Miss Lola Sunshine talks Disney And Disneybounding

Z: Do you have feelings about Peter Pan? 

 L: I have so many feelings about Peter Pan. I actually have a friend who wrote a book based on Peter Pan that's like a super queer leather retelling of Peter Pan. It makes total sense. I side eye Peter Pan cause they made it even more racist than the book...and I read the book, and the book is pretty racist. (Laughing). My ex and I actually hosted a Peter Pan themed play party, and we had to put out a bunch of copy about, Do not come dressed as an Indian, we will send you home. You will be sad about it. We will tell you NO. The rest of it, great! 

I wouldn’t have gotten into Disney as an adult if I hadn't been with someone who was super into Disney. I've gone like way farther than he ever went with Disney, which is kind of cool. I've discovered parts of it for myself that I like. He wasn't into Disneybounding.

Z: A sex play party? 

 L: Hmm. Hmm. It was a really fun theme. There were really good costumes. Tinker Bells, mermaids. Lost boys. Peter Pans. Pirates. It lent itself to great queer costuming. 

Z: What is ‘Disneybounding’? 

L: That's costumes that aren't quite cosplays. So, people can tell what you are but [you] obviously aren’t exactly that. They [Disneyland] don’t want you to look too close to a character because there are terrible adults in the world. Every adult fan of Disney that I know is on board with not letting terrible adults have access to children. We are fine with that. We don’t want to give them any loopholes.

To me it’s paying almost an homage to the character. I haven’t done Tiana from the Princess and The Frog yet. She's my favorite. I'm gonna spend a lot of time on her. I'm dying my reception dress from my wedding yellow. She wears this yellow dress with a white apron to work. I'm taking that concept and making it extremely fancy and expensive looking. I'm going to be the most fancy looking waitress you've ever seen in your life.

 Z: How many times do you go a year? 

L: I usually go 3-5 times a year. 

Z: When was the first time you went. How old were you?  

L: I was really small. My father was a huge fan of rollercoasters and I was a tall child so I could get on roller coasters that I shouldn’t have been on. My first roller coaster was Space Mountain...which was crazy cause the lights went out and I was like, "What’s happening?" and he was like, "This is gonna be great!" and after that no rollercoasters were scary. 

 Z: Did you go to parks a lot with your dad? 

 L: We did. County fairs. He'd pull over for a carnival so fast. He just loved rides and stuff so much. I grew up in The Saint Luis area.

 Z: Are your parents still in the south? 

 L: My mother is. She does not like rides.  

Z: Do you think Disneyland offers a safe space to queer kids?

L: Absolutely. In the 90s, ‘91 I think was the first gay days and that was like the height of the AIDS crisis. There's a little salon that does princess makeovers and they really don’t care if you are a girl or a boy. If you want a makeover and your parents pay for it, they'll give you a makeover.

I wouldn’t have gotten into Disney as an adult if I hadn't been with someone who was super into Disney. I've gone like way farther than he ever went with Disney, which is kind of cool. I've discovered parts of it for myself that I like. He wasn't into Disneybounding. He was into going to the parks and like hanging out and stuff, but he wasn't into the costume element. I think part of Disney is it kind of got weirdly tied into my queer divorce and like became this fun thing that I do just for myself. 

Z: Was the queer divorce you’re speaking of from that person who was into Disney originally? 

L: He went a couple times a year and usually with family. He thought we should go to Disneyland and I was like, "that sounds expensive." So, I went online and did some numbers and it was actually kind of affordable-ish.

So, we went down to Disneyland and had a blast the first time. I think we went twice before our disaster honeymoon. We had kind of a Disney themed wedding. Well, not the whole wedding but the reception part. Like all the snack tables and cakes and things were Disney. We went to Disneyland for our honeymoon which was also a celebration of our birthdays. But, to make a really long story short, he had an entire meltdown and left me alone at Disneyland. Just left. Just was gone. Just like peaced out. 

Z: On your honeymoon? 

L: And my birthday. 

Z: Forever? 

I love Disney princesses from a detached like fairytale standpoint, but I don’t think a lot of them are great messages for children. Like the new Cinderella where the takeaway was ‘have courage and be kind’ was like, um no, if you are in that level of an abusive situation, you should leave. You should get help. You should not continue to be kind.

L: No. He was just having himself a whole moment, but he also triggered a bunch of things -- I said I don’t like crowds -- I had an abandonment trigger so that was him intentionally pushing that button. I started having all of these panic attacks in the middle of Tomorrowland by Space Mountain. 

Z: That's like a movie. 

L: It was terrible. I was crying so hard that random moms were like, Are you ok? They got me to staff and staff was helping me look for him and was also like really calm and nice. They were amazing when I was having panic attacks.  They weren’t just like, Calm down, it will be fine, cause that does nothing when you are upset. 

Z: Do you remember what kinds of things they were doing? 

L: They were talking to me really quietly. They were assuring me they weren’t going to leave me. The mom that found me crying delivered me to a trans woman. It made me feel like I was slightly safer to like--I don’t know why a Disney staff member would care whether I was having a queer relationship fight or a straight one, but at the moment I wasn’t in my right damn mind. It made me calmer in a situation where I wasn’t the least bit calm.

Z: Disney took care of you. 

