Becoming Disney: Perception and Being at the Happiest Place on Earth
2003; Pittsburg State University; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-3451
Autores Tópico(s)Media, Gender, and Advertising
ResumoIntroduction: The People v. Pooh IN 1981 THE FAMILY of a nine-year old girl took Winnie the Pooh to court, claiming that he had slapped her across the face--beating her, even, to the point of brain damage on the day that the family had visited Disneyland. Robert Hill, who was in the Pooh costume that day, testified that the allegations were false and that due to his restricted vision he at most might have accidentally bumped the girl with Pooh's ear. Following his testimony, and after a brief recess, Hill returned to the courtroom in costume as Winnie the Pooh. Throughout direct and cross examination Pooh answered the lawyers' questions only by nodding his head or stomping his feet. When the defense attorney asked do you do at Disneyland? Pooh stood and danced all around the courtroom. Everyone began cheering and laughing uncontrollably. The judge cried out Have the record show that he's doing a two-step (Koenig, 201). Clearly, they agreed, Winnie the Pooh was loving, harmless, and fun. In only twenty-one minutes the jury acquitted Pooh, and he left the courtroom a vindicated bear. The scene, if not of the crime then of our investigation, our vacation: Disneyland, located on 200 acres in Anaheim, California. Half the land is used for parking; the other half houses the attraction itself, often called the Magic Kingdom. After entering the grounds and paying a fee, one parks and abandons the family car--often in the midst of 15,000 other cars. For twice the normal fee, preferred parking that is closer to the main entrance of the park is available. General parking, however, is serviced by a tram system with cars that stop at various places in the lot and drop people off at the main entrance. Successfully completing the first line of the day--the line to buy a ticket--one enters and emerges onto Main Street U.S.A., a representation of a Midwestern American main street at the turn of the century. A horse-drawn street car or one of several other vehicles glides up the street and past the various stores, or it is possible to walk to the Central Plaza at which Main Street ends, directly in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle. At this point, the park opens up and visitors may go off in various directions into the themed lands. There are seven such lands: Adventureland (which is home to the Jungle Cruise and the Indiana Jones Adventure), Frontierland (with the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster and the Mark Twain Steamboat), New Orleans Square (housing the Haunted Mansion and the popular Pirates of the Caribbean), Critter Country (which includes Splash Mountain and the Country Bear Playhouse), Fantasyland (containing rides based on Disney's cartoons and It's a Small World), Mickey's Toontown (the newest land, built to resemble a town where Disney characters live), and Tomorrowland (with Star Tours, Space Mountain, Autopia, Submarine Voyage, Rocket Rods, and remodeled Astro Orbitor). The entire Magic Kingdom is also surrounded by a train track with four steam trains circling the park every twenty minutes, going--in essence--nowhere. Visiting the park and living in society with Disneyland we become the kind of people who properly inhabit such institutions. We become the kind of people who can want to sue Winnie the Pooh and let him testify in court as himself. We live the contradiction; and in consuming the Disney Magic, we are changed. The changes manifest themselves in our experience of the park and of ourselves, and it is the nature of such changes which we convene to investigate. Confronted with a chasm between experience and what we take to be reality, how do we begin to bridge the gap? How do we become-Disney as we consume the Disney product? What phenomenological traces are there of our transformations? A Whole New World The chasm between perception and reality is constructed for a purpose at Disneyland. Always, it is necessary for the experience. …
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