Oct 09 2009
The DisneyLand Memorial Orgy - Art Analysis
Provocative, avant-garde and revolutionary against the status quo are one of the few words to describe one of the masterpieces of Paul Krassner, one of the first modern satirical artist of the counter culture of the 20 Century. The piece titled The Disneyland Orgy was revolutionary for it’s time as it’s right now because it’s a powerful critique to the Disney Empire World so far that the Disney Company didn’t sued when the caricature was published in The Realist because the knew they would lose the lawsuit as they would be violating the amendment of free expression and the caricature wasn’t a violation to the copyrights of the company.
Analyzing the piece isn’t quite difficult; first we have to explore a little of the background when it was made. The Memorial Orgy was drawn and published in 1966 the same year Walt Disney died to cancer and basically the cartoon is a response to other caricature called “God is Dead” only applied in a more realistic environment.
Because Disney tends to practice self-censorship, the company sometimes tend be mocked because of the lack of diversity of the characters, so far that in the year 2009 it was the first time that it was announced that a Disney movie will contain an African lead character but the cartoon was made 40 years prior the new Disney movie. When Walt died the counter culture didn’t wait to long before releasing several parodies about the lack of self consciousness of the mascots and totalitarian control of WDW to create an utopia in an imperfect world where at the end everyone looks and act the same, much like the regime of the Big Brother in the fictional novel of 1984.
When Walt died Paul Kassner started to imagine a more realistic response from the characters now that their God was dead and they were free to do whatever they want, so in the best spirits of the sexual revolution came The Disneyland Memorial Orgy where several of the key character of Disney explore their most profound desires and sexual fantasies now that they were free to find themselves beyond their 2.5 D reality. The characters find themselves in a series of sexual situation that go from pepping, orgies, fisting, bestiality and cropophilia where they seem to be happy giving themselves to the pleasures of the flesh but that happiness didn’t lasted to long because a new God came on board.
Truly fantastic and with a deep profound message that perfection at the end don’t exist but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time in one of the parks exploring their imaginary worlds.
