THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

Untitled Slide

THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

• People go there to feel joy
• Advertising focuses on joy
• Designed to maximise happiness and relaxation
• Very clearly kitsch
• What aspects of Disneyland bring joy?

"I don't sent the public to see the world they live in while they're in the Park. I want them to feel they're in another world."

"Here you leave today and enter yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy"

"These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom"
Virginia Woolf

ESCAPE FROM WHAT?

• In 1955?
• In the 1960s?
• In the 1970s?
• In the 1980s and 1990s
• Today?

Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination - a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and colour and delight

Physically, Disneyland would be a small world in itself - it would encompass the essence of the things that were good and true in American life. It would reflect the faith and challenge of the future, the entertainment, the interest in intelligently presented facts, the stimulation of imagination, the standards of health and achievement, and above all, a sense of strength, contentment and well-being

KITSCH?

• Low intellectual demand?
• Entertaining?
• Mass appeal?

AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

• Is Disneyland simplistic?
• Is it conservative?
• Is it nostalgic?
• Examples please

SO . . .

• Disneyland helps people escape from reality
• It replaces reality with a fantasy world
• Fantasy world designed to glorify America
• Fantasy world is kitsch
• Fantasy world is nostalgic AND simplistic AND conservative

So is it OK that "Disneyland is a show?"