Here’s an issue we rarely get to talk about: the ethics of our grandparents being turned into animatronic robots and put on display at theme parks. The existential question is currently tormenting Joanna Miller, the (nearly 70-year-old) granddaughter of the Walt Disney. You see, Disneyland Resort is about to have a big shindig for their 70th anniversary next month, and the imagineers have been as busy as singing mice getting Cinderella’s dress ready in the lead up to the ball. In August of last year, Disney Co announced that a feature event would be Walt Disney — A Magical Life, a show with an Audio-Animatronic figure of their fearless leader. A fitting tribute for the man who trailblazed animatronics at the 1964 New York World’s Fair with a robot Abe Lincoln? Not according to Joanna! Ms. Miller is deeply disturbed by the effort. She’s calling upon her legions of Facebook followers to protest the “imposter” and “dehumanizing” creation she refers to as “Robotic Grampa.” I presume she’s also tried wishing upon a star.
Miller told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week that taking this stand against Walt Disney Co. is difficult for her, but nevertheless, she wants her voice to be heard because “He’s ours,” Miller told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re his family.”
“I think I started crying,” Miller told the outlet of her encounter with the animatronic. “It didn’t look like him, to me.”
Miller added to the title, “You just start to get pissed off. And you get tired of being quiet. So I spoke up on Facebook. Like that was going to do anything? The fact that it got back to the company is pretty funny.”
“I would appreciate support to convince the company to abandon the Robot of Grampa. Please if you feel the same perhaps write letters,” Miller wrote in a Facebook post in November.
…“Creating our first Walt figure is an idea that’s been whispered in the hallowed halls of Imagineering for years, decades, even,” Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro said while speaking at Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase. “We just had to wait for innovation to catch up with our dreams. And we’re finally ready.”
However, Miller claims that becoming a robot was never her late grandfather’s desire.
“Most importantly, I learned that Grampa told [Disney Imagineer] Sam McKim that he never wanted to be an animatronic. (Thank you Matt McKim for first-hand proof),” Miller wrote in the Facebook post.
“The idea of a Robotic Grampa to give the public a feeling of who the living man was just makes no sense. It would be an imposter, They are dehumanizing him,” Miller went on to say in the post.
And while the animatronic may look realistic, Miller points out it will never replace her grandfather.
“You could never get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera, his excitement to show and tell people about what is new at the park,” she wrote. “You can not add life to one. Empty of a soul or essence of the man.”
…Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger heard word of Miller’s Facebook post and soon invited her to meet with him. Miller said she also met with members of Walt Disney Imagineering and was given an opportunity to see the robotic figure.
“He was very kind,” Miller told the Los Angeles Times of her conversation with Iger. “He let me do my spiel” but she says her plea was ultimately unsuccessful.
Joanna Miller is in her feelings very deeply, and I’m sorry she’s in distress. That being said, is she upset over the very notion of Robotic Grampa, or that the one they made doesn’t look/sound enough like him? Her comments were a bit all over the place, so I went to the original Facebook post… which in no way helped. But then again I’m always thrown by indiscriminate CAPITALIZATIONS. The way she calls the animatronic an imposter, though… Yes, it’s a robot, we know it’s not the real (deceased) human! But I’ve been whistling while trying to work this one out, and I think I’ve sorted what’s really happening here: Robotic Grampa is karmic payback to the Disney family for Walt inflicting the 300-odd animatronic It’s A Small World dolls on us. There’s just no other plausible explanation.
PS — Bob Iger inviting Joanna to a meeting, only to disregard her entirely and proceed according to the business plan, is exactly the kind of Disney Villain we expect him to be.
PPS — I want to make clear that I adore the artwork of Mary Blair, the illustrator behind It’s A Small World and many other Disney titles. Her illustrations? Charming. The 3D dolls imagineers made of them? Creepy.
Photos credit: UIG/Avalon, Topfoto/Avalon, Getty
Waiting for the descendants of the presidents in TBE Hall of Presidents to speak out. Their animatronic ancestors have suffered long enough. 😄
I was going to say….hall of presidents says what’s that now?? lol.
Makes me glad I’m not famous. No one will want to turn me into a money making doll.
I love It’s a Small World — my favorite thing to do is drag newbies directly to it so as to inflict that brain worm of a song into their heads for the rest of the day. I also adore the creepy ass dolls, especially when they change into their holiday wear.
Is there anyone on this planet who has every actually liked the It’s A Small World ride and its animatronics? Like, genuinely liked it, not in hate-watch kind of way.
I can’t see that this is worse than what Disney actually did to himself post-life– I believe his head is cryogenically preserved in case the future world can find a way to bring him back to life. Am I wrong?