My mom was present the day Disneyland opened. Her father and mother happened to be on vacation in Pasadena at the time, so they indulged my mother and aunt with a time at the newly opened park. There weren’t many rides—donkey ride, anyone?—at the time, but the point wasn’t to be wowed by the rides, it was to have fun in a novel world of make-believe that catered to families with children, just as Disney’s cartoons did. Towards the end of the stay, her family was waiting for an elevator to arrive that would take them to the food court. When the elevator doors opened, they revealed that none other than Walt Disney himself was already in the shuttle and was heading the same way! During the ride, he inquired if everyone was enjoying their time, patting my mother and aunt on the shoulders before he and the family went their separate ways. Their answer was an unequivocal yes, the same answer I would give Disney if he were alive when I went about a week ago. My appreciation, like my grandparents and my mother when she took me as a child, is however of a different caliber than what it was when I first visited the park. In that reaction, there is much to extrapolate, just as there is much to realize and cop to.
Disneyland is a playground full of wonder that delights both young and old. There is nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with the panoply of different distractions and amusements that make up modern life. Everything I am about to say is predicated and separate from this stated truth. I would be a self-important jerk if I didn’t mention this. There are other reasons I am that, but I want to make clear that I am completely comfortable with this duality, as I am comfortable with the duality of my changing relationships with other amusements. We all have love for something of which we are fans. Nothing I write here should be taken as injury to someone’s love.
Like most of us, when I was a kid, even the word “Disneyland” would send me into a euphoria filled with images of promised magic and fun. Actually going there? Greatest day of my life! From the moment we pulled into until the moment we left, my heart was racing, my mind was electric, and my hand was constantly pulling my beleaguered parents toward whatever my favorite attraction was at the moment, that usually being Star Tours (more on that later). By the end of the day, my lust for Disneyland hadn’t been sated, but home I went, already dreaming about what I would do there the next time I went. I don’t have children, but I imagine the looks my mom and dad had on their faces, a tired happiness that they were able to bring a kind of magic to my life, would be the same that would have been on mine.
As a returning adult, my perspective on Disneyland has changed. My recent trip was furnished by a group of friends seeking to use the trip as a blind date. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise, especially in the middle of a record heat wave and at the park’s current prices, but I am grateful they chose to bring me along. That said, from the moment I entered the park until my departure, I couldn’t help but feel that Disney provided as perfect an encapsulation as any of the artificiality of late-stage capitalism: managed f.u.n. rather than natural delight. Everything I saw had been crafted to the nth degree, and the IP properties Disney owns have been so assimilated into their actual property as to make me feel like I was in a commercial or an “experience” rather than anything approximating something I could, as a visitor and even a fan of Disney, “own” as a personal interpretation. Whether its the post-movies Pirates of the Caribbean ride or the Haunted Mansion which now features a Nightmare Before Christmas theme or the Star Tours ride which now incorporates the actors from the newer movies and on and on—we aren’t allow to enjoy much of anything that isn’t integrated into their larger entertainment marketing efforts. I embrace change and revision in all things, but not strictly as a matter of base subversion. This is why I always try to go on “It’s a Small World” or visit the Tiki Room—they’re still places that I have a personal connection with that haven’t been enslaved by Disney’s amalgamation efforts.
This all said, there is nothing new about such maneuvers. After all, Star Tours was a themed ride, and many other themed rides have come around since I first visited Disneyland. I wouldn’t expect any such construct to remain stagnant, nor do I feel a static allegiance to what was, It’s not that I feel a loyalty to what was, but the changes that have been made are not for the sake of novelty, but instead seem to serve the purpose of turning them inward toward their ips rather than outward in sync with the themes of the part of the park they still inhabit. To give two examples of what I mean, I preferred the People Mover ride in Tomorrowland, and the Country Bear Jamboree in Adventureland. These are archaic examples, I realize, but there is nothing stopping the park from innovating new attractions based on similar principles, namely sticking to an immersive, yet abstract, theme rather than aligning everything to a preexisting property. One of my biggest complaints about the modern world is the level to which our culture has been atrophied by consumerism, robbing us of the immersive capacity to imagine, interpret, and wonder by advertising whatever singular idea content providers want us to focus on. The rides of Disney past, while always artificial, allowed visitors the chance to dream past what they saw to include themselves in the presented fantasy.
Perhaps the best illustration of my “issue” with the modern park comes in juxtaposition to Disney’s original policy regarding how the park should interact with children. He put this into practice with my family on that first day, asking if the girls had received a balloon after inquiring into if they were enjoying themselves. This was one of his central edicts, that every child should be afforded a balloon, gratis if necessary. I suppose I am lamenting that Disneyland no longer caters to modern child visitors in an equivalent way, which is to say the park no offers them the chance to dream past what the park tells them to, the figurative opportunity to release their imagination into the vault of the sky where it can fly away upon the winds of fancy.
