[In November, I
finally visited DisneyWorld for the first time, accompanying my 9 and 8 year
old sons. We hit the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios in a whirlwind
three days—and as you might expect, this AmericanStudier found a great deal of
interest in all three places. So this week I’ll DisneyStudy five such details,
leading up to a special weekend post on themes parks in America!]
On three sides
to globalization captured by Disney’s parks.
On Wednesday’s
post I mentioned that the attraction It’s a Small World, likely best known for
its insanely catchy “It’s
a Small World After All” song, was created for the 1964 New York World’s
Fair. The attraction itself is pretty simple—animatronic figures representing
peoples from around the world, far less realistic than those in many other
Disney attractions but with a quaint charm to be sure, located in settings
meant to loosely capture their different cultures, all singing that darn song
in their own languages, leading up to a climax where all the cultures are
brought together to sing as one—which is perhaps why it became the phenomenon
it did. And as someone who both appreciates multiculturalism and strives for an
ideal
of cross-cultural transformation, I certainly liked the ride’s two-part
process, the recognition of distinct world cultures and yet the movement toward
a unifying final scene. A simple but compelling vision of globalization, and
one created just at the outset of that worldwide trend.
Disney didn’t
just reflect globalization, of course—it also served as one of the trend’s
principal catalysts and vehicles. That’s true not only in the company’s spread
around the world (and the creation of Disneylands in other
countries), but also in the many ways that Disney has worked to welcome the
world into its American parks. None of those efforts has been more visible, nor
more influential, than Epcot’s
World Showcase; I didn’t quite realize this until I was there in person,
but more or less a full half of Epcot is dedicated to this space that seeks to
recreate the architecture, environments, and (most of all) the food and drink of
eleven nations. Visiting with two young boys, and during an annual food
& wine festival to boot, meant I didn’t venture into any of the
showcase’s restaurants or establishments. But even walking around the showcase
briefly, I was struck in two distinct ways by the space’s jarring shifts in
tone from spot to spot: partly these shifts emphasized the area’s artificial
and superficial quality, the ways in which none of its focal nations could be
captured with any true depth; but at the same time they felt like possible
starting points, initial glimpses of other cultures that could ideally be
complemented with travel, research, even conversation with other visitors. It’s
not impossible that global community could come from such origin points.
On the other
hand, global community requires a consistent recognition of cultures other than
our own, and I have to admit that in most other places and ways Disney’s parks
felt far more American-centric. A case in point would be The
Great Movie Ride, an attraction at Hollywood Studios that takes visitors
through the last century of filmmaking with a combination of live actors and
animatronic scenes. Of course no one attraction can capture all of film
history, and this one is part of a park dedicated explicitly to the Hollywood
film industry; yet nonetheless, it seems to me that a ride purporting to reflect
some of the key moments and genres in film could work to include at least a
moment or two focused on films or figures from other cultures. After all, none
other than the record-shattering film property recently acquired by Disney (and
focus of a
future theme park that unfortunately the boys and I were too early to check
out) began with a film (A New Hope)
that echoed
in some significant ways a Japanese classic film (Kurosawa’s The Hidden
Fortress). Too often, America’s role in globalization has entailed eliding
the rest of the world in favor of our own perspective, and that side of the
trend too is unquestionably present on the complex, contradictory, compelling
grounds of Disneyworld.
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other aspects of Disney or theme parks you’d AmericanStudy?
Ben--I haven't been to your blog in a while, and it's great that you happen to be looking at Disney right now, because I just went to Disney on Ice in Boston last weekend, and I have been thinking about it quite a bit, too.
ReplyDeleteAs entertaining as the show was, I could not help but be struck by the audience's deep sense of shared familiarity and warmth toward each of the characters depicted therein. There was something strongly cultural about it. I made me think of a traditional folk dance or gathering in another part of the world, or a play performed during the Golden Age of Athens--sort of a perverse cultural tradition, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck characters in an American mythology.
The reason I say "perverse" is that it arose out of an expressly economic pursuit. There is art involved, no question, and many noteworthy achievements. But Disney, ultimately, is as corporate as it gets, and the places its stories hold in the American psyche transcend what we think of as 'commerce.' I willingly paid $36 for two lemonades and a bag of popcorn--this does not jive with your average, everyday market-force logic.
I often wonder about some of the religion-like undertones of American capitalism. And I honestly can't say that I like it more or less because of these thoughts, but I do find it fascinating.
Just my brief two cents. I hope all is well with you.
Ian
Hi Ian,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the comment, and good to hear from you!
I don't have a lot to add to those great thoughts, but definitely would say that the combination of frank commercialism with communal warmth is a particularly American blend (even when it defies reason, like all the folks seeking out PT Barnum's shows year after year knowing he was out to fleece them), and one Disney definitely embodies as you nicely note here.
Thanks again,
Ben