Monday, 03.31.08

A World Made by Disney

Photo by flickr user hyku under a Creative Commons license

Disneyland is revamping the "It's a Small World" ride to accommodate today's fatter passengers on its boats and, more controversially, to include Disney characters among the anonymous dancing dolls.

The family of the ride's designer, Mary Blair, recently joined fans in protest, sending a letter to the company denouncing the "gross desecration of the ride's original theme."

That theme was common in 1964, when the ride debuted at the New York World's Fair: "an innocent and unified world at peace," depicted by a cast neatly divided by skin color and national costume. Walt Disney guided TV viewers past Dutch children in wooden shoes, an Ireland of shamrocks and leprechauns, "the mysterious dark continent of Africa," and "exotic Asia," the land of minor chords and veiled dancers, flying carpets and the Taj Mahal. Like the Miss Universe pageant's opening ceremony and the International House of Pancakes, "Small World" portrays a happy, colorful internationalism. But, like the Star Trek universe, where intraspecies mating is more common than interracial marriage, it also assumes segregation and stasis.

"Small World" was designed for an audience that would rarely, if ever, encounter foreign cultures. Now it's a time machine back to a world in which international travel was rare and large-scale trade and immigration unknown. When a blogger complains that adding Disney characters "not only trivializes the central theme but more disturbingly seems to emphasize global brand marketing," he is lamenting the small world as it came to exist. Amid the complexities and conflicts of real globalization, the international appeal of Disney characters is as good a testimony as any that the children of the world really do share something in common. — Virginia Postrel

Filed Under: culture, Disney, globalization

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