Disneyland and Walt Disney World: Traditional Values in Futuristic Form

The Disney parks—Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida—presented a radical refinement and departure from the traditions of the amusement park: the theme park. Designed for the values of long distance travel, suburban lifestyle, family life, the major vacation excursion, and the new visual culture of telecommunications, these places have grown to attain the status of national popular culture capitals. Because of their importance to American life, these institutions have suffered more than their share of attacks as key symbols ofpopular culture. Like all such targets of elitist ire (led by such accusations as “plastic” and “mindless”), the Disney parks must be experienced carefully and studied closely to see beyond these simplistic slings and arrows. Emerging from this study was a contention directly opposed to the common wisdom of the theme parks' futuristic and artificial nature: they may in fact serve as cultural preserves for the most nostalgic images and dreams of a nation. They are a very special kind of museum, of course—of past and future not as they were or will be but as popular taste has shaped and nurtured them in the collective imagination. The Disney “archive” of Americana is thus highly valuable as a display of popular thought on every featured theme.     

Disney World as Structure and Symbol: Re-Creation of the American Experience

It has been said that the Disney theme parks are the cities America wishes it had; immune to death and taxes, clean, orderly, crime-free family style environments of optimism and nostalgia, politically independent, with the advantages but few of the vices of real cities. Treatments of the amusement park in political terms, such as Michael Harrington's Atlantic article, “To the disney Station,” while invariably critical, indicate the important position these places have attained as complex institutions in themselves—living commentaries on society at Large, as well as important standard-setters for new social, political and economic philosophy for planning and control in all sectors of national life. In this way, Disney's worlds—and parks built under their influence—have come to be viewed as societies in miniature, reliable images of work, leisure, human relations and politics in the larger world outside. Here anthropologist David Johnson uses morphology as the key to discerning the meanings of these prototype parks for basic cultural values in many aspects, including work, class, economic order, technology, individualism, history, and cross-cultural adventure. In fact, these Disney versions have now themselves become a special mode of first-hand experience in the repertoire of the great national shared experience.     

Main Street U.S.A.: A Comparison/Contrast of Streetscapes in Disneyland and Walt Disney World

All visitors to Disneyland and Walt Disney World must enter the “magic kingdoms” by way of Main Street, U.S.A.—the Disney version of a small town landscape of around the turn of the century, the “classical period” in American streetscape evolution. Extending far beyond its park setting, Disney's idealized Main Street (along with the overall design of which it is a part) is “one of the most successfully designed streetscapes in human history,” and has exerted enormous impact. Its design and images have influenced city and new town planning and the restoration of real Main Streets across the country, inspiring architectural restoration philosophy and practice; in short, writing an important chapter in the history of America's fondest image of itself. It was in fact from the ranks of planners and designers, not academic intellectuals or even social commentators (who scorned and reviled Disney's creations), that the initial awareness and appreciation of theme parks as structures and images came, as a leading edge in the breakthrough in perception of popular environments which has occurred only within the past decade. Richard Francaviglia is concerned with the architecture and design of Main Street U.S.A. as it preserves, controls, modifies and perpetuates a central collective image. But he goes further, comparing the original articulation in California with the Florida version a design generation later. What is ultimately revealing is the contrast of both of these related but distinct ideals within the parks to Main Street as it actually existed.     

Triumph of the boosters: The 1928 democratic convention in Houston

In 1928 the Democratic National Committee chose Houston for its presidential nominating convention. For the first time since before the Civil War the party would meet in the South. Since Governor Al Smith of New York seemed likely to be nominated, a site in the New South would enhance party unity. This article looks at the convention from the Houston perspective. The case study demonstrates the power and goals of the city elite. Jesse Jones, the publisher of the Chronicle, obtained the convention almost singlehandedly. Moreover, he did so without consulting the mayor, the Texas politicians, or other business leaders. The surprised Houston elite was delighted. The convention would boost their city to national prominence and bring growth, wealth, and prestige. Houstonians proceeded to raze slums, build a hall seating 25,000, and plant 2000 rose bushes. In late June thousands of delegates and news reporters arrived to cheer Democracy, as the party was then called, and to choose candidates for the presidency and the vice presidency.     

“国都”与“全球都市”:双重想象的混杂

进入 2 1世纪 ,北京的城市空间和文化想象的改变 ,成为中国变化的一个象征。现代民族国家的“国都”的想象曾经是北京文化的前提。目前 ,一个新的全球化和市场化的“全球都市”业已成为北京的中心想象。     

虚构之美:王小波小说的想象力游戏

作为当代杰出的小说家,王小波对小说文体的游戏元素有着异乎寻常的迷恋,并在他创造的文本中穷尽可能追求虚构之美。可以从"变形记:早期作品中的变形游戏"、"想入非非:无趣世界里的发明游戏"、"茫茫黑夜漫游:作者与文本的对话游戏"三个层面解读王小波小说的这一特质:在茫茫黑夜中用讲故事的方式排遣现实的无奈酸涩,他传递出的是一种对生命自由和写作自由的坚守。在这份坚守中,他发现了虚构之美并以此为写作的最高追求。