Helen Kalla
Dr. Roger Stahl
SPCM 2360: Rhetoric and Pop Culture
December 2, 2011
Part of Your World: Disney’s Influence on American Society
Introduction
The Walt Disney Company is the world’s largest media conglomerate and has many divisions, including feature films, television, publishing, music, merchandising, and its 14 theme parks worldwide. One of the most recognizable brands among adults and children alike, it has considerable influence on American childhood and family life. Recently, the concepts of “Disneyfication” and “Disneyization” have surfaced in describing the extent to which Disney permeates various aspects of consumers’ lives. This paper focuses on Disney’s effect on four aspects of American life: urban environments, business and consumerism, American values, and the criminal justice system.
Urban Environments: Hannigan, “Fantasy Cities”
John Hannigan’s article, “Fantasy Cities,” describes the relatively new phenomenon of ‘fantasy cities’ in which entertainment, retail development, and tourism are combined together to form ‘themed’ environments. These ‘theme park cities’ are based on the Walt Disney World theme parks that are designed to simulate an idealized version of the real world without any of the common problems of modern city life such as garbage, crime, or vandalism.
Hannigan cites two key Disney strategies that developers have been using when planning these fantasy cities. The first is an architectural style that is designed to “create an aura of fantasy, delight and well-being” (Hannigan 1). Whereas storefronts in authentic cities are mixed and matched and often compete or clash with each other, streets in these themed cities are designed so that every element flows harmoniously. The other strategy is an elaborate surveillance and control system. In the Disney theme parks, guests are constantly monitored and their movement is discreetly controlled. New York City has adopted this strategy by developing an elaborate and extensive surveillance network in Times Square. Hannigan’s concern is that these “’made in America’ fantasies” (Hannigan 4) threaten the true sense of what it means to be an American today.
Business and Consumerism: Bryman, “The Disneyization of Society”
Alan Bryman takes a different approach in “The Disneyization of Society.” In this article, Bryman discusses Disneyization, the spread of the principles of the Disney theme parks, rather than Disneyfication, which he considers to be a more narrow and somewhat pejorative term that is usually only applied to cities rather than society as a whole. Bryman discusses in detail his four dimensions of Disneyization: theming, dedifferentiation of consumption, merchandising, and emotional labor.
Bryman calls theming the most obvious example of Disney theme parks’ being reflected in everyday life. Restaurant chains such as Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, and Rainforest Café are the most prevalent illustration. The Las Vegas strip is packed with themed hotels ranging from Ancient Rome (Caesar’s Palace) to a pirate’s life at sea (Treasure Island). The origin of theming in Disney parks comes from Walt Disney’s desire to create amusement parks that were amusing for adults as well as children. In theming his parks, Disney aimed at creating a sense of nostalgia – hence the Main Street, U.S.A. and Frontierland sections of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Nostalgia can be seen in many Disneyized urbanscapes today in recreations of ‘town squares’ with ‘old country stores,’ meant to echo simpler, safer times in America.
The second dimension is dedifferentiation of consumption, which is the increasingly blurred line between the forms consumption within different industries. For example, shopping and entertainment have become very interlocked in theme parks. This trend can be seen in the increase of entertainment zones in malls, such as the seven-acre Knott’s Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America in Minnesota. Hotels in Las Vegas also exhibit dedifferentiation, comprising, in addition to the hotel itself, a casino, a restaurant, and shops, all designed around the hotel’s particular theme.
Merchandising, or promoting copyrighted goods bearing logos, is the third dimension. Disney theme parks derive a vast share of their profit from the sale of merchandise – indeed; the parks can even be seen as no more than vehicles for the sale of Disney merchandise. This is also seen in the film industry. Movies make substantially more profit from the sale of their merchandise than from the box office alone, a prime example of “the commodification of culture” (Wasko 1993: 271, cited in Bryman 38).
The final dimension is emotional labor, which Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) defined as “the act of expressing socially-desired emotions during service transactions” (Bryman 39). Employees at Disney theme parks are expected to be cheerful, friendly, and appear as though they are having fun instead of doing actual work, and their interactions with park patrons are almost always scripted. Many corporations, especially fast-food companies, have borrowed Disney’s methods of training employees on how to interact with customers and require their employees to behave in a Disneyized manner.
Bryman sees the term ‘Disneyization’ as an important statement about “the nature of social change and of modernity, and as a reference point for discussing these changes” (Bryman 44). Disneyization prompts a broader dialogue the authenticity of society as a whole, rather than that of cities alone.
