- This video is brought to you by Bright Cellars.
(upbeat music)
What's up Wisecrack?
Michael here.
Walt Disney World in my beloved home state of Florida
is not just a theme park.
Spanning over 40 square miles,
it's roughly the size of San Francisco.
Sure, it's got cool rides,
but there's also massive hotels, campgrounds,
a baseball stadium, multiple shopping complexes,
and golf courses.
A few privileged people even live on the property.
Some in fancy houses,
custom designed with hidden Mickeys.
For the rest of us,
a short drive through one of the entrance arches
brings us into a realm where birds can talk,
princesses are real, and Mexico, Norway,
and China are a short stroll from each other.
For a pretty hefty fee,
visitors can get a few days of magic,
and extremely clean bathrooms.
Many Disney devotees think this consumer's utopia
is worth the price.
And some even dream of one day owning
a multimillion dollar home in the Magic Kingdom's backyard.
But what if I told you there was an even greater cost
to experiencing Disney's magic?
Your freedom.
Oh, okay, not exactly.
But while Disney World is the most magical place on earth,
it does some things do achieve that magic
that raise some pretty interesting concerns
about the relation between magic and freedom,
and maybe even nightmarish technologies of control.
And I'm not talking about that weird pandemic reopening ad.
(dinging)
So what gives Disney World it's magic?
Please remain seated with your hands,
arms, and legs inside the vehicle
while we find out in this Wisecrack edition on Disney World.
But before we get into it I wanna give a shout out
to this week's sponsor, Bright Cellars.
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Right now they're offering 50% off
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So go on and treat yourself.
Now back to the show.
Whenever anyone talks about their love of Disney World
they almost always mention how magical it is.
Pretty much every Disney and vacation blog
has some listicle describing how the Florida resort
has a special band of magic
that keeps people coming back for more.
They usually praise the attention to detail and theatrics,
things like background music, lighting,
and Stormtroopers who wander around
and interrogate children.
Some mention the pristine
and punctual transportation systems.
Many love the total immersion
that cuts one off from the outside world.
There's a word for places where the monorails run on time
and music bellows from fake rocks.
Heterotopia.
Coined by philosopher Michel Foucault in 1967,
heterotopias are real places that mirror society
but are somehow completely different and other,
or as Foucault puts it, "Places that are written
"into the institution of society itself."
Where "All the other real emplacements that can be found
"within culture are simultaneously represented,
"contested, and inverted."
What does that even mean?
For Foucault, heterotopias are places
that look a lot like our world, but feel different.
The mirroring aspects of it
but with a something's quite not realness about them.
Places like Polynesian vacation villages,
that fake rainforest in the middle of the zoo,
big Hollywood movie sets, and of course, Disney.
I mean, when you enter the Magic Kingdom,
you literally walk down a fake recreation
of a timeless American main street,
complete with a trolley car, and a barbershop quartet.
Why go there when you can just visit a real
charming small town?
Because for whatever reason,
something about it seems better, magical.
In heterotopias, familiar things are taken
from their original context, and repackaged.
So that we no longer think about,
or even understand how they work.
At Disney World, everything around you
is both real and fake at the same time.
To the point where you can no longer tell which is which,
and you kinda don't care.
An ultimate suspension of disbelief.
Trash cans could talk,
Mount Everest is in Florida and it's normal
to spend seven bucks on a pretzel.
This might sound kinda harmless,
but creators of heterotopia have to do a ton of meticulous
architectural planning to pull them off
in order to keep tight control over the experience.
And Disney sure knows something about control.
To understand what makes Disney World such a successful
heterotopia and how it functions,
it's important to understand the modestly terrifying thing
it was supposed to be.
In the final years of his life,
Walt Disney was frustrated with the result
of his biggest project, Disneyland.
The park was great and all,
but cheap motels and tourist traps
were springing up in the outskirts
at his immaculate theme park.
And he couldn't do anything but build a fence
to protect his wholesome family fun.
So the OG Mouseketeer set his sights on a new project.
Not just a second Disneyland,
no, it would be a whole freaking world.
- [Walt Disney] Tomorrow, a project so vast
it has already been called a whole new Disney World.
- [Michael] He bought 27,000 acres of land
in central Florida.
With all of this new land,
strip malls couldn't spring up
a stones throw from the park exit.
