Disney recently announced its plan to open its next theme park in Abu Dhabi. The new park will sit on Yas Island, a manmade structure that hosts several other entertainment complexes such as Ferrari World and SeaWorld. Disney’s tentacles have already extended into Europe and Asia, but now the company is capitalizing on a growing, wealthy population in the Middle East.
Building a Disney park in Abu Dhabi seems like a pitch for a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. Disney’s theme parks are the vision of company founder Walt Disney, who wanted to recreate the fanciful and nostalgic atmosphere of his youth. Walt grew up in Marceline, Missouri, at the turn of the 20th century, and his original Disneyland was modeled after the small town’s memory. Both the California and Orlando theme park entrances feature a strip of road flanked with vintage stores, lighting fixtures, and designs reminiscent of a cozy Midwestern street from days gone by. This space, aptly named “Mainstreet USA,” leads into other lands, such as Frontierland and Liberty Square, which represent the variety within America’s storied cultural identity.
Walt’s sentimental tribute to his boyhood town feels far removed from the shores of Yas Island. For starters, the park will have to be built indoors for guest safety because temperatures can easily reach 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the scorching desert sun. This removes much of the outdoor aspects of stateside Disney parks, which rely on live animals, rivers, and fresh air to maintain a quality atmosphere.
Additionally, much of the construction work will likely be done through a labor sponsorship program known in the region as kafala. These alleged “sponsorships” can function much more like slave or forced labor, where workers are subjected to bad working conditions and low pay, plus illegal practices such as wage theft, passport confiscation, and hiring fees. The kafala system allows for workers to be held hostage by their employers if they wish to avoid the threat of deportation and loan defaults.
The company set to construct Disney’s new park is Miral, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi government. This means Miral will likely default to using the UAE’s common practice of kafala while building the Middle Eastern versions of Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. The thought is sickening at best, as it perverts Walt’s original joyous and wholesome design. It is a cannibalization of treasured intellectual property.
However, Disney has a “Get Out of Jail Free” card: It will maintain creative control and oversight of the park, but Miral will bankroll, build, and operate it. This removes any financial responsibility from Disney, which will receive licensing checks from Miral regardless of the park’s success. It also gives Disney plausible deniability regarding the moral dilemmas, as the company can distance itself from the UAE’s questionable labor practices.
But immoral labor practices are only one aspect of the UAE’s incompatibility with Disney’s corporate image, which prides itself on values such as safety, courtesy, and inclusion. While kafala is clearly unsafe, the country also has laws against homosexuality, which come with threats of imprisonment and even the death penalty. This seems to be at odds with Disney’s fight for so-called “inclusion” in Western markets.
Starting in 2022, the company publicly feuded with Florida and its governor, Ron DeSantis, over the state’s Parental Rights in Education legislation, a bill critics wrongly termed “Don’t Say Gay.” The law doesn’t prevent anyone from saying “gay,” but it simply prevents taxpayer-funded schools from teaching kindergarteners through third graders about age-inappropriate topics such as sexual orientation and so-called gender identity. In response, leftist organizations misleadingly accused Florida of suppressing homosexuality.
But while Disney openly criticized DeSantis’ bill in the name of inclusivity, it remains silent about the UAE’s laws against homosexuality. Disney is only willing to pursue its key values when they turn a profit.
Disney theme parks are American classics. It’s why Super Bowl MVPs yell, “I’m going to Disney World!” after championship games. It’s why 70-90 percent of Americans will visit one of the Disney parks in their lifetime. Alongside the company’s movies, television shows, and music, its parks have become a pillar of American culture. Walt was passionate about the land he loved, from the swamps of the South to the cities of the East Coast. His park was a tribute to the American ethos, and it was designed to reflect his love for the American identity.
The West and the Middle East are fundamentally different cultures. From religious backgrounds to social norms, the two have little in common. In a more amicable scenario, Disney could have built a park in Abu Dhabi that was a love letter to American values, meant to inspire respect for the West. Instead, Disney abandoned those values long ago, trading Americana for globalism and ceding operations to Miral.
Disney isn’t merely yielding to a quick cash grab; it’s reproaching the country that made it great. By giving in to the West-hating, slave labor-fueled, globalist agenda, Disney has cannibalized all the things that once made it great.
Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is extremely passionate about the arts and history, and is honored to write for a variety of distinguished publications.
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