So I worked at the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground first. I didn’t start as a princess you’re not allowed to audition for entertainment in that program. I immediately told my mom that I wanted to do this, and she said, “Okay, maybe for a couple months.” I think it was to try and get kids into the workforce. Basically, you graduate school, go straight to Disney. I wish I could tell you that I glamorously walked in and they said, “We love you.” But I was in high school in 2008, and Disney came to our school and talked about the Disney CareerStart program. So how did you get your foot in the door at Disney World? Sotakoun and I talked about the sliding pay scale at Disney parks, the after-hours scene with the cast members, and what it was like for her, a woman with no Native American heritage, to be asked to play Pocahontas. Instead, if she’s recognized by a park-goer at Target, Sotakoun and her former coworkers are urged to say something like, “Yes, I’m friends with Pocahontas.” The company discourages its entertainment staff to talk openly about their time working at the parks, and asks all of its Ariels, Belles, and Snow Whites never to acknowledge that they play their namesake characters. Sotakoun hasn’t worked at Disney World in nearly a decade, but she’s one of the few former princesses who’s willing to share her experiences candidly with anyone curious. From crying children to leering grandpas, she’s seen it all. Afterward, she was let loose on the campus so she could briefly lose herself in the “happiest place on earth.” In that time, Sotakoun became familiar with every curveball the Disney World Resort was capable of throwing at her. At the beginning of her shift, she’d enter the bowels of the Magic Kingdom and be costumed as either Pocahontas, Mulan, or Silvermist (a Peter Pan fairy of East Asian appearance who first appeared in the Disney Fairies direct-to-DVD films). Sotakoun, who is half Laotian and half white, went through an intensive crash course for each of the characters she played in Disney’s “entertainment” division, which refers to the iconic costume characters that cheerfully reside in the amusement parks. Today, at 30 and with a job in the video game industry, she says she looks back at her princess era with only good memories. Sotakoun worked at Disney World for four years, starting in 2008 when she was just 18.
0 kommentar(er)
