Vinyl Leaves

Summary

Walt Disney World is a pilgrimage site filled with utopian elements, craft, and whimsy. It's a pedestrian's world, where the streets are clean, the employees are friendly, and the trains run on time. All of its elements are themed, presented in a consistent architectural, decorative, horticultural, musical, even olfactory tone, with rides, shows, restaurants, scenery, and costumed characters coordinated to tell a consistent set of stories. It is beguiling and exasperating, a place of ambivalence and ambiguity. InVinyl LeavesProfessor Fjellman analyzes each ride and theater show of Walt Disney World and discusses the history, political economy, technical infrastructure, and urban planning of the area as well as its relationship with Metropolitan Orlando and the state of Florida.Vinyl Leavesargues that Disney, in pursuit of its own economic interests, acts as the muse for the allied transnational corporations that sponsor it as well as for the world of late capitalism, where the commodity form has colonized much of human life. With brilliant technological legerdemain, Disney puts visitors into cinematically structured stories in which pieces of American and world culture become ideological tokens in arguments in favor of commodification and techno-corporate control. Culture is construed as spirit, colonialism and entrepreneurial violence as exotic zaniness, and the Other as child.Exhaustion and cognitive overload lead visitors into the bliss of Commodity Zenthe characteristic state of postmodern life. While we were watching for Orwell, Huxley rode into town, bringingsoma,cable, and charge cardsand wearing mouse ears. This book is the story of our commodity fairyland.

Author Biography

Stephen M. Fjellman is professor of anthropology at Florida International University.

Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xv
Stalking Woozles	p. 1
Culture and Context	p. 21
America and Consumption	p. 35
Distory: Disney History at the Magic Kingdom	p. 59
More Distory: Mostly Epcot Center	p. 85
Go East, Young Mouse	p. 109
Let's Make a Deal	p. 127
Marketing the Magic Mall	p. 151
The Price is Right: Main Street USA and Hollywood Boulevard	p. 169
The Grounds: Spatial Infrastructure	p. 185
Utopia and Urban Planning	p. 199
Kungaloosh! the Theme Park World	p. 221
Cinema, Music, Fantasy	p. 253
Fantasyland and the Disney-Mgm Studios	p. 271
Consumption and Culture Theory	p. 299
Nature's "Gifts": Land, Garden, Sea	p. 319
Tomorrow and the Future	p. 349
Computicore: Computers, Parades, Lunch	p. 375
Conclusion: Theses on Disney	p. 393
Notes	p. 405
About the Book and Author	p. 467
Index	p. 469
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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