- [Walt Disney] So one thing we don't need
is a fence to protect us from trespassing.
- Visitors wouldn't have to look
at ugly neon signs or witness drunk teenagers.
Everything within miles of the park
would be planned and approved by Disney.
He wanted complete control
over what surrounded his theme park too.
And with all this land,
Walt Disney had even loftier ambitions.
Another way he could leave his mark
on Florida and on America.
Born from a new dedication
to solving the plight of America's cities?
- I don't believe there's a challenge anywhere in the world
that's more important to people everywhere,
then finding solutions to the problems of our cities.
- [Michael] Yes, that's right.
Walt Disney wanted to build an entire futuristic city
on his newly acquired land.
An experimental prototype city of tomorrow.
Epcot.
- [Announcer] Possible today with the technology
and imagination of American industry.
- [Michael] Disney felt the best way to address
urban problems like poverty, and crime,
and grungy bars wasn't to try and help existing cities,
it was to build an entirely new city
that didn't have those things,
and build it from scratch on private property.
- We think the need is for starting from scratch
on virgin land and building a special kind of new community.
- [Michael] Walt's grand vision was heavily inspired
by an architect named Victor Gruen.
You might not know his name,
but you'll probably recognize his work.
Gruen created America's first shopping malls,
and lots of them.
Ironically, Gruen was a socialist who envisioned malls
not as pure commercial enterprises,
but as mixed use civic spaces
that combined consumer activities with humanistic value.
So, how'd that work out?
- I love the smell of commerce in the morning.
- In his final years, Gruen started fighting
against the construction of shopping malls.
His vision a massive failure corrupted by greed.
The mall was far less a civic space,
and far more a place for blind consumption
A book by Gruen sat on Walt Disney's desk
as he planned his new world.
It outlined a circular three-dimensional urban design
with a completely pedestrianized city center.
That had a mix of commercial and functional use,
where no cars were allowed.
Disney also promised,
"In Epcot there will be no slum areas
"because we won't let them develop.
"People will rent homes instead of buying them,
"and at modest rentals.
"There will be no retirees, everyone must be employed."
So sorry, grandma, you can't come
unless you work until you drop dead.
I don't make the rules.
I just ride It's a Small World five times a day.
Using this pitch for a grandiose utopia
where everyone had a job,
Disney got buy-in from the state of Florida
before he had any solid plans
for how he'd actually achieve it.
It was also supposed to be housed
in a 50 foot climate controlled bubble
which I just needed to fit in here somewhere.
Anyway, Florida approved the creation
of a unique local government,
spanning two newly formed municipalities.
The corporation would get the incredible powers
of self-government the following year.
Although the amount of control
Disney was given was unprecedented,
the idea wasn't entirely new.
It was just the latest version of a company town.
In America and Europe, company towns were places
where one company owned literally everything.
Housing, businesses, schools, even churches.
If you lived in the town,
you had exactly one employer to choose from.
Worse, your employers wouldn't even pay you real money
for you to save up and move somewhere else.
They were paid in script,
which is like 19th century V-bucks
that you could only spend at company stores.
Company towns in the US were characterized
by industrial paternalism, a kind of social engineering
that forces middle class values
onto working class employees.
It basically meant the companies that ran these towns
imposed a ton of rules on residents.
Like banning gambling, drinking, and unions.
Many founders of company towns
framed this as a moral obligation.
They were teaching lower class workers good values,
and providing them a life in a model community
in exchange for their labor.
They indoctrinated people with company loyalty,
all the while, keeping workers indentured to their jobs
and towns for incredibly low pay.
Sometimes their housing would even be fenced in, or guarded.
They literally couldn't leave.
While company towns were very popular
during the industrial revolution,
they declined in America in the 1920s
because among other things,
workers living conditions deteriorate.
And you know, they weren't allowed to vote
or change anything, leading to massive strikes and riots.
While old school company towns
were out of Vogue by the time of Epcot,
Disney's paternalistic vision for it was eerily similar,
if not more ambitious.
His only major deviation
from traditional company town ideals?
While everything would be owned and operated by Disney,
Epcot would also rent building space
to local industrial leaders like General Electric,
and have expos sponsored by big corporations
showing off the newest technology.
And while people would earn real money instead of script,
there would be plenty of ways
to give that money right back to Disney.
