As Covid-19 infections skyrocket in Florida to daily levels well beyond those seen a few months ago even in New York, the corporate behemoth Disney announced with great fanfare that it would reopen Disney World, its gargantuan Orlando theme park, on Saturday, July 11, despite the risk to the health and lives of Floridians and all others who venture inside it during the deadliest viral pandemic to strike the country in over a century.
As reported in IndieWire:
The Orlando vacation destination opened its doors back up for the first time since March on July 11 with capacity limits and strict mask requirements, but the event was not without some fierce backlash online. The reopening occurred just ahead of the latest COVID-19 totals out of Florida, which set the record on Sunday for the most new cases in a single day reported for any state since the pandemic began, at 15,299.
The reopening was hailed in a “Welcome Home” video put out by the corporation, featuring the happy, masked and shielded faces of ostensible employees of the park, each one dutifully professing their joy at the prospect of greeting that class of people reckless or stupid enough to risk their own and their families’ lives for a grossly overpriced trip to the “Magic Kingdom.”
CNN’s business editor, Alexis Benveniste, described the video as resembling “the beginning of a horror movie.” He was not alone. Several Twitter users made some minor modifications to the video’s soundtrack, modifications which more aptly capture the true nature of Disney’s gamble with American citizens’ lives.
Some of the more creative efforts are attached, below.
But probably the best edit simply added a few shots to the footage: