What’s really behind the sudden change in Disney Parks & Resorts’ facial hair policy?

Jim Hill

12 years ago

You’re going to read a lot today about how – by revising
their long-standing policy on facial hair – Disney Parks and Resorts is now turning
its back on nearly 60 years of tradition.

Which isn’t entirely true.

I mean, if Walt Disney himself really insisted that no one
with a beard or a mustache be allowed to work inside of one of his theme parks,
then how do you explain Sheriff Lucky and Black Bart …

Sheriff Lucky and Black
Bart from Disneyland’s 1957 souvenir
guidebook. Copyright Disney Enterprises,
Inc.
All rights reserved

… those mustached & goateed performers who used to
entertain Disneyland visitors in the late 1950s / early 1960s with their daily
gun battles in and around Frontierland?

More to the point, given that most of The Happiest Place on
Earth’s original shops & restaurants were run by lessees (EX: The Chicken
of the Sea Pirate Ship Restaurant in Fantasyland) who were then in charge of
hiring all of their own on-site employees … For at least six years there (i.e.
Walt didn’t actually gain absolute & total control over his Anaheim theme
park ’til 1960 /1961. Which is when the Company bought out ABC’s stake in the
operation and the last of Disneyland’s original sponsorship deals finally
expired), Walt had little or no say over what many frontline Disneyland
employees looked like.

So where did this whole
“All-Disney-theme-park-Cast-Members-must-have-no-facial-hair” thing come from?
I actually got to ask Van France (who – along with his then-assistant, Dick
Nunis – created the University of Disneyland training center back in 1955)
about this in the late 1980s. Back then, Van was working with Steve Fiott, a
New Hampshire-based publisher on his soon-to-be-published memoirs, “Window on Main Street: 35 Years of Creating Happiness at Disneyland Park” (Stabur Press,
September 1991). And over lunch one day at the late, great Green Ridge Turkey Farm Restaurant, France revealed to me that that
classic clean-cut look which eventually came to be the gold standard at the Disney
theme parks almost came about by accident.

Van France proudly gestures
towards his very own
window on Main Street. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved

As Van explained …

… we had so many marines moonlighting for us back then. Guys
who were stationed at Tustin, El Toro and Camp Pendleton that would come work
Third Shift at the Park on the weekends, doing stuff like stocking shelves
after hours, trash collection and street cleaning.

And Walt – who was spending a lot of his weekends back then staying in that
apartment above the fire station as he looked for new ways to plus the Park –
would get up early in the morning and then go wander around Disneyland. And
he’d see these marines with their high-and-tight haircuts doing things like
hosing down the streets. And Walt just liked how clean-cut these hard-working servicemen
looked.

Bob Denver as Maynard G.
Krebs in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”

Now you gotta remember that the late 1950s was the time of
the beatnik. Not the crazy long-haired hippies that we had in the 1960s, mind
you. But scruffy-looking kids with goatees. You know? Like Maynard G. Krebs on
“Dobie Gillis.”

So as we began buying out the lessees and Walt got more
& more control over who worked at Disneyland … I think the whole clean-cut,
no-facial-hair thing really grew out of that. Walt liked how professional the
marines who moonlighted at Disneyland looked. He also recognized that – back in
the uptight 1950s — the general public was pretty leery of people who looked
different, like the beatniks.

So it wasn’t that Walt himself disliked facial hair. He had
a mustache himself, you know. As did a lot of the animators and Imagineers who
worked for him. And Walt was good friends with Salvador Dali. Who had the craziest mustache you’d ever seen.

Salvador Dali and Walt
Disney. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

No, the no-facial-hair thing came about because the people
who work at Disneyland aren’t employees, they’re Cast Members. And when they’re
out in the Park, they’re not just doing a job. They’re onstage performing a
role. Which is to entertain our Guests. And Walt wanted Disneyland’s Cast Members to be clean-cut
like those marines. So – over time – we began insisting that all new hires
who’d be working onstage in direct contact with the general public not have
facial hair. So this wasn’t a formal policy that we had in place when
Disneyland first opened back in 1955. It was something that we decided to do
later after we’d bought out all of the lessees.

Which brings us now to the bigger question. As in: Why did
Disney Parks & Resorts pick this particular moment to revise its
no-facial-hair policy when it comes to beards & goatees?

I mean, the last time that the Mouse did something like this
was back in March of 2000. Which was when Disney Parks & Resorts dropped
its long-standing stance when it came to prohibiting male Cast Members from
growing mustaches. But that was done because … Well, it was a far tougher labor
market back then. And Disney World was genuinely having trouble when it came to
recruiting enough employees to properly staff the then-recently-opened Disney’s
Animal Kingdom theme park as well as the then soon-to-be-opening Disney’s
Animal Kingdom Lodge. And by removing the no-mustache restriction, that then gave
the WDW Resort a far bigger pool of prospective employees to choose from.

But today’s job market is obviously not like the one back in
March of 2000. From what I hear, the Walt Disney World Resort has more job
applicants then it knows what to do with right now. So what’s the point of
dropping the no-beards-or-goatee job requirement right now?

From what I was told by Disney Company insiders yesterday,
this grooming policy change has more to do with Mickey’s long-range plans for
international expansion than anything else. That – on the other side of the
Shanghai Disneyland project — the Company is considering making
investments-of-scale in emerging markets like Russia, India and South America.
Places & cultures that have very different attitudes when it comes to facial
hair.

So – in short – don’t believe everything that you read today
when it comes to The Walt Disney Company and facial hair. Disneyland didn’t actually
start off life back in 1955 as a place that wouldn’t employ people just because
they had a mustache, beard or goatee. (Want proof? Then check out this Disneyland
postcard from 1957. Which shows 4 very mustachioed Cast Members gathered around
that coal stove inside of the old Swift Market House on Main Street, U.S.A. )

More to the point, the Company didn’t make this change to
the Disney Look just because it was looking to make life easier for the male
Cast Members who work at their theme parks & resorts. I’ve heard persistent
rumblings that this sudden change-in-policy may actually have a tie to a federal
discrimination complaint which was filed against the Disneyland Resort back in
August of 2010. You may recall this case. Which grew out of a Muslim Cast
Member’s complaint that she wasn’t being allowed to wear a religious headscarf while
working as a ticket seller & vacation planner at Disneyland.

So what exactly does that case (which was settled, by the
way, in September of last year when the Company provided 22-year-old Noor
Abdallah with a Disney-approved blue scarf & beret-style hat to wear while at
work) have to do with Disney’s decision to suddenly allow Male Cast Members to
have beards & goatees? I’m still digging away at that story, folks. When I know
more, I’ll post it here, okay?

Your thoughts?