Order 1234961: The Marketplace/ Benihana restaurant
Images of Main Street: Disney World and the American Adventure
Virginia A. Salamone Frank A. Salamone
When Dean Koontz wishes to evoke an image of innocence to contrast with the horror and dread in Watchers, he introduces a shared love for Disney characters between the intelligent and good dog, Einstein, and his equally intelligent but evil nemesis, the Outsider. In fact, this shared love for Mickey and h i s f r i e n d s s a v e s E i n s t e i n f r o m t h e m u r d e r o u s Outsider, originally named “The Other,” when the sight of a Disney home video box softens his heart and leads him to show mercy on his intended victim for the sake of their common memories. These memo- ries were their only happy ones when they were experimental animals in a National Security Agency facility.
As schmaltzy and sentimental as this summary may be, the use of Disney characters works in the book just as i t does for t h e millions of people who share the dream of Disney’s Main Street U.S.A. of a pure innocence where the mischief of Huey, Dewey, and Louie are boyish fun in contrast with the lurid headlines that greet us daily. The entire Main Street experience is designed to evoke nostalgia for an Age of Innocence. In fact, there are a number of Main Streets at the Disney properties, each tapping into a different e r a and range of emotions: the colonial period, the frontier, and “the future,” for example.
It is pointless to murmur that these depictions are romantic fantasies, f o r that is indeed the point. Moreover, this very fantasizing reveals a great deal about the special relationship Americans have with Disney and the manner in which Disney has managed to bring American cultural fantasies to life, externaliz- ing the almost inchoate romantic images of the people. Indeed, at times this Disney-influenced ver- sion of reality has resulted in criticisms from the right as well as the left.
The action of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1997 resolving to boycott Disney “because the Walt Disney Co. was providing health care benefits to com- panions of gay employees” and its “hosting of homo- sexual theme nights” is a case in point (Book o f t h e
Year 1997). Disney owns those people who bought their image of America and then used that image against them. It is instructive to examine some of these various Main Streets in Disney World and com- pare them with a British view of America’s Main Street at the American Adventure amusement park in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England, near Robin Hood’s Nottingham and Sherwood Forest.
Main Street, U.S.A., Disney World “Disney occupies a special place in the American
landscape and culture,” states Michael Pollan;
Few companies are as skillful at making places, at shaping the physical environment to affect our behavior. Disney’s theme parks deserve credit for helping to keep alive not only a large part of America’s vernacular architecture but, on Main Street, the very experience of walkable streets and pleasing public spaces-this at precisely the time when Americans were abandoning real Main Streets for their cars and suburban cul-de-sacs. (58)
Getting to Main Street U.S.A. for most visitors is an adventure in itself. In addition to the months or years of planning and dreaming to visit the secular Mecca that Disney World has become, there is the trip from the parking lot or ticket and transportation center to enter the park itself. Others have written of t h e park’s controlled environment and Walt Disney’s determination not to have the area around Disney World be spoiled by other commercial ventures. Part of that plan is Disney’s desire to rouse the sense of a journey from the mundane to the magic in their “guests .”
For most guests, there are two choices in reaching the park from the ticket and transportation area: the monorail or the steamboat. Experienced guests, many of whom have gotten tired of the time it takes to leave the mundane and experience the magic, look quickly at the lines to the monorail and then t o t h e steam boat’s dock to note whether the boat has just left or is
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arriving. They are eager to get to the magic of the Magic Kingdom without undue delay. Truly savvy guests know that staying in one of Disney’s properties enables you to by-pass one of Walt Disney’s objec- tives by taking a Disney bus directly to the front gate. Evidently, those wishing to get to Epcot don’t require a special escape from reality. They can simply drive there and, usually, park close to the entrance.
Once the hurdles that delay arrival are overcome, including the lines to pass through the gate and a clumsy identification system for pass holders, requir- ing knuckle prints, the guest is finally allowed to enter the magic realm. The petty annoyances of the journey are quickly forgotten and soon most visitors have willingly surrendered their imagination to a merger with Disney ’s. The experience is certainly different for a child and an adult, but most American children have their childhood shaped by Disney, and most adults fondly recall the part Disney played in their youth. Our first movie memories are often of a Disney film our parents took us to, and years later we claim to recall every detail and try to share those memories with our own children.
