Disney Concerned About Death in Haunted Mansion, A Ride About Death

Haunted Mansion has reopened after a 16-month absence at Disneyland, and features a few enhanced scenes and modernized Audio Animatronics. This follows the removal of the seasonal Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay and massive year-long project to expand the exterior grounds and queue, and add Madame Leota’s Somewhere Beyond gift shop.

This post actually doesn’t focus much on the substance of the enhancements themselves. We’ll focus on those separately once I have a chance to capture more photos and video, but in a nutshell, they turned out nicely. The new bride looks nice, with both the Audio Animatronics figure and its presentation fitting better in the Haunted Mansion. Given the success of this chance, I’d assume it’ll make its way to Walt Disney World at some point…in the next decade or so.

The tech in previous bride (and current bride at Magic Kingdom) had not aged well, and was an example of Imagineering getting ahead of itself utilizing tech that hadn’t matured quite enough. Equally as significant, the previous bride was sort of hokey and tonally inconsistent with the rest of the Haunted Mansion. The new one leaves more to the imagination, offering a scene that is more unsettling–or haunting, if you will–as a result. It is, without question, an upgrade. The artistic merits of other changes made as part of the project are more up for debate, but again, that’s not the point of this.

Instead, I want to focus on how Disney unveiled the Haunted Mansion enhancement, via an exclusive by journalist Todd Martens in the Los Angeles Times. It’s an excellent piece featuring an interview with a creative director from Walt Disney Imagineering, and I’d encourage you to read it.

There are a few specific lines in the piece that bugged me, and are worthy of further discussion because they could speak to the company’s perspective on other projects, like those that are part of the massive upcoming development cycles at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Let’s start with this on the controversial AI art spotted in the gift shop:

[A]n online controversy erupted earlier this winter when it was discovered that the new shop adjacent to the ride contained a piece of art that was created by artificial intelligence. The presence of AI art felt particularly egregious knowing the value Imagineering places on authentic, hand-crafted work.

The moment clearly weighed on Irvine. “How they can find one thing out of all this cool stuff,” Irvine says of the fan outcry, trailing off as she stood in the shop full of artfully created oddities and references to tarot and mysticism. She stresses that the AI art was a temporary placeholder, noting there are many objects coming to the shop — more paintings and tapestries among them — that are in the process of being fireproofed before final install.

“They felt like it would be appropriate for a short time until they could put something else in,” Irvine says of the ill-fated art. “They never intended to do anything bad, and it is gone now. We’re going to bring something back in that is hand-painted, like all of these other pieces are.”

I was not part of this online outcry, but I’ve seen plenty of similar sentiment about AI replacing human artists. It’s a hot-button issue, for sure, and Disney was likely caught up in that and might’ve received disproportionate attention as a result.

But to the best of my knowledge, people aren’t upset about AI artwork on the basis of the duration it’ll be used. If Disney issued a press release that said, “we’re opening the shop with temporary AI art, but don’t worry, the permanent stuff will be painted by people,” it’s not like fans would’ve said, “oh okay, AI art is okay so long as its duration of use does not exceed 23 days.” That’s not how it works.

I do appreciate Imagineering’s willingness to address this head-on, but a much more satisfying response would’ve been:

“In a rush to complete a project on a tight timeline, oversights were made in the procurement process and we regrettably did not properly vet a supplier of art that turned out to be, unbeknownst to us, AI-generated. We have taken the necessary action and have updated our internal policies to ensure this doesn’t happen again, even on a temporary basis. The Walt Disney Company has a rich creative legacy, and storytelling is always of utmost importance to us.”

Something like that. Not blaming fans for having the temerity to notice and point out a detail in a shop that’s meant to have its details noticed and pointed out.

Here’s another section that raised an eyebrow or two from me:

“The bride that used to be in there was an axe murderer, and in this day and age we have to be really careful about the sensitivities of people,” Irvine says. “We were celebrating someone chopping off her husband’s heads, and it was a weird story. I know the fans — some will like it and some will say, ‘Oh, you changed something again.’ That’s our job. That’s what we’re here for.”

There’s so much to unpack in this one paragraph.

First of all, depiction is not endorsement. I honestly cannot even believe this needs to be said, and feel like I’m talking down to you, just by writing this. But never in a million years would I have guessed this would’ve been something an actual creative would’ve said.

If depiction of a murderer in an attraction is celebrating them, Disney has some serious issues with every single Star Wars and Marvel attraction. Never mind the upcoming Villains Land in Magic Kingdom! And can you believe Imagineering just created a version of “it’s a small world” that celebrates murderers?! This is so obviously nonsense that no further discussion is needed.

Second, I would argue that “in this day and age” people are more sensitive to exactly the type of sentiment described here than they are to the depiction of a murderer. It’s not as if there are a bunch of people out there on one side of the aisle saying “murderers are bad” and then another large contingent is saying “well hold on, wait a minute, maybe murderers have their merits.” There is no Big Murderers lobby advancing the special interest and gaining ground.

