Topic 7
Space and Identity: Disneyland
Mickey Mouse Monopoly:
Disney, Childhood and Corporate Power
 Disney’s
Media Dominance
 How to be a Girl? How to be a Boy?
(Gender Representation)
 Commercializing Children’s Culture
Mickey Mouse Monopoly
 The Disney Company's massive success in the 20th century is
based on creating an image of innocence, magic and fun.
 new video insightfully analyzes Disney's cultural pedagogy,
examines its corporate power, and explores its vast influence on
our global culture.
 Mouse Monopoly will provoke audiences to virtually synonymous
with childhood pleasure.
History of Orlando Walt Disney World
 All started from false premises. In persuading the Florida
government of their plan.
 Walt Disney described on screen the EPCOT
(Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow)
plan, a model city, a residential community of 20,000
real people, working and playing there.
 Disney demanded from the Florida government “solid
legal foundation” & “flexibility” – municipal bonding
authority, and the creation of two municipalities together
with an autonomous political district controlled by the
company and empowered to issue tax-exempt bonds.
Reedy Creek
Improvement District
In 1968, Florida Supreme
Court ruled that the Reedy
Creek Improvement
District was legally
entitled to issue tax-free
municipal bonds – the
bonding power permitted
public funds to be used
for private purposes that
are entirely in the disposal
of Disney.
Autonomous Political District
 Autonomous political district means buildings,
constructions, land-use, transportation and law and
enforcement are controlled by the private corporation.
 Disney’s autonomous political district in Orlando: a
special administrative region.
 Will Disney HK be a Special Administrative Region
within an SAR?
Autonomous Political District
 As an “autonomous political district,” the Florida
Disney APD (the Disney government), has free land use
and free use of county, city and state infrastructure built
by tax-payer money. Disney is a landowner-controlled
government.
 On the one hand, taxpayers need to bear Disney World’s
entire infrastructure cost, and the entire administrative
burden of regulating and inspecting the theme park’s
construction.
 On the other hand, Disney, as a private company, does
not need to bear any responsibilities for addressing offsite impacts (e.g. traffic jams, road and public utilities
safety etc.) as other developers, like Universal Studio.
Autonomous Political District
 The Reedy Creek Improvement district has its own
Laws and Law Enforcement force:
 Disney uses private security guards to perform the
police function within the Disney theme park and
community, but Disney, as “private” company, has no
obligations to provide “public records” about crimes in
its properties to the government.
Conflicts with & off-site impacts of
the Disney APD:
 The EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community
of Tomorrow): where were the citizens-residents?
 Disney did not build the EPCOT residential community
but only hotels.
 Orlando Disney (in Orange County, Florida) opened since 1966,
but for very long, the EPCOT was no where to be found. Even
in 1982, the EPCOT has no residents. It only showcases
“world” restaurants, with themes like China, and these
restaurants have mechanical games and rides inside them,
just like a mini version of the Disney theme park.
Potential Problems of
Hong Kong Disney:
Political & Governance Issues :
 Disney will trap benefits, becoming an SAR within the
HKSAR
 Degree of tax-payer subsidy
 Hong Kong government owns 57% but has no decision
making rights. If the HKDL loses, the HK also loses.
 The government officials in HKDL are not accountable
to Hong Kong people.
 Governance, public facilities & infrastructure,
surrounding land use, property rights etc.
Economic Issues: What we can learn from the Orlando
case: World Tourism Organization projects - 2010, HK
will be the 5 largest tourist city/economy
 The Myth of Tourism: Tourist economies (relying heavily
on tourism industry) –limited job benefits to the city – e.g.
 Tourism economy can’t shift from low wage industries to
high-tech industries.
 Most jobs require only low level skills - does not promote
value-adding skills. No accumulation of local tacit
knowledge.
Economic Issues:
 Disney has the first right to consider buying the
land of Phase II reclaimed land (竹篙灣) at a
premium price (28億5000萬).
 Government loans to Disney 56億 to be paid
back in 25 years
 Assistance from governments in building theme
parks
 Sustainable Development
 Impact on economic and corporate strategies:
outsourcing, e.g. coloring to Beijing
Economic Issues:
 Disney will resist paying:
 Who
will be responsible for maintaining the
areas around Disneyland HK?
 LEGCO archive on Disney 1999 September to
December; 2005 Mar 16 meeting
CB(1)1062/04-05(03); CB(1)1063/04-05 etc.
 Demolitions: 財利船廠清拆工程
 Housing issues: 2010: projected 810萬人. At
first, the land now belonging to Disney (東北大
嶼山) was to be the site of these public housing.
Disney sea and air rights
Potential Problems of
Hong Kong Disney:
Economic (Environmental) Issues:
 Physical/Cultural Landscape impacts; environmental
hazards (non-disclosure clause)
 Land Reclamation: the Lantau and Cheung Chau
research
 Demolitions: 財利船廠清拆工程, no environmental
compensations
 Air pollution due to daily fireworks.
 Myth: Disney investments has nothing to do with hightech development
Economic Issues
 The Disney brand will define Hong Kong in the tourism
industry. Can Hong Kong then develop industries
other than tourism?
 Disney and other tourist attractions will stimulate lowwage service economy with increasing age
discrimination, encouraging a city’s young work force
to give up education and training for more and more
low wage jobs.