Main Street U.S.A. transports us back to those early memories and is an animated film brought to life. Adults recognize that we never saw such a street in our lives outside a movie lot, much less lived on one. However, even many cynical adults soon lose their determination not to be moved and see their own Main Street through Disney glasses. Perhaps the fire- house did not look quite so photogenic as Disney’s and there were no carriages drawn by magnificent horses weighing at least one ton each traversing the avenues of the old hometown. Nevertheless, there are many things that have changed, things we may wish had not. Certainly, we adults have changed in ways we often yearn we had not, and Main Street reminds us that at least in memory and at least for a day the old still lives somewhere within ourselves.
The evocation of a cleaner, more innocent, and better America is continually reinforced all along Main Street. From the City Hall, the Penny Arcade, to the Ice Cream Shoppe and the City Square, everything is the way we wish we remembered it, complete with a jolly mayor who greets everyone in his orbit. The Main Street Cinema is playing nothing but G-rated animated films, featuring Steamboat Willie, Mickey’s and Minnie’s debut sound film, and M i c k e y ’ s B i g Break. Each building, business, and square inch is carefully planned to evoke sanitized memories of an America that never was but that many wish would be again.
Richard Francaviglia has called Main Street U.S.A. “a revered environmental icon” (141) and noted that its influence has reached far beyond the Disney parks to influence town planning and our per- ceptions of what Main Street was actually like. Disney appeared to understand the impact his view of Main Street had on the American public. Not only did he spend hours at Disneyland viewing his guests enter the park, he arranged the park so that every guest had to enter by way of Main Street. The Victorian railroad station and “memorable public square” (141), as Francaviglia notes, are the first impressions received of the park.
Amazingly, even the more radical among us responds to the image in a generally positive manner. The psychological and cultural strings are carefully pulled; only on those rare occasions when they fail are they revealed for a brief time.
Generally, the backstage is carefully hidden. The guest is exposed to the frontstage and left to absorb the almost subliminal message of the setting. Only on reflection does one notice the absence of certain ele- ments that should be present. The streets are clean. The usual mess that accompanied horse-drawn car- riages is missing. Rudeness is generally absent. When it is present, it is jarring, matter out of place (Douglas) and thus dirty somehow. The crowds tend to be polite and generally good-natured. The Penny Arcade is dif- ferent somehow from the ones many of us haunted. Only on reflection do we note the lack of the neigh- borhood toughs who made each trip an adventure. There is no gambling and, not unimportantly, every- thing generally works.
Occasionally, however, glimpses of the backstage intrude into the frontstage realm. Recently, our family noted the dressing room behind a makeshift stage. The sight of nearly naked youth preparing to go frontstage was humorous and brought us back to reality, the real- ity that is usually hidden. Moreover, the increasing subversion of the text taking place at Disney is an interesting development. The Jungle Ride is notorious for its campy behavior, but even service people have begun to assert their independence from their assigned roles through a more careless attitude, one that is quickly corrected by managerial staff.
In sum, everything functions the way we wish it did in our own youths. It is cleaner than anything we really experienced. There is a lack of the messiness of real life. The labor of keeping things clean is always conspicuous by its absence or camouflaging. Often the cleaners are part of the act, performers in their own right who entertain those who watch them clean.
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It is a kind of whistle-while-you work exhibition that delights the guests while getting the job done.
Sanitized reality is the key phrase to describe the other “Main Streets” in the World. Nevertheless, while this absence is there and is important, as in music it serves to dramatize what is stated through contrasting with it. The American colonial section, for example, provides neat and clean shops, always fully stocked and in air-conditioned comfort, a welcome treat in Florida’s steamy months. The stocks provide their expected humor, concealing their once humiliat- ing use. The food smells as we feel it should, basic and wholesome.
This image of America being basic, wholesome and a fresh start is essential to its self-perception. This fresh start, however, retains overtones of a return to origins, a New Eden. Although the religious overtones are essentially muted, there is a good deal of Bellah’s secular religion present. The colonial buildings are pristine in their gleaming whiteness, portending great things to come. Since the audience knows that these g r e a t t h i n g s have i n d e e d come to pass, we a r e expected to be elated to be in on the origin, according to Disney.
