For years, the world’s most perfect urban myth was this: Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically frozen at the moment of death, waiting for technology to advance enough to bring him back to life. Started by a National Spotlite reporter who claimed to have sneaked into a hospital in 1967, only to be confronted by the sight of Disney suspended in a cryogenic cylinder, the myth prevailed because it was such a good fit.
Disney – and therefore Walt Disney himself – was the smiling face of rigidly controlled joy, radiating a message of mandatory fun that is magical when you are a child and increasingly sinister as you age. This policy (essentially “enjoy yourself or else”) suits the idea of cryogenic preservation. After all, if you have the ego to successfully enforce a blanket emotion as a company mission statement, you definitely have the ego to transcend human mortality.
