Exemplary Disney: an afterword / Susan Bennett. 'The future is truly in the past': the regressive nostalgia of Tomorrowland / Tom Robson -- What's missing in Frontierland? American Indian culture and indexical absence at Walt Disney World / Victoria Pettersen Lantz -- Taming the fairy tale: performing affective medievalism in Fantasyland / Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy -- The Nemofication of nature: animals, artificiality, and affect at Disney World / Jennifer A. Kokai -- Disney-fying Dixie: queering the 'Laughing Place' at Splash Mountain / Chase A. Bringardner -- Rising the east: Disney rehearses Chinese consumers at a glocalized Shanghai Disneyland / Laura MacDonald -- 'Have to see it, yet boring': Disney's robot dramas revisited / Li Cornfeld -- The search for a great, big, beautiful tomorrow: performing utopia with non-human bodies in the Hall of Presidents / Joseph R. D'Ambrosi -- The Royal Theatre presents: echoes of melodrama in the Magic Kingdom / Maria Patrice Amon -- Disney's influence on the modern theme park and the codification of colorblind racism in the American amusement industry / Jill Anne Morris -- It's good to be bad: resistance, rebellion, and Disney villain merchandise / Christen Mandracchia -- The park as stage: radical re-casting in Disneyland's social clubs / Elizabeth Schiffler -- Exemplary Disney: an afterword / Susan Bennett.
Summary:
This collection of essays explores the Disney theme parks as performance spaces--as immersive theatre spaces--and examines the agency of the tourist within those spaces. In contrast to much previous Disney scholarship, Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience asserts that park guests collaborate with Disney Imagineers more than typically assumed. The books various sections explore nostalgia, utopia, progress, and fantasy; the ideology of park environments; the presence of human and audio-animatronic performers; and the inclusion of outsider identities within the parks.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.