We need to talk about guests mistreating Cast Members.
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2025
- In this episode of Sightlines, we speak with Preston, a former Disney Cast Member, about the issue of character performers facing mistreatment from guests. We cover what it's like to work as a character performer, what kinds of issues come up with bad guest interactions, and what we, as theme park fans, can ask these companies to do to help limit these problems.
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All thoughts in this video are those of the respective speakers and do not reflect the opinions or policies of The Walt Disney Company or any other organization.
Thumbnail image credit: Preston Moore
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Not only more handlers, but a signal the character can use to let the handler know they need help.
This was a great topic to cover and Preston was a very impressive guest. For companies the size of Disney you’d think they could afford to hire a handler for each performer or at least hook the handler and performer with hidden microphones. At least they could hear the perpetrators. Let’s face it, as long as people exist there will always be the idiots that make it a bad experience. Thanks for the eye opening video
I think you're 100% right that they'll never completely eliminate these issues. But part of the reason why this felt so necessary to talk about is the inexcusable amount of these incidents that go unreported and/or unpunished. Cast Members shouldn't be afraid to speak up about these things. It's hard to report harassment or abuse at most service industry jobs; the nature of the "character integrity" stuff makes that even harder for character performers, and that's not good.
Thank you for making a video on this topic, it’s super important and you don’t see a lot of theme park related UA-camrs commenting on things like this
Thank you. It's a topic I've always felt very strongly about, and it's the exact type of thing I want to use this platform to highlight, at least once in a while (most of our videos should still be fun). At the same time, I understand why other channels don't want to touch the topic.
This video is underperforming compared to just about every other video we've uploaded in the past 6 months, and it's mostly because UA-cam doesn't like to promote "negative" content. If all you're trying to do is grow viewers and subs, it's just not in your best interest to talk about these topics. This video would probably get demonetized... if we had enough subs to get it monetized in the first place.
That said, I knew this was probably going to happen, and didn't really care. There'll be more videos that satisfy the algorithm, and now I can make those without having this one constantly nagging at the back of my mind. Same thing will go for the video we eventually do on disabilities and accessibility in theme parks, which is another topic I care a lot about. Anyway, I'm glad you appreciated this one.
Commenting over here even though I already did on patreon to help with the algorithm- this was such a well executed episode and I think you handled the topic really well. It was great to hear from Preston firsthand about the experiences he had or observed as a cast member
As always, your support is why we can even make risky videos like this. Thank you so much, dude.
I couldn’t help but feel pretty emotional watching this. I remember so vividly all the moments where cast members brought the magic for me during the opening week of the 50th celebration. I also remember being completely heartbroken when hearing stories of cast members crying from the verbal abuse from guests wanting to get the limited edition merchandise.
If these companies are so worried about the magic being ruined, they need to do a better job of protecting their employees and properly disincentivizing guests from even thinking the risk is worth it.
I worked 8 years of Halloween haunts between Magic Mountain, Knott's and an independent house. The indy one I had to literally dodge punches as I opened a portrait on a hallway wall to scare people. MM I was punched by a guest and I basically chewed him a new one and he and his wife thanked me, like I guess they thought I had the authority to send him to jail. Pffft. In all those years I never saw a guest get in trouble for hurting our monsters. At Knott's is the worst. Every year they have a night for listeners of Power 106 radio, billed as their "kill a monster" night. Several of us performers actually went to higher ups about this after one of our people in the mine train ride went to the hospital because some jerk threw a personal watermelon besotted with GASOLINE directly at his face, and it burned through the mask and burned his face. Management heard us ask politely to ask Power 106 to please stop billing it that way, and they calmly said no.
Iam going to Disneyland Oct 5th ❤
I feel that meeting Tiana every March 31st which is my birthday n meeting Tiana she is Tiana whoever that actress. N i am 40.
I love the cast members and speaking to do them. Smh. N i just love Tiana
Ppl do 2 much smh
Like guy push that ghost for touching his gf