For example, there is a great deal of nostalgia attached to the Golden Era of Hollywood, a nostalgia Disney has tapped in its MGM Theme Park with its own Main Street of Hollywood and Vine circa 1940. Ironically, the only production company “still making ’em the way they used to” is Disney. Beginning with 1989’s Little Mermaid, and continuing with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and the under- rated Hercules, Disney has consistently produced classic Hollywood musicals. It is not a new insight that Disney ’s classic animated films, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and others were really Hollywood musicals in cartoon form.
Certainly, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a logi- cal extension of Gene Kelly’s dancing with Hanna and Barbera’s Tom and Jerry or Uncle Remus singing with that Mr. Bluebird on his shoulder. Disney, in fact, had almost made a version of Alice in Wonderland with Mary Pickford long before he made Snow White. It would have featured animation and live action. The classic Hollywood films seemed to defy the laws of nature and leap over and through the screen. Perhaps only animation can preserve their memory. In any case, Disney has brought t h e images of the old silver screen to its various Main Streets.
Walt Disney, himself, was aware that his animated films were musicals when he began the tradition with Snow White. His trademark touches are seen in his
insistence that, unlike the Grimms’ fairy tale, each dwarf must have a separate personality. This decision presented the animators with numerous headaches and helps explain why the “Heigh-ho” sequence took six months to film. That six months, however, has more than paid for itself in profits and in images preserved in Disney’s parks.
The picture has an unusual pace and rhythm. The control is uncommon. Unlike most films, everything contributes to the total effect. The narrative is simple and straightforward, as befits a fairy tale. Good is truly good, and evil is clearly evil. There is a gentle humor that permeates the film.
The animal sketches are among Disney’s best and are rarely matched in the later films, even with advanced technology. The dwarfs, of course, provide plenty of human emotion-slapstick, pathos, and joy. The love story has been under attack i n our more politically correct day, but the success of t h e video release and the constant movie re-releases makes one pause to wonder at the meaning of the film
The frightening sequences, involving the witch, have long been under attack. Some countries origi- nally banned young children from attending the movie. And yet, kids still tug on their parents to see it again. Fairy tales, after all, are supposed to scare and then reassure us. There is little argument regarding the film’s music. It has lasted since 1937 and one can still hear new versions of the old “Whistle While You Work,” “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It’s Off to Work We Go,” “Someday My Prince Will Come,” and “With a Smile and a Song.”
It provided the model which Disney’s other works have sought to achieve. Certainly, its themes permeate Disney World and the other parks as well as the films. Stories are rewritten to have happy endings, as The Little Mermaid demonstrates. Danger is part of the world but the Big Bad Wolf or Wicked Queen is des- tined to lose if we just keep up our spirits and work hard. Each of Disney’s many Main Streets reinforces this theme in different settings. According to Max F r a n k e l , Disney u s e s “ a s t o u n d i n g t e c h n o l o g y ” throughout Disney World to reiterate the theme of “birth, death, and renewal” (24). Frankel notes that this message is, however, delivered with a high cost attached.
That cost, according to Frankel, is the worship of technology itself.
It writes its own spectacular plots. It beguiles us with its dazzling promise, frightens us with menacing malfunctions but usually, magically, rescues by producing its own tech- nological f i x . Birth, death, resurrections. Who could possi- bly improve on that story line? (Frankel 24)
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Frankel indicates that the danger is summed up in “ H o n e y , I S h r u n k t h e A u d i e n c e ” and “Alien Encounters,” where technology runs amuck but rights itself finally to rescue the “endangered” audience. The final line of the Alien Encounters experience is “Life forms, thank you for your submission.” He sees this as a dangerous indication of the future. Others, how- ever, may see it as a warning, stretching back at least to Disney’s The Sorcerer j. Apprentice, about the dan- gers of the abuse of “secrets,” technological or magi- cal.
