Disneyland Guest Faces Consequences After Sexually Harassing Gaston

Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort might be known for their magical elements, but many observant Disney Park Guests will also notice that the “Disney magic” doesn’t always extend to the employees who are working within said Disney Parks or Disney Resorts.

Disney Park employees, who are known as Cast Members, have particularly difficult jobs.

The Disney employees who are also character performers — i.e. actors playing “face” Disney characters like Tinker Bell or Princess Jasmine as well as “fur'” characters like the Beast — have to contend with cranky or rude Disney Park Guests, as well as uncomfortable costumes and a whole lot of job insecurities.

Sometimes, Disney Guests really cross a line during Character Meet and Greets and sexually harass or proposition the character.

Scantily-clad character performers have faced a lot of these inappropriate advances while playing Tarzan, and a certain pirate character also receives a lot of hotel room keys.

Another handsome Disney character is also a victim, however, and one Disney Guest actually faced some surprisingly-firm backlash after inappropriately touching him!

Back in 2021, during the popular Character Meet and Greet with Gaston from the 1991 animated classic Beauty and the Beast, an adult female Guest approached the actor playing the Disney villain and promptly put her hands on his chest for a photo — without asking.

As we can see in the old post from Reddit (shown below), Gaston instantly retreated and rebuffed her, telling her to leave and even blocking her advances physically.

The female Guest didn’t seem to understand what she had done wrong, or that the character performer was serious, but Gaston did not let up and refused to take a picture with her!

This incident reminds us, here at Disney Fanatic, of the unfortunate incident last year that involved a Guest physically mistreating a character performer.

During that incident, the Disney employee playing Rey Skywalker was just as direct and unyielding in her reaction — without directly saying what was wrong and dignifying the misbehaving Guest with attention, she ended the Character Meet and Greet immediately just as Gaston has done here.

Reddit users praised Gaston for his quick and justified response to the Guest, although some Gaston fans used Disney lines to express their approval (such as “No one copes like Gaston, no one ‘nopes’ like Gaston, no one calls out girls’ unwanted gropes like Gaston”).

Another Gaston fan wrote the following play on a famous Gaston quote: “No one REJECTS like Gaston, demands RESPECT like Gaston, No one shuts down the groping of PECS like Gaston”.

However, other Reddit users acknowledged that this really was sexual harassment.

“I feel like he shouldn’t have to do this himself,” one person pointed out. “Someone who is groped on the job shouldn’t have to be their own security or have returned to their job instantly as nothing happened. What if he needs a minute?!”

Disney character performers are supposed to have a handler onsite who is meant to “run interference in a situation like this”, but there is no handler to be found. Fortunately, in this case, Gaston stood up for himself!

Woman inappropriately touching Gaston at Disneyland gets told off
byu/Rooonaldooo99 inWatchPeopleDieInside

This Guest’s mistreatment of Gaston is certainly shameful, and serves as a strong indication that Disney Park Guests really do think of the Disney character performers as inanimate objects or toys to play with.

It also serves as a bleak reminder of the fact that, even though Disney Guests’ behavior has gotten alarmingly bad in the past several months, the bad behavior was still far from absent before 2022 or 2023.

Fortunately, Disney’s employees seem to be taking a good approach to the offense: ignoring the offender, while also immediately ending the fun experience that they were trying to exploit.

Do you remember hearing about this Gaston incident back in 2021?