What Mayer did in the thirties – what he was situated to do as a Jew yearning to belong – was provide reassurance against the anxieties and disruptions of the time. He did this by fashioning a vast, compelling national fantasy out of his dreams and out of the basic tenets of his own dogmatic faith – a belief in virtue, in the bulwark of family, in the merits of loyalty, in the soundness of tradition, in America itself.

Yet all of these accumulated contributions paled before a larger one: he demonstrated how one could assert one’s will on the world at the very time when everything seemed to be growing beyond control and beyond comprehension.

More often than not “fair” and “balanced” may be mutually exclusive.

We prefer knowing to thinking, because knowing has more immediate value.

Within the studies and on the screen, the Jews could simply create a new country – an empire of their own, so to speak, one where they would not only be admitted, but would govern as well. The would create its values and myths, its traditions and archetypes.

He had passed beyond the afflictions of this world. Walt Disney had at last attained perfection.

What Mayer did in the thirties― what he was situated to do as a Jew yearning to belong― was provide reassurance against the anxieties and disruptions of the time. He did this by fashioning a vast, compelling national fantasy out of his dreams and out of the basic tenets of his own dogmatic faith― a belief in virtue, in the bulwark of family, in the merits of loyalty, in the soundness of tradition, in America itself.

Look, the thing that's going to make Disneyland unique and different,' he insisted, 'is the detail. If we loose the detail, we loose it all.