Page 153 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

where housing styles, colours, curtain styles, height of front hedges and fences,
and the types of shrubs that could be planted are regulated. 29
144 Control is similarly a requirement of tourist enclaves of the kind discussed in
Chapters 2 and 3, such as festival marketplaces. In New York’s Times Square, we
see control in the form of a gradual cleaning up of the area, whereby the drugs
pushers and fleshpots that previously had made it an unsafe area (or at least made
it appear to be so), and of the creation of a safer environment with a mixture of
shopping and shows which would not get in the way of consumption. Not all
New Yorkers see this as a positive development and many rail against its sanitiza-
tion but the links between control, safety and consumption are unmistakable.
The case of Celebration brings out an important consideration in connection
with issues of control, namely, that those subject to it do not necessarily perceive
it to be a bad thing. Indeed, they may even derive reassurance from being con-
trolled. Frantz and Collins show that many Celebration residents bought into the
ideals that the town offered and that there was a feeling that if anyone could
deliver and implement them it was Disney. 30 Precisely because of Disney’s leg-
endary preoccupation with control, prospective residents know what kind of
regime they would be confronted with in order for New Urbanist values to be real-
ized and viewed it as an acceptable cost (if indeed it was seen as such) if those
values were to be realized. A similar point is sometimes made about visitors to the
Disney theme parks who often relish the control exercised by Disney because it
enhances the predictability of the theme park experience and because it obviates
the need for parents to worry about issues that confront them in the outside
world, such as whether the children will enjoy the holiday, whether they will be
in danger from vehicles or other hazards. While risks are dangled in front of visi-
tors as lures (simulated dangers on rides or other attractions), they are ‘safe risks’ 31
or ‘riskless risks’. 32 It is the very aura of control and safety that makes Disney
theme park holidays attractive to parents.

Surveillance of the consumer

Surveillance in order to facilitate and to ensure that nothing gets in the way of
consumption is widespread. It is particularly prevalent in shopping malls where it
takes the form of both surveillance of and for consumers, though in practice the
two are not easy to distinguish. As one writer puts it:

Outside of Disney World, there is no better example than the mall of the wholesale use of architec-
ture and decor as a means of promoting consumption – in an environment where there is probably
more surveillance per square inch (both technological and human) than in any of today’s under-
funded public prisons. 33
Surveillance of consumers obviously occurs to identify crimes such as shoplifting
but it is also carried out to ensure that undesirable elements are kept out or if they