EPCOT (Experimental Prototypical Community of Tomorrow), however, does raise its own questions for many people. Walt Disney, himself, envisioned Epcot as a planned community bringing the world of tomorrow a bit closer to reality. It has evolved into the most didactic of Disney’s parks. It has another type of Main Street, the World Showcase. The Showcase is another type of American Main Street, a type of American view of the world in a sanitized setting. The folklorist Frank de Car0 has indicated its importance to students of mass culture.
World Showcase attempts to present culture and cultural performances to an audience. Folklorists have become increasingly interested in how culture is presented-via film, museum displays and at folklife festivals, for exam- ple .... EPCOT presents an almost totally artificial re-config- uring of culture, yet as such provides an alternative vision of cultural presentation which can be instructive. (de Car0 27)
D e Car0 notes that Disney manages to control the impressions of “guests” through illusion and fantasy and attention to detail. Disney’s desire to control every aspect of the environment is well known. De Car0 calls this the careful editing of cultural forms. He quotes E. L . Doctorow’s (289) statement that Disney has mastered “a technique of abbreviated shorthand culture.” De Car0 admirably presents the bits and pieces that evoke the various settings: the Moroccan courtyard house that isn’t a house; the Sicilian peasant’s cart; the strolling players that a p p e a r in different c o s t u m e s at different World Showcase pavilions; the Mexican pavilion with its enchanting mystery; the national foods that are some- how denatured; and Mickey Mouse T-shirts portraying Mickey in various national costumes.
Together, these bits of architecture, food, images, costumes, and other artifacts form what d e Caro, extending Alan Dundes’s (22-24) concept, terms a folk idea (de Car0 35). De Car0 suggests that Disney may offer insight into both the nature of packaged tours and the presentation that folklorists who seek to
reconstruct culture at festivals present. He even sug- gests that Disney magic does many things better and more honestly than those who present “real” culture. There is, after all, a great deal of packaging of culture at museums, folk festivals, and cultural tours. The real is often mixed in with the reconstructed and the hastily constructed to present a kind of illusion. Disney is a past master at the art of creating illusion and suggesting existing by reference to essence (de Car0 37, Cantwell 161).
If Disney’s original plan for EPCOT was never realized, the building of Celebration is an attempt to recapture his dream in a different setting. Celebration is a planned community in which Disney magic seeks to develop an ideal town that has previously only existed in Disney films and theme parks.
On the first anniversary of its opening, Craig Wilson (3 July 1997, D1) wrote,
Walking the streets of Celebration is a bit like walking onto a movie set. Everything is perfect. Market Street, the town’s main thoroughfare, is lined with colon-coordinated buildings, fully-grown perfectly shaped palm trees and spotless sidewalks. There is even a man whose job it is to hose down those walks.
It is a continuation of the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street with real inhabitants. As in other Disney Main Streets, bits and pieces are used to suggest a whole. The real is mixed with the artificial. Plastic represents real fruits. Dormers suggest second stories in homes that have no second floor. The image is of a commu- nity of people with shared “traditional” values, the Kingdom’s Main Street come to life.
The streets of Celebration are indeed in the spirit of the mythical Main Street. They are meant to be used by pedestrians and the traffic pattern is set up to facilitate that. Stop signs are placed to slow traffic and streets are narrow. Houses are pulled close to the streets and feature porches meant to be used. The trees, especially planted by Disney, the porches, the house fronts, the pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and streets are meant to bring back the old-fashioned con- tact between people that marked earlier communities, at least in nostalgic recollection. Moreover, class diversity, not ethnic, is a goal of Celebration, one fos- tered by its architecture.
Pollan writes,
During my walk, I strolled down a street of million-dollar homes facing the golf course, and then turned to find a lane of model cottages that sell for a fifth as much; walking another block or two, I came to a broad crescent of town-
Images of Main Street . 89
house apartments that rent for as little as $600 a month .... This is, of course, a very old utopian idea with deep roots in the American landscape .... In the mid-60s Walt Disney decided he had something to add to this tradition. He origi- nally conceived Epcot ... not as a theme park but as a high- tech model city of 20,000 residents. (58-59)
It is too soon for empirical studies of the planned community of Celebration to appear. There are, of course, suggestions of problems in paradise. There were problems with the school, which many parents and staff members felt was too “progressive.” There have been problems with governance and Disney con- trol in general. Pollan has written a generally critical article about Celebration. He views t h e heart of the problem as too much Disney control.
the covenants guarantee that [the homeowners’ association] will remain a creature of Disney’s for as long as the com- pany wishes .... Evan McKenzie, a lawyer and expert on homeowners’ associations [said] ...“ I can’t imagine any- thing more undemocratic.” (Pollan 80)
Pollan does admit that many people have come to Disney precisely because of Disney’s involvement in Celebration.