What’s much more likely is that people see sentiment like the above and the quote is what offends their sensibilities. The thought process showcased here is more polarizing than the substance of the thing itself.

What I mean by that is that now this is a debate being had among fans, not about murderers in Haunted Mansion, but about Imagineering entertaining this as a serious issue in the first place instead of dismissing it out of hand. There are almost certainly more complaints–or negative discourse–about this than the old bride ever generated.

This is patently obvious when it comes to the axe murderer, and I wouldn’t expect much fan disagreement. More delicate of a subject is the hanging corpse in the Stretching Room. Even though this could be traumatic for some guests, I’d argue it also applies there.

If people find death disturbing, which is completely understandable, perhaps an attraction about death is not for them. Making changes to anything that could conceivably offend or disturb anyone is a dangerous road to go down–and an endless one.

I don’t doubt that Imagineering consulted with some corporate committee on Haunted Mansion, and the committee told them “murderers are bad.” I, too, am anti-murder. But this type of committee exists to find problems, so they will continue to find problems to continue existing. The issue with that is, eventually you get these vaguely Kafkaesque recommendations that, if taken to their logical conclusions, would result in the most bland output imaginable. It’s almost the antithesis of the creative process.

Finally, this is one of two points in the surprisingly defensive interview that come across as antagonistic towards fans. This has become a bit of a trend in the last few years, which seemingly began under the stewardship of former CEO Bob Chapek, who was the biggest culprit and made quips about outrage if Disney moved a churro cart 10 feet and other such nonsense (see Bob Chapek Did Not “Get” Disney).

Let me just start here by acknowledging that I cannot fathom how difficult being a creative would be in this day and age. Everything you do would be picked apart endlessly online by purported fans, many of whom wouldn’t know the first thing about the process that brought the project to fruition or the push and pull from various stakeholders.

Between an impossible to satisfy audience offering constant criticism and mandates from above, being an Imagineer probably isn’t as fun as fans believe. I barely know anything, and I’ve seen some of this play out; Imagineers who have navigated challenging corporate waters to work miracles have been blamed by fans for supposed failures. I would not want their jobs…which is a good thing, as I don’t have the requisite talent or creativity!

At the same time, fans are a large part of what gives the work meaning. Can there be art without art criticism? It is people and the response it provokes that elevates any work or medium as a whole. I would think that any artist would want their creations to resonate with people on a deeply emotional level–that’s the whole goal in the first place, isn’t it?

There’s a reason for the outpouring of love and grief for David Lynch, despite his body of work having very mixed reviews over the decades. It’s similar to the reason Chuck Lorre’s much more commercially-successful shows do not really garner much in the way of commentary or criticism. The most thought-provoking art has a way of being polarizing, and although I’m sure artists would rather have unambiguously positive reviews, critical ones still beat indifference.

I would also think this would be doubly true for Imagineers, as the question of whether theme parks are art is still fiercely debated (even though the answer is obviously yes), and passionate discourse helps reinforce that legitimacy. If theme parks were merely vapid consumerism, one of the LA Times’ best culture columnists wouldn’t be covering them in the first place.

Everyone knows that Disney fans are a rabid bunch, but you’ve gotta take the bad with the good…or at least ignore us entirely. “Disney Adult” is a pejorative term for good reason, but corporate leaders lashing out at fans is also counterproductive. (Say what you will about Bob Iger, but he gets this.)

Ultimately, this is not an article I enjoyed writing. I don’t like to criticize creatives, and endeavor to contextualize what could’ve gone wrong in the process when critiquing the end result (e.g. CommuniCore Hall). Even in this case, I took a couple of days to ruminate on it before offering a knee-jerk reaction.

The question for me is whether the thought process here is emblematic of Imagineering as a whole, or if this is just one ill-advised interview. There’s a huge slate of construction projects and ride reimaginings on the horizon, including ones that could be negatively impacted by this line of reasoning. If this is going to be the creative ethos for Villains Land at Magic Kingdom, that’s troubling!

With that said, it’s also worth pointing out that while the interview wasn’t flattering, the enhancements to Haunted Mansion turned out remarkably well (everything except the awful gift shop, but that was largely out of Imagineering’s hands). When acknowledging the practical realities with which they had to deal, the extended queue gets the job done.

Meanwhile, the new bride is an unequivocal improvement over its immediate predecessor, and is consistent with a modernization of the original bride (Tokyo version pictured above). With that said, a good outcome can be achieved for the wrong reasons. Which is to say that the new bride is a positive, but the proffered justification for the change is not.

That is precisely what’s the most perplexing part of this all–these Haunted Mansion changes did not need explanation. If allowed to speak for themselves, they do well on the merits. It’s the justification, which normally would be reserved for a project that needed defending, that did the damage. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that sometimes superfluous storytelling is a liability rather than an asset.

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Your Thoughts

Thoughts on the rationales Imagineering had to offer about the Haunted Mansion changes? Any concerns that Imagineering has lost the plot, or are you willing to give the benefit of the doubt that this was just one interview that went poorly? Or do you disagree with us and agree with what was said to the LA Times? Any questions? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!