American Values: Trifonas, “Simulations of Culture: Disney and the Crafting of American Popular Culture”
In Peter Trifonas’ review of Henry Giroux’s 1999 book The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, he examines Giroux’s analysis of the role that Disney plays in shaping American values and expected standards of behavior. Giroux identifies three ways in which Disney provides this influence: “in shaping public memory, national identity, gender roles, and childhood values; in suggesting who qualifies as an American; and in determining the role of consumerism in American life” (Giroux 1999: 10, cited in Trifonas 25).
The Walt Disney Corporation is “synonymous with…childhood innocence” (Giroux 1999: 17, cited in Trifonas 25) and its image has been linked with the abstract concept of innocence in the public mind. This innocence is associated with the image “the ‘golden days’ of middle America” (Trifonas 25) that Disney teaches the American public through the many aspects of its media conglomerate. Disney has shaped the “public memory” (Trifonas 25) of America as an idealized, small-town utopia to which its citizens long to return. Going hand in hand with this concept is the way that Disney teaches people how they are expected to act as citizens of this idealized America through the way that it combines education with entertainment.
Trifonas takes issue with this commodification of ethics and morals, and even accuses Disney of manipulating the democratic process to achieve its desired level of control. He uses the Disney-owned town of Celebration, Florida as an example. “It is surely not a coincidence that Celebration is predominantly a white, middle-class community” he says on page 26. Trifonas explains that Disney uses the strict standards and rules in Celebration as a way to control the behavior of its residents – to present the appearance of a homogenized, sanitized, safe community where people live according to common sense and family values. Trifonas urges consumers to think critically about the ‘signs’ of Disney that permeate our lives in order to open back up the space for criticism and independent thought.
The Criminal Justice System: Robinson, “The Mouse Who Would Rule the World! How American Criminal Justice Reflects the Themes of Disneyization”
In this article, Robinson argues that the pillars of Disneyization, as described by Bryman (1999), have influenced the criminal justice system in America.
The criminal justice system has been themed by the media, specifically major news networks and national newsmagazines. Robinson makes the case that the media sensationalizes crime and focuses on the most “extreme” cases of crime to broadcast and publish to the American public. Violent and “terrifying” crimes are so overplayed that studies have found that that violent crime is covered on primetime television up to 1,000 times its actual occurrence (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman, 2004, cited in Robinson 74). The resulting effect is that Americans become more fearful of violent crime, are convinced that it could happen to them, and become distrusting of judges, lawyers, politicians, and other authority figures in the criminal justice system.
There is also a profit to be made in the criminal justice system. Dedifferentiation of consumption and merchandising take a new form in media conglomerates’ marketing crime to consumers. This media coverage of crime supports the status quo – more crime, more policing, etc. –, which financially benefits the media corporations. Television shows about crime are the most watched, and books about crime are the most read in America. Additionally, there is a rise in for-profit corrections companies that run their own detention facilities.
Finally, new expectations of local police forces have arisen that are consistent with Disneyization’s emotional labor. Officers are not only expected to actually police, but also to serve their community. The emphasis on friendly and helpful community service to law-abiding citizens over punishing criminals reflects the Disney principle of a “fast, friendly, entertaining workforce” (Robinson 80) that is a staple at its theme parks.
Conclusion
While it’s obvious that Disney has a major impact on American children’s lives from an early age, Disney’s influence on other aspects of life is much more subtle. Through the way Disney designed its theme parks, it’s influencing the ‘theming’ of real cities to make them more like the fantastical, idealized cityscapes that are found in Disney World. Other companies are adapting principles of Disney theme parks to their own business models. Disney’s promotion of nostalgia and innocence ‘teaches’ Americans about how to lead a responsible, moral life. Disneyization has even found its way into the criminal justice system, which has been themed and commodified by the media. Disney is not just a part of your childhood; it’s a part of your world.
Works Cited
Bryman, Alan. “The Disneyization of Society.” Sociological Review. 47.1 (1999): 25-49.
Hannigan, John. “Fantasy Cities.” New Internationalist. 308 (1998): 1-4.
Robinson, Matthew. “The Mouse Who Would Rule the World! How American Criminal Justice Reflects the Themes of Disneyization.” Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. 10.1 (2003): 69-86.
Trifonas, Peter. “Simulations of Culture: Disney and the Crafting of American Popular Culture.” Rev. of The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, by Henry Giroux. Educational Researcher. 30.1 (2001): 23-28.