He sees two forces at work. One force is willing to surrender old notions of democracy in all its rough- and-tumble messiness for a newer ’90s notion of con- sumer democracy in which a benevolent paternalistic corporation will listen and respond to its consumers, This latter group trusts that any problems will be fixed to avoid negative impressions. The first group sees power, voting, and decision-making as the essence of democracy. Pollan predicts a future explosion when, according to Alexis de Tocqueville’s insight, people learn that social associations can be turned to political purposes.
The American Adventure In contrast with Disney’s various Main Streets,
the American Adventure theme park employs a mar- itime theme to much greater effect. There is a sense of viewing America from a distance. It is equally roman- tic a view a s Disney’s. However, where Disney’s images are nostalgic and hark back to an America that never was, the view expressed in the American Adventure is of an England that could have been. There is a feeling that the Americans have taken British culture with them and developed it in a recog- nizable but new direction.
Among the first sights that greet a visitor is the New England Mall. It is a representation of a New
England village, with restaurants and shopping areas. It features a reproduction of the Liberty Bell near its e n t r a n c e , t h e bell h a v i n g been m o v e d f r o m Pennsylvania to the New England area. In common with other theme parks, including Disney ’s, geogra- phy is no barrier to a straightforward presentation. In fact, Madison Square is the first area the visitor encounters, featuring a Fifth Avenue section that is itself a mixture of historical periods.
The New England Mall offers typically American fare from a British perspective: namely, hot dogs, fish fries, and French fries, and, of course, hamburgers. The buildings are all white and the maritime theme prevails. The English beer sold alongside Budweiser provides an interesting contrast but the omnipresence of Coke provides an American ambience. There are numerous decks from which the patrons can imagine ships sailing into port. Masts provide a good share of the decoration,
In addition to the maritime theme found in New E n g l a n d , t h e r e a r e t h e F r i s c o W h a r f , Fort S t . Lawrence, Niagara Falls, and other areas that empha- size the importance of waterways to the United States. Granted, these themes provide opportunities for attractions. The souvenir brochure boasts, for exam- ple,
The world’s highest triple drop Log Flume with three breath-taking descents and a disorienting 360-degree turn tunnel, Nightmare Niagara is the ultimate wet white knuckle ride. The final drop takes you to a height of 60 feet (that’s 4 double Decker buses!) to drop like a stone at over 40 m.p.h. and a force of 3G.
Nevertheless, the water serves as more than a prop for attractions. It also serves as a metaphor of distance and cleaning that repeats throughout the park.
In addition to the presence of so much water and its use to provide t h e visitor with a distance from America as well as a lens through which to view it, there is the presence of other aspects of American life that differ from those of Disney. Both parks, for example, have a section devoted to the Old West. The American Adventure, however, in addition to the expected staged gunfights, has a gambling hall in which the visitors can try their hands at beating the one-armed bandits and other slot machines. Although this gambling hall serves to amuse the adults and is probably a truer depiction of the Wild West, it is hard to imagine Disney providing a place to gamble at Disney World.
There are, predictably, bows to Disney throughout the American Adventure. There is a Lazy Lil’s saloon,
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hillbilly-style bears in one of the outdoor squares, car- toon drawings of Mickey and Minnie as well as other characters, and architecture with bows to Disney. Disney has come to be a shorthand way of represent- ing America. However, again we stress that the differ- ences from Disney’s various Main Streets are the more interesting elements of the American Adventure.