After Walt's death,
his brother Roy took over to carry out the vision,
and the Reedy Creek Improvement District was formed.
Disney could now design and maintain
its own infrastructure projects,
enforce its own zoning and building codes,
maintain its own police force,
and fire department, and levy taxes.
It would be entirely governed by its land owners,
which you know, is pretty much just Disney.
The governing officials would be chosen by land owners.
Again, basically just Disney, 'cause who needs a mayor
when you have a benevolent multinational corporation
looking after you, right?
Couple that with Disney's public aversion
to drinking, no alcohol was allowed
in the Magic Kingdom until 2012,
as well as his antagonism towards unions
and aggressive promotion of mid-century,
middle-class nuclear family values,
and you've got the makings of the most ambitious
company town in history.
Too ambitious, because the city of tomorrow
never actually happened.
After Imagineers realized they couldn't figure
out who would live there,
or how kids would go to school,
or how families would actually function,
the plan was scrapped.
Epcot became came another very clean theme park
with very good crowd control.
And much like Gruen's ill-fated shopping malls,
a place for consumers to give away all their cash.
Which, you know, Disney is still pretty stoked on.
Okay, okay.
So what does the Disney World that didn't happen
have to do with the Disney World that did?
The one where you can wait for three hours
in the sweltering Florida heat
to go on the Avatar ride.
Disney World might've lost its city,
but it never lost its powers of self-governance.
It's basically the American equivalent of the Vatican,
and its doctrine still consists
of Walt's paternalistic values
and a philosophy that requires both corporate sponsorship,
and meticulous design and control of well, everything.
I mean, look at their queuing systems.
In "Travels in Hyperreality",
Umberto Eco describes how,
"The officials of the dream,
"properly dressed in the uniform
"suited to each specific attraction,
"not only admit the visitor
"to the threshold of the chosen sector,
"but, in successive phases regulate his every move.
"If the visitor pays this price,
"he can have not only the real thing,
"but the abundance of the reconstructed truth."
When you're waiting in line to go to the Haunted Mansion
you're not in a line, you're in a graveyard.
And then you're escorted by a spooky maid
into a foyer, and then an elevator,
and then another inside line
that's supposed to be a living room maybe?
But really, you're flowing through
carefully crafted crowd control
that is meant to be invisible.
The point is, everything at Disney World
is calculated to control your experience.
From the sewage system,
to tiny details at the bottom of a man-made hot spring.
I mean, on Nine Eleven, they were able to efficiently
evacuate approximately hundreds of thousands of people.
Could you imagine San Francisco doing that?
It's no wonder people take out a second mortgage
on their house so they can fly across the world
to visit this place.
Not only can you meet Mickey and his pals,
the whole experience feels unlike anything else
on our planet.
So immersive that even though there's no giant bubble dome
over the place, there might as well be.
Because of all of the surrounding land Disney owns,
you're literal miles away from the real world.
You'll never see garbage cans overflowing or even emptied,
because the trash is whisked away underground
at 60 miles per hour.
There are no telephone poles or wires obstructing any views.
You can visit convincing versions of real countries
without leaving the US.
But everyone speaks English,
and all the streets are so clean.
Everyone is happy and friendly,
and has the same three hairstyles.
But peek beneath the shiny perfect surface,
and it becomes clear that there's something else going on.
In order to maintain its heterotopic status,
the most magical place on earth
doesn't just hide its sanitation workers
and trick you into enjoying your hour long wait,
it also hides all the things that plague us
out in the real world.
Creating a space grounded in Walt Disney's paternalistic
corporatist value system.
Anthropologist Stephen Fjellman calls it distory.
He argues that, "These theme parks conveniently
"censor those aspects of US history
"that conflict with white Anglo-Saxon,
"Protestant, middle-class values and behaviors.
"These theme parks portray one vast vanilla
"flavored American melting pot that never existed."
And it makes people feel good.
I mean, I get it.
A Liberty square that included
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
where women burned alive
after their bosses locked them inside,
might not be the most magical experience.
Instead, imagine a world where all the (beep) things
we've done didn't exist,
and freedom is sponsored by American Express, and Coca-Cola.
Imagine a China that doesn't mention the words,
People's Republic or communism.
Disney by its very nature has to hide all the ugliness
that makes it so magical in the first place.
Sure, there's no inkling of poverty anywhere
on the 47 mile property because of extensive surveillance,
policing, and enforcement of private property laws.
