Page 118 - The Disneyization of Society

PERFORMATIVE LABOUR

develop a sense of humor and a genuine interest in people. If nothing else helps, remember that
you get paid for smiling. 24
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Cast members must display emotional labour even in the face of difficult guests.
One cast member of eight years told a reporter: ‘We get daily abuse from
customers but you have to keep on smiling. We’re supposed to make eye
contact, greet each and every guest and smile for eight hours. If you don’t you get
reprimanded.’ 25
It was not quite like this at the beginning however. In Disneyland’s very early
days, Walt was appalled by the behaviour of some of the park’s staff toward visi-
tors. The staff, many of whom had been hired by lessees, lacked training and were
gruff and unhelpful towards visitors. Such behaviour was unacceptable to Walt
who wanted to create an environment where people could forget the outside
world and their troubles and be immersed in a magical experience. Unhelpful and
discourteous behaviour are found abundantly in the outside world and therefore
undermined the kinds of impressions he wanted to create. The only employees
who exhibited the kind of behaviour Walt wanted were the attraction operators
who had been trained by the company itself. According to Randy Bright, a Disney
Imagineer: ‘What Walt really wanted were employees with a ready smile and a
26
knack for dealing pleasantly with large numbers of people’. Walt told cast mem-
bers that they should ‘always smile’ and that they should ‘turn the other cheek to
27
everybody, even the nasty ones’. The Disney University was created precisely in
order to inculcate the demeanour that Walt wanted to engender. According to the
founder of the Disneyland University, one of the central elements of the early
training approach was to introduce the principle that ‘[i]n addition to a “friendly
smile”, we sold the importance of “friendly phrases”’. 28 Since then, Disney has
developed seminars which introduce executives from a variety of organizations to
29
its distinctive approach to human resource management and has publicized this
approach more generally. 30 These seminars may have been instrumental in the
further diffusion of this aspect of Disneyization. Moreover, a number of manage-
ment texts have emphasized this ingredient of the success of the Disney theme
31
parks. Disney itself uses its training programme, which employs videos and talks
on Disney’s past and traditions, to secure commitment to the company and its
values. Such a commitment is likely to facilitate emotional labour. As the then
director of Disney’s three-day training seminars for business executives from other
companies points out: ‘You can’t force people to smile. Each guest to Disney
World sees an average of 73 employees per visit, and we would have to supervise
them continually. Of course, we can’t do that, so instead we try to get employees
to buy into the corporate culture.’ 32 Similar approaches to training are common
at large companies like McDonald’s and Nike. 33
Needless to say, the manifestations of emotional labour are sometimes repudi-
ated in that behaviour inconsistent with Disney principles of how cast members
should act is exhibited, as a number of commentators have observed. 34 However,