Thus, in place of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt, the American Adventure substitutes its own American pantheon on Mount Rushmore. It consists of Native Americans looking down on the public. There are also more references to World War I1 and American GIs than are found in Disney properties. In fact, we cannot recall one men- tion of World War I1 other than in the American Pavilion. The non-Disney shopping malls referring to Fifth Ave., for example, are a reminder of an America that is not all Disney. There is also throughout the American Adventure an attention to the present that is absent from Disney. At Disney there is great attention to a nostalgic past and an optimistic focus on the future. These elements are not lacking at the American Adventure. It is a theme park after all. However, there is also a willingness to look at the present. Astronauts are exciting, as are American gladiators and roller coasters that do loops.
Although the American Adventure is clean and well laid out, there are touches of untidiness that would cause Uncle Walt to turn in his grave. There are concessions that are closed and look it. There are areas that seem empty and unused. There are also occasional discarded papers and other debris that the Disney guest is not allowed to see. Although t h e workers at the American Adventure are generally polite, there is the frequent touch of individuality in their manner and tone that is often lacking at the World. There is less of a programmed script present, although the staged gunfight and other events demon- strate that there is a movement in that direction.
Currently, there is great evidence of Disney influ- ence on the American Adventure. There are areas in which it differs from Disney. However, the trend appears to be of greater imitation, of general Disney sway in the future. Nonetheless it is interesting to note the manner in which British interpretation of America differs from that of Disney. It is a somewhat messier, more contemporary and far more human version of America than that of Disney.
Conclusion The movie Marvin ’s Room (1997) has a sequence
that illustrates as much as the Dean Koontz example from Watchers just how much Disney has come to
represent innocence and security to Americans, with perhaps a tack of naivete. Diane Keaton’s character is awakening in a strange bed from a blackout she suf- fers in Disney World. She is reassured when Leonard0 di Caprio’s Marvin tells her that she is in Mickey’s bed. She asks how she got there, and is only slightly bemused and highly amused to discover that Goofy carried her into Mickey’s bed. T h e experience is clearly meant to be amusing, innocent, and therapeu- tic. In a nutshell, it sums up the intended Disney expe- rience.
In c o n t r a s t , w h i l e s i m i l a r l y r o m a n t i c , t h e American Adventure presents an image of America that has an intended dark side. There are aspects of America that are ignored or hidden at Disney that are p r e s e n t e d a n d e v e n g l o r i f i e d a t t h e A m e r i c a n Adventure. There is, for example, much more open glorification of violence at the American Adventure. The American Gladiators with their simplification of good and evil and eventual fighting are an aspect of American culture that many of us would prefer to ignore. Depictions of the Old West, however innocent they may seem, contain elements of this simplistic worldview, but like so much else it is hidden under a veil of nostalgia at Disney World.
There is very little depiction of the big city at Disney. Here and there are glimpses. MGM certainly has a 1940s Hollywood look, and movie clips of gangsters and the gangster sequence in the Great Movie Ride make reference to urban crime. Again, a great distance removes these events from the present. Interestingly, there is no dwelling on gangsters at the American Adventure either. It was something we had expected to find there and did not.
The Economist (“Fabulous Fakes” S 14) indicates that Disney’s major contributions to entertainment, and hence to the manner in which people perceive reality, is the “simulations of real things, not inven- tions.” Other areas of the entertainment business are following Disney in these inventions. The Economist points to Las Vegas as a prime follower of Disney, but developers in Italy are following suit as is the Italian government, using faqades and copies t o preserve Italian public art. The Times of London reported on July 20, 1996, that Stonehenge is to become a &65 million theme park. A follow-up story in the Times termed the project “Flintstone theme park.” It began:
Plans to build a Disney-style visitor attraction close to Stonehenge in time for the millennium celebration are to be unveiled soon by English H e r i t a g e and the T u s s a u d s Group, whose attractions include Madame Tussaud’s i n London and the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire.
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The remainder of the article continued to describe plans for a “sophisticated” Visitor’s Complex in the Disney style, combining entertainment and education. The Guardian was less subtle, headlining its July 22, 1996, article “McHenge or Bust?’ and adding a pic- ture of Stonehenge with the Golden Arches promi- nently featured.