L: Right. And I think that's why I’m emotionally so connected to them. Literally one of the worst days of my life happened while I was at Disneyland and they were there to make sure I was safe. Even emotionally, which makes no sense when you think about it because they are like a giant business that really doesn’t have to care whether I'm crying in their park or not.

The actual divorce happened not long after, and then I went back to Disneyland by myself a couple times. I’m far happier by myself. Like happy to the point where I'm not exactly interested in a relationship. If the perfect one comes along maybe, but that's not high on my list. 

Z: It would take some convincing. 

L: Yes, it would. I have chill friends that I date but like, I'm not in a capital ‘R’ relationship on purpose. 

Z Do you have any criticism of Disney? or things you'd like to see from Disney? 

L: Things I'd like to see from Disney are things they're already doing. Um. I love Disney princesses from a detached like fairytale standpoint, but I don’t think a lot of them are great messages for children. Like the new Cinderella where the takeaway was ‘have courage and be kind’ was like, um no, if you are in that level of an abusive situation, you should leave. You should get help. You should not continue to be kind.

I recently went to see the new Aladdin. They fixed a lot of things there. The original Aladdin is a mess. It's like nobody cared. Nobody payed attention to any of the things that were going on in that movie that were not ok. One of the problems with Aladdin is, where does it take place? Agrabal is a missmatch of like 3-4 separate cultures. Some references to Islam, but like garb of Indian ladies that were not Muslim and also showed a lot of skin and also Sikh gentlemen. Everything was all jacked up. Disaster. They actually nailed down the aesthetic in the new one. They cast brown people in the brown people roles.

Z: Who is your favorite villain? 

L: Probably Maleficent. But I love all of them. I love the Evil Queen.  I love Ursula. I've done Ursula. A lot of my Dapper Day Disneybounds are conceptual.

Z: What I'm hearing is that Disney is a creative outlet and also this venue to just submerge yourself in a fantasy. 

L: YES. It's super submersive. You can wear the craziest outfit, and nobody will care. You can sing Disney music with people. You can go to a dance party with Disney characters and be an adult. It’s a place where you don’t worry. We are not playing those weird social games where you have to be silent and not into anything to be cool.

Z: Like you’re signing some sort of contract having to do with the outside world. 

L: You're ripping up the contract! I don’t have to pretend to be an adult here. I was in California Adventure which is where all the Marvel lives and I was dressed in black panther themed dress that day which by the way is the WEIRDEST way to meet dads. They are all like, Your dress is amazing!

When I lived in Chicago, I used to come home once or twice a year and clean out all the kitchen she'd be like, you're throwing away all my things and I'd be like, Mom this expired two years ago.

 Z: Do you come from people who collect? 

L: Well, I come from a hoarder which is why I'm so organized. I've seen what it looks like when your shit gets out of hand. My mother's house is not ok. I'm considering whether I'm just gonna burn it down when she passes. 

Z: Does she collect anything useful? 

L: That's the thing. I don’t know cause there is so much of it that it's impossible to sort. She has hundreds of records, and I don’t know what they are cause I'm not allowed to touch them even though they are in a mess everywhere. She has St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia--some of which might be worth something. You can't walk--part of the reason I'm like SHELVES FOR EVERYTHING, hang everything up, make sure there is nothing on the floor. 

When my father was alive, he would keep the house relatively clean and keep her stuff in one room and the basement. It’s an unfinished basement and it is floor to ceiling her crap. I legitimately did find a snake down there once. My father killed it with a shovel. It was terrifying.

So then one day, my mother drives home this Uhaul full of stuff and we are like What is happening? and she's like, I decided I didn’t want to pay for my storage units anymore and we were like, UNITS?! She had two storage units that she was not telling us about and she drove it all home and took over multiple other rooms in the house and her side of the garage. She left a little sliver for my father to put his car in there. She was literally parking outside in snowstorms. So then when my father got sick there was no one to keep it in any kind of in check. By the time he passed away, the whole house was just stuff. I don’t know how she is living in it.  

When I lived in Chicago, I used to come home once or twice a year and clean out all the kitchen she'd be like, you're throwing away all my things and I'd be like, Mom this expired two years ago.

Z: In your opinion, when does it cross over? 

L: I think if you are disorganized to the point where you can’t function properly. Like if you can't walk through the house because there are too many Disney stuffed animals. If you have maxed out several credit cards that you have no hope of paying off with all of your Disney stuff. My ears collection is nothing. I have friends on Instagram that dwarf that by 100 pairs of ears, and I don’t feel like I need to do something like that.

I like my stuffed animals but if someone is coming over, I take them out of my bed because they [the person] need some place to be. But I know people that have so many of them that they sleep in a giant nest of stuffed animals and that's kind of great but also like, Do you have people to your house ever to sleep over?

With me if it doesn’t work, I throw it away. I do not hold on to things that I do not plan to ever touch again. I haven’t worn it in two years, it can go away. Goodbye.

Miss Lola Sunshine is a kinky queer high femme who believes in glitter, excellent manners, and cooking with real butter. She loves Disney, Barbie, and Hello Kitty.  When she is not at Disneyland, or traveling to Disney parks all over the world, she is a sex and kink educator who has helped host and facilitate play parties and gatherings for adult littles, queer and trans people, and people of color in the Bay Area, which is where she lives, works, and plays with her dog Cupcake, over two dozen mouse ears, and over 50 pairs of shoes.