Disney does its own safety inspections on all of its rides.
Off property, many of Disney's minimum wage employees
commute in every day from far less manicured areas.
You have to go through private security,
and ticket tag users even have to scan their fingerprints
to enter.
No unscrupulous behavior is tolerated either.
If you pull any drunken antics or break a law,
even a minor misdemeanor,
you don't just get court date and a fine,
you can be banned for life.
And thank God I'm not banned from Disney for life,
just Universal Studios
and all of their associated properties.
These are all things that most folks in America
would never tolerate from their own government.
I mean, think about how many people flipped
after airports started asking for bio data.
But because of a meticulous effort
to create a consumer's utopia
unaffected by the ills of the outside world,
people will gladly give up their privacy, and their cash,
to experience that special Disney magic.
Disney is also so good at indoctrinating people
because the brand has essentially conquered
contemporary life.
Disney has its hand in almost every piece
of popular culture and existence.
And their ideology is super palatable.
It's wholesome, family-friendly magic you're gettin' here.
Mickey can't hurt you.
There seems to be a limit
for people's tolerance for this magic though.
In 1994, Disney tried again to make a planned community.
Celebration Florida was modeled much in that
Victor Gruen style of urbanism.
Small, pedestrian friendly downtown areas,
and plenty of public space.
It would have schools built within the community
for residents to send their kids, community fitness centers,
places of worship, playgrounds, and theaters.
Like everything else Disney built,
Celebration was meticulously designed
down to its manhole covers.
There was a complete ban on franchises and billboards.
But what Disney called an authentic
small town America experience, didn't feel so authentic.
Chalk it up to the fake snow if you want,
or the loudspeakers hidden behind palm trees
that pumped out music,
but it was creepy, and void of character.
There were no gas stations or restaurants,
only Disney stores.
According to a former resident,
a Cuban immigrant who loved Disney
decided not to buy a house there
because its sterility reminded him too much
of communist Cuba.
The over-engineering and Disneyfication of Celebration
also made people paranoid.
Were the alligators in the man-made lake put there for show?
Is the fake snow even actually fake snow?
What other fake things aren't the fake things
we think they are?
Celebration soon started to suffer
from the kinds of problems
many suburbs in Florida suffered from.
An economic recession caused a ton of home foreclosures.
- [Newscaster] When it was first announced,
demand to live here was so high Disney ran a lottery.
Bill and Susan Bona were among the first 400 winners.
- I think people came here because
thinking they were gonna be living on Main Street USA.
And you know, the pixie dust would be sprinkled,
and their life would be perfect.
And they wanted the monorail
to pick them up at their front door.
And you know, this is real life, real mortgages, real jobs.
- There was a brutal murder and a suicide.
People started accusing Disney of being more focused
on corporate needs than the needs of it's residents.
For the first time it seemed that Disney had lost control.
So instead of trying to address
the problems with Celebration,
Disney sold it to private investors
and then did what Disney does best,
started again from scratch.
In 2011, Disney built another community
on its property called Golden Oak.
Owned by people like the former CEO of Walmart,
homes start at two million dollars.
Like the rest of Disney,
the community is planned and controlled.
Doors must be made out of wood,
and trash is hidden in a designated area.
There are several man-made lakes and a river,
and fake scents are pumped into the country clubhouse.
Obviously this isn't the robust
planned community Walt intended.
It's not providing anyone with jobs.
There are plenty of retirees,
and it pretty much exclusively caters to the very wealthy.
Even if you can't afford the two million dollar mansion,
there's no denying that Disney is a fun escape from reality.
It's supposed to be fun, it is very good at being fun.
But the reason why it's so good at being fun
is because of an amount of tight paternalistic control
that some might call creepy.
Others might say it gets awfully close
to a kind of corporate fascism,
where freedom is traded in for clean streets
and the obliteration of social problems.
The heterotopia of Disney World
tricks us into thinking we're experiencing magic.
But like any other heterotopia,
Disney and all its strangeness
also reveals a whole lot about the real world
it desperately tries to hide.
It reveals the values and priorities of our own society.
But what do you think?
Is Disney the only reprieve from our hell world?
Should we consider ourselves lucky
to live in Teslaville where Elon Musk is dictator for life?
Let us know in the comments.
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Later.
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