The Economist’s discussion mentions Disney World’s new Animal Kingdom. It pokes mild fun at Disney’s didactic side and its mixing of real and ani- mated animals. It points out that the The Lion King is the model for the park. However, having recently returned from South Africa with 15 students and adults, I must admit that I kept thinking that Disney could have done it better. I must state quickly that I am talking about the manner in which recent tourist centers are attempting to mix entertainment and the nature experience, modeled after Disney, a point anticipated by David M. Johnson. Johnson notes that Disney World is the ultimate “packaged tour” (161).
The bus taking us to indigenous villages and arti- ficially constructed and largely privately owned nature centers played The Lion King on its VCR. It was interesting to look out at the gorgeous rolling hills of northern South Africa’s veld while the ani- mated animals of Disney cavorted on the TV screen. It did make me somewhat guilty, I must confess, about eating warthog stew.
Nonetheless, true surrealism set in when we vis- ited a private game reserve which had stocked animals for the delight of t h e tourist. Playing with lions and e l e p h a n t s was fun but G r e a t Adventure’s safari seemed at times more realistic and even more danger- ous. But true disorientation set in when we reached the Zulu Village and were presented to a Disney-style group of Zulus, with nubile maidens and wise elders. Benetta Jules-Rosette has described a similar setting in Nairobi, Salamone (“The Polynesian Cultural Center”) in Hawaii, and Salamone (“Authenticity in Tourism”) and d e Caro in Disney World’s World Showcase. The major difference between the settings i n South Africa, Nairobi, Hawaii, and Swaziland was that Disney does it better. There is, in our opinion, the important fact that the guest in Disney World is aware that she or he is seeing a presentation that has permis- sion to take poetic license with its material, while the tourist to more exotic locales believes more often than not that the “real thing” is on display. T h e new Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park provides an empirical opportunity to compare the experiences. (See the Walt Disney World Vacations advertising supplement to the March 29, 1998, New York Times.) The photos appear to support t h e idea t h a t , strangely, Disney does i t
better and is a master at managing impressions, in Erving Goffman’s phrase. The manner i n which the Disney machine has overcome the bad publicity atten- dant on the death of twelve animals is a case in point.
The tourist who more often accepts what is pre- sented as fact rather than as either a reconstruction or construction of reality does not often perceive the constructed nature of tourist reality. There is no ques- tion that Disney presents a particular version of reality and that its version is a distortion of truth. Main Street was never so innocent or pure as Disney presents it. It was, as is all experienced reality, messier and more ambiguous than that. However, we not only realize the ambiguity of reality but we also understand the artist’s mission to present a version that is true on some deeper level than mere empiricism can convey. Both Francaviglia and Margaret King note that Main Street is a metaphorical passage to other, less certain realms. Francaviglia tells us that Main Street “is tied to sacred icons which simplify and symbolize behav- ior and institutional structure” (1 56). Main Street e x e m p l i f i e s c o r e A m e r i c a n v a l u e s that e n a b l e Americans to be creative while remaining traditional, a paradox which always delighted Disney. King appears to agree with this premise and adds that Disney has repackaged the traditional in modern forms in order to emphasize its continuation. The parks are not really about the future; they are about the past and its values. Elizabeth and Jay Mechling further reinforce this position through a semiotic per- spective, asserting that Main Street U.S.A. is a district that leads from reality to fantasy, a point I would modify to read “perceived” reality.
The genius of Walt Disney lay in his ability to grasp that truth and to translate it into terms that struck a popular chord. Current efforts to imitate the Disney magic are admissions of that power. Their shortcom- ings reveal as much about America as do Disney’s suc- cesses in all their glory and horror. For better and worse, depictions of Main Street reveal poetic truths about America’s past, present and future. This fact stands out in bold relief when compared with the nar- rative found in the American Adventure, for while we recognize the truth of the America depicted in these diverse views of America, they always appear some- how askew when compared with those innermost recesses that Disney, to the chagrin of many a neo-tra- ditionalist, manages to reach so effortlessly.
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D1.
Virginia A. Salamone is a doctoral candidate at Fordham University and Adjunct Professor at Iona College.
Frank A. Salamone is Professor of Sociology at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY.