?)tow the company line, even against such condemning evidence.