Actually, it was a rather sick pleasure watching 'Celebrity'. There is nothing more delightful in my job than those moments when I can cause pain to the Hollywood strain of poser, attention-monger, get-rich-quick, status-seeking untalented dimwits. Having a gaggle of them locked in the jungle and being tortured for my amusement was rather gratifying. Besides, the sheer volume of dreadful plastic surgery on display was more terrifying than the last seven horror movies I had to sit through.
I don't hold Walt up for any kind of personal sainthood. I never met him (although my mother swears we got his autograph at
Disneyland when I was in a stroller). I have no opinion on whether he was kind to puppies, said "please" when asked for the salt to be passed to him, or if stiffed waitresses on their tips.
But what I do appreciate, and what I find so rare that it must be remembered, was that he passionately loved what he was doing and passionately tired to do the best work he possible could. It is an attitude on the polar opposite end of those media-wh*res in the jungle and the executives that decided to broadcast it.
Making good movies making good anything is very difficult work. So much of Hollywood is run by those only out to make a buck. They like to enrobe themselves with such noble words as "art" and "truth", but in reality they are in it for themselves. It doesn't matter what they are doing just as long as people give them money for it.
What set the Disney company apart was that it was staffed by a group of people who actually cared about the work. You put up with the low pay, the non-glamorous working conditions and the snickers from the rest of Hollywood because
because you lived for the moment when you first saw the ballroom scene from 'Beauty and the Beast' on a flickering monitor late one night or because you saw the eyes of a child as she stood in front of the castle.
No swarm of personal assistants, no multi-bathroom Hollywood Hills estate, no fawning interview on the red carpet could ever come close to the ability to point up to a screen and say "I helped make that and it's good enough that people will still be marveled by it long after I'm gone".
Walt is not a genius because of his business skills or his personal traits, but because my son laughed and cried at the same movies that I laughed and cried at when I was a child, and they were the same films my father laughed and cried at in his youth.
Those films were made with ink, paint, and people in a dusty suburban warehouse. Today the company commands resources that can buy small nations. The lust for those resources overshadows all else these days. Money is no longer a tool to help create, it is the sole purporse of the entire enterprise.
It is not a fairly tale to remember that what really matters is to create for others, and that it is only accomplished through talent, hard work and willpower.
It is a tale that needs to be told often and loudly - because right now no one is leaving anything for our grandchildren to laugh and cry over.
P.S. Ub felt unappreciated. I get the same exact feelings on many of the projects I work on too. But, just like Ub, I suck it up and work on those projects that have quality. He too knew that personal wealth is little comfort for tossing aside one's legacy.
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