Page 116 - The Disneyization of Society

PERFORMATIVE LABOUR

customer care programmes. Second, in a world in which there is little to distinguish
many products and services the quality of service delivery, including emotional
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labour, may be the major distinguishing factor. In such circumstances, ensuring
the satisfaction of the customer’s needs becomes especially crucial and again is
frequently a spur to the introduction of customer care initiatives, like TQM. These
customer care initiatives are often inextricably linked to programmes (of the kind
briefly mentioned above) that seek to enhance employees’ organizational commit-
ment, since they are more likely to accept the demands of emotional labour when
ties to the organization are close. With all of these developments, generating an
organizational framework that is designed to satisfy the needs of sovereign
consumers is the prime mover, and fostering emotional labour is a crucial component
of the framework that is meant to satisfy those needs.

Emotional Labour in the Disney Theme Parks

Emotional labour is in many ways exemplified by the Disney theme parks. The
friendliness and helpfulness of Disney theme park employees are renowned and
is one of the things that visitors often comment on as something that they liked. 15
Moreover, anyone with even a passing knowledge of the parks expects this kind of
behaviour. The ever-smiling Disney theme park employee has become a stereo-
type of modern culture. Their demeanour coupled with the distinctive Disney
language is designed, among other things, to convey the impression that the
employees are having fun too and therefore not engaging in real work. Disney are
fully aware of the significance of the Disney touch. As Michael Eisner observes:
‘Nothing so visibly defines Disney’s parks as the warmth and commitment of our
cast members over the years, and the appreciation guests feel for the way they’re
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treated.’ An article on Disney theme park employees in the Disney Magazine, pre-
sents the following anecdote:

It’s a typical summer day at Disney’s Blizzard Beach Water Park. The lines are long, the guests are
hot, the noise is pounding, and the action is frenzied. At the top of the Teamboat Springs Raft Ride,
a young woman in a bright red bathing suit loads families into the round rubber rafts, tugs them
through the pool of water in the holding area, and then uses all her strength to push the heavy rafts
onto the start of the slide. Approximately every 40 seconds a new group begins its descent, mean-
ing that she loads about 90 rafts an hour … But this young woman keeps smiling, greeting each
new family with enthusiasm. ‘How ya doing? Having fun? Do you have on plenty of sunscreen? Now
hang on, because this gets pretty wild.’ 17
For Disney, inculcating forms of behaviour, gestures and impressions of this kind,
and of emotional labour more generally, are very much part of what Disney nowa-
days refers to as its ‘service theme’: ‘to create happiness for people of all ages
everywhere’. 18 As part of their training (see Box 5.1), cast members are ‘taught
to take a wide responsibility for guest happiness, by being friendly, knowing the