What Is The Word

It’s been more than a week since J and I took our day trip to Disneyland, taking advantage of his birthday for a free ticket (they give you a happy birthday button and everything). I hadn’t been to Disneyland in years, since 2005, maybe, but I do have quite a long history with the place. My grandfather was one of the foremen who helped construct the original Disneyland Hotel, and therefore received an invitation to the grand opening of the park in 1955. My father was ten years old; somewhere, there’s a picture of my dad, my grandfather, and Walt Disney standing in front of the Jungle Cruise on the first day of Disneyland.

Like many other Southern California children, a trip to Disneyland growing up was special, but certainly not unusual; I’d say I went two or three times a year until I left for college. I wouldn’t say I was ever absolutely in love with the park, but I always enjoyed it and had a fantastic time when visiting – I also became really, really good at maximizing park experience (I know when to go, when not to go, what rides to ride first, how to stagger Fastpasses efficiently, etc.) I think it’s safe to say that while I’m not a Disney expert, I’m certainly well trained.

It was a bit jarring, then, to have such a different experience visiting this time. The last time I’d been to the park, I was still an undergrad, and hadn’t had much theoretical training – I knew a bit about Walt Disney’s politics, but didn’t reconcile those clearly with the park itself. This time – as a result, I’m sure, of being oversaturated with awareness of marginalities and subjugations and institutional degradations – I couldn’t help but read these politics into the park. It’s a Small World, the Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain were the worst offenders.

Those of you who have ridden It’s a Small World will remember that the ride’s point is a sort of overarching, highly problematic liberal polemic, that everyone in the world is “the same,” despite different cultural practices and languages. Of course we’re not all “the same”; yes, I get that the idea is to encourage tolerance, which is lovely, but there’s this sort of ridiculous tension between “everyone’s alike” and “look at all these vastly different cultures which we’ve reduced to ridiculous stereotypes!” What cultures are represented are also weighted heavily towards the Western and European; I remember seeing France, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden, while Africa gets one small section – all of Africa! Which is, of course, a massive, massive continent rather than a country. Remember how the anamatronic puppets all “sing” the song in the language of the country they’re representing? The African puppets sing in English. (Of course, choosing a single language to represent the African continent would also be incredibly problematic, but not to the extent that an English-language choice is.)

I think the representation of America offended me the most – America gets its own room, with First Americans on the right (intermingled with Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, because, duh, we can’t represent Indians without cowboys), and on the left – three white puppets, two of them blonde and blue-eyed, in a farm setting. Really? That’s America? First Americans and a few white farmers?

Since this blog is already overlong, I won’t go into the Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain too much, except to say that the Jungle Cruise is really all about enforcing a colonial tourist fantasy of developing countries – yes, the river you travel goes through Africa, Mongolia and India, all in five minutes, as if it’s not problematic to amalgamate everything non-Western without commentary. Oh, look, it’s hippopotami! There’s an elephant! Over there – natives! Look, piranha! (One of these doesn’t fit.) Splash Mountain – it’s not unknown that the ride is based on a racist* Disney film, Song of the South; the ride encourages a fantasy of the rural South that is based heavily on racial stereotypes (the big-lipped frogs at the beginning of the ride used to carry watermelon until too many people complained. They’re still big-lipped, though).

As someone who works on trauma and childhood, I had such an interesting experience with the Snow White and Pinocchio rides. I remember riding the Snow White ride when I was a very little girl, for the first time (I must’ve been about three or four); there’s a part in the ride where the wicked stepmother is speaking to her magic mirror, her back turned to the buggy you’re riding in, and you only see her handsome reflection in the mirror. She turns around, and her face is that of the witch, leering maniacally. I remember shrieking and shrieking that first time. (Interestingly enough, J and I were sharing the buggy with a man, a woman, and their young son, who also shrieked loudly at that moment.)

You’re taken through this ride, lurching and twisting to look at walls and displays, watching the dwarves go to work and mine jewels, and witnessing the witch preparing to poison Snow White. The music swells ominously, you’re watching Snow White at the brink of mortal danger – and then your buggy swings through the last set of doors, you see a wall with a picture of a laughing, lilting Snow White with her woodland friends, and a sign that says “Happily Ever After!” THERE’S NO CONCLUSION. The prince, his restorative kiss, the rescue, all that is entirely left out. Just this horrible terror of the-witch-is-going-to-kill-her and then, suddenly, you’re done. No wonder children are so terrified by this ride – the narrative is entirely interrupted and not allowed successful or realistic closure. Pinocchio isn’t much better – his return to Geppetto’s house is fuzzily done – but at least there isn’t as abrupt of a caesura.

My experience of the park wasn’t all problematic. Tomorrowland in particular was relatively free of offense (maybe that’s why I enjoyed Space Mountain the most this time around; when your only text is a rollercoaster in space there’s not much to get upset about). But so much of it left me fairly stunned, and wondering if Baudrillard’s focus on the park and hyperreality wasn’t misplaced – the imaginary of Disneyland seems to me to ultimately reflect the real of racial ideologies, traumas and hierarchies.

*Let me clarify my use of the term racism; here, I’m using it to indicate the reinforcing of dominant hierarchies and ideologies that are racially based. Song of the South, in my view, reinforces the dangerous fantasy of a lush, idyllic, agrarian South that, in reality, was built with the labor of black bodies. You have this strange, decontextualized space (it’s unclear whether the movie was set ante or postbellum, and therefore unclear whether or not Uncle Remus is a slave), and a reification of the cultural myth of the plantation-working black man, whether slave or servant, as happy-go-lucky and satisfied with his own subjugation.