"Our Inner Children? They're Going to Disney World!"

Austin Lowrance Section #9 

 

My speech topic is “Our inner Children? They’re going to Disney world!” this chapter in the book “Fantasy Land” discuss the idea of Fantasy worlds, ideas, and beliefs. We all have been subject to some form of fantasy experiences in some shape or form. Whether it be early experiences in childhood having imaginary friends and living in fantasy worlds of fictional characters. Or as adults believing in an unknown force that controls and has created all life on earth, otherwise known as God. Disneyfication was the term that was presented in the book a successor term stemming from the original barnumized. Disneyfication is an appropriate way to define this is idea do to all the fantastical characters depicted in Disney films. A world which is completely make-believe but yet so many children as well as adults get sucked into this world of characters almost as if they are reality. More specifically disneyfication as the book defines it is, “to denote how urban America had started to resemble theme parks”. Although there are many examples of this transition in to new urban America like all the major streets in large cities, some mention in this chapter are Pioneer square in Seattle, SoHo in Manhattan, Old Market in Omaha. And others like Broadway Street in Nashville. The one location that takes the cake for Disneyfication is the town “Celebration” in Florida.

Built by Disney itself located outside of Disney World, Celebration, is a very urbanized location, as stated it is walkable, bikable and charming. Everything is close together rather than being spaced far apart. As well as there being deliberate make-believe situations created here. Examples Kurt brings up in the book is that every hour they have tissue-paper simulated leaves fall in the town center during the autumn months, along with at every hour fake snow or “snoap” falling with each day in December. Kurt Anderson states in this chapter that he used to host a radio show and they had made a documentary about the Disney Parks, and they interviewed a 9 year old at Disneyland in California. She explain why she loves Disneyland so much stating, “Well, at my age you know they’re not real. But just the whole experience of it makes it seem so real that you go along with it and play along. The school, science-y, math-y part of you is being like, ‘oh that’s not real, you have to stay strong, that’s not real’ But another part of your mind, that’s I guess the dream-maker part and the fantasy part,… actually is telling you, ‘oh, but its seems so real’ It’s like living in a fantasy book” For children this is fun and amusing, also for some adults. Piaget a child psychologist, believed that the minds of children were very different from that of adults. He states “Kids were egocentric magical thinkers and adults were rational and reasonable” This seems to be mostly the case, but often times this sense of “magical thinking” that kids have can sometimes be carried along with individuals into adulthood. Kids believe in Santa, the Easter bunny and numerous other fictional beings. Adults as well as kids often believe in God. The being that has created all life as well as the entire universe and they often devote their entire existence and actions based on this belief. This isn’t a bad thing. It is often very useful and helpful to one’s life as it this God usually gives them guidelines to live by which are mostly principles for being a good human. But with no evidence of his existence, similar to Santa clause. The fact that he exists at all cannot be proven. The only difference is as you grow older you either figure out Santa isn’t real on your own or your parents eventually break the news to you themselves. But with God this isn’t the case. Your parents never tell you that there is no such thing and that although the principles God teaches you are good to follow, there is no actual God and that you should find other ways to devote your worship and time. God is not here to save you or the planet and the damage we have done to it. There is no higher being that is going to right all your wrongs. This is a fantasy character that a large number of adult’s blindly fall prey to believing in. The religious side of Disneyfication is more practical to philosophy than Disney fictional characters like Cinderella, Pinocchio and so on.

There is also another more appropriate version of Disneyfication in the world that adults fall victim to and this would be conspiracy theories. A lot of adults, especially since the dawning of the internet have been dragged into believing some of the most ridiculous conspiracies. That at the very least are extremely fictional ideas. Some examples of these would be flat earthers, people who believe the world is run by reptilians that take control of political power, things like chem trails, as well as the idea that there is no such thing as global warming. These mostly are not dangerous ideas, although some are so farfetched that it seems to go beyond Disneyfication leading in borderline schizophrenic behavior. There are the ones that are dangerous, as in no global warming, although it is hard to measure how far global warming will be affected by humans going into the future accurately. Believing that there is no such thing is a dangerous form of Disneyfication presenting itself.

I don’t think Disneyfication is a terrible thing in most scenarios, it is an interesting situation that has come about in the most recent decades. It is also a very beautiful thing that children can live in these make-believe worlds because the one we live in isn’t always so great. It is indeed nice to escape once in a while. But I think it should be avoided in most cases in adults when it comes to political policies. Believing in fictional characters is one thing but ignoring science is a whole other thing. Cinderella and Tarzan should be enjoyed in a fictional world but putting the earth we live on in danger by placing global warming type problems in with these other fictional creations is very to say the least, problematic.