Cultural Disney:
 Synergy: a combined action or operation between
individual units - produce an immediately
recognizable brand。
Walt Disney Company
Walt Disney Studios Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Attractions
Consumer
Products
Walt Disney Animation
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Disney Channel (85): bought
ABC>200 more channels to
come, 20+ radio stations
Disney Vacation Club
Disneyland,
Walt Disney
World, Euro
Disney, Tokyo
Disneyland
Stores, records,
licensing 16,000
items of merchandise
worldwide, computer
software, Disney
Education (English
learning program
with Harvard)
What we can learn from the
Orlando case: Cultural Issues
 Cultural Domination: any local newspapers or magazines






criticizing Disney died due to Disney pressure and market
manipulation.
Intellectual Property violence:
Culture of Extreme Control:
Controlled sense of total environment
“Disney realism” programs out negative, unwanted elements, like
poverty, war, social issues
Control nature through technological progress and corporatism
Controls employees through instruction manuals, handbooks,
scripting, audio-animatronic figures phasing out cast members.
What we can learn from the
Orlando case: Cultural Issues
 Culture of Extreme Control:
 Control visitors’ behavior. LA park spokesperson Bob
Roth, “We de reserve the right to ask people to leave if
we feel their appearance would be offensive to others at
the park.” (Koeing, 209).
 Private property: can enforce discriminatory rules of its
own, e.g. No gay couples dancing and touching, No
sloppy clothes
 Suppress Cultural Diversity:
 eliminate and transforms local cultures, heritage,
communities to Disney-fied versions. Eliminate
historical conflicts, wars, genocides and other
“unpleasant” facts
Cultural Issues: Disney Values
 Disney Movies: specific formula, always moral tales with overt
values represented – reinvention of folk tales (de-politicized,
sanitized)
 Heroes and heroines are handsome/beautiful (eventually), with
upper class or aristocratic background. Villains are extremely fat
or extremely thin, with exaggerated facial features, and usually
have accents, body languages of poorer classes and non-white
cultures.
 Individualism, optimism, good triumphs over evil (but decontextualized from social reality)
 Corporatism (corporations improves our lives), technological
progress, consumerism (consumption replaces control at the
workplace)
Cultural Issues:
(1) The Disney Corporate Model
Alan Bryman, The Disneyization of Society
“argues that the contemporary world is
increasingly converging towards the
characteristics of the Disney theme parks. This
process of convergence is revealed in: the
growing influence of themed environments in
settings like restaurants, shops, hotels, tourism
and zoos; the growing trend towards social
environments that are driven by combinations of
forms of consumption: shopping, eating out,
gambling, visiting the cinema, watching sports...”
Cultural Issues:
the GDAP – Global Disney Audience Program
 When asked to use one term to describe Disney, the
most frequent answer is “fun,” followed by “happiness,”
“fantasy,” “imagination,” and “family.”
 Need alternative visions and rhetoric to deal with this.
 The audience term Disney animation as “cute, cozy,
warm, clean, safe, friendly, heart-warming, carefree,
enchanting, wonderful, perky, innocent, mystical,
moral.”
 Disney-Harvard English program deal – target global
middle-class aspirations (from age 0 onwards).
 Invading memories: Kodak-Disney Deal – all childhood
memories encrypted in Disney experience.
Cultural Issues:
the Global Disney Audience Program
Reasons why respondents enjoy Disney:
(1) pleasant memories with family and friends
(2) contrast to everyday life practices and association to
holidays, celebrations, gifts
(3) association with rituals and tradition
(4) escape from problems such as pain of aging and social
problems
 Disney’s ubiquity incorporates family, romantic and
friendship rituals: some respondents place Disney in a
“special, almost sacred, category.” (Wasko&Meehan, 2001: 332)
 Movies are also promotional items introducing new
characters for new Disney products: commodifying
emotions
Potential criticisms against Disney:
Labor Issues
Beware of Mickey:
Disney Sweatshops In South China
Potential cultural criticisms against
Disney: Labor Issues
 Emotional Labor:
 even the janitor is a “CAST MEMBER” performing a
staged cleaning.
 Control design of products, then licenses the actual
manufacture to independent subcontractors, mostly in
Third World countries in poverty-level wages and
inhuman conditions.
 “Toys of Misery: A Report on the Toy Industry in China,” The
National Labor Committee reports, 2001, 2002, 2004:
http://www.nlcnet.org
 Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee reports:
www.cic.org.hk
 Mexican & Chinese workers’ cases:
www.maquilasolidarity.org/campaigns/disney/findings.htm
 China Labor Watch report
More Visual Materials:
 The Celebration Project:
http://www.celebrationfl.com
 Take the best ideas from the most successful towns of
yesterday and the technology of the new millennium,
and synthesize them into a close-knit community that
meets the needs of today's families. The founders of
CELEBRATION started down a path of research, study,
discovery, and enlightenment that resulted in one of the
most innovative communities of the 21th century.
The Celebration Project:
http://www.celebrationfl.com
Community: in the spirit of neighborliness,
CELEBRATION residents gather at front porches, park
benches, recreational areas, and downtown events
celebrating a place they call home.
CELEBRATION is a community built on a foundation of
cornerstones: Community, Education, Health,
Technology, and a Sense of Place.