Here’s my edited version of the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities with a creativity/consumerist twist:
“It is the best of the USA, it is the worst of the USA, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness, it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair, we have everything before us, we have nothing before us, we are all going direct to Heaven, we are all going direct the other way…”
My wife and I just received matching Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse T-shirts from Shop Disney. Although I have blogged before about my ambivalence towards Disney (My Disney Ambivalence, What Disney Can Teach Healthcare), I bought these specific shirts with two things in mind:
First and foremost, wearing them together is a fun husband-wife thing to do. It’s a simple pleasure: late at night, watching a movie, cuddled and outfitted together in our matching t-shirts.
Second, and more philosophically, for me Mickey Mouse represents the simultaneous expression of one of the most creative companies in the world and one of the most consumer-driven companies in the world. He shows the constant struggle between solution/problem—at the personal level, the national level, and the global level.
These t-shirts pose this question: Can my/our creative energy defeat my/our consumer-rooted destruction of the world?
That’s the question Mickey Mouse asks. That’s the question which only we can answer.