Page 182 - The Disneyization of Society

IMPLICATIONS OF DISNEYIZATION

and enveloping themselves in, distinctive lifestyles. Such behaviour may occur,
but we must bear in mind that many people on low incomes or those who endure
173
a disability that interferes with the consumerist quest are in a very real sense
alienated from, or at least unable to participate meaningfully in, this consumer
culture. How humdrum, boring and dull their lives appear from the vantage point
of writings about consumerism. In much the same way that, as observers of
the Disney theme parks have long noticed, it is largely the middle class and the
more affluent sections of the working class who enter the parks’ gates, so it is with
consumerism in general.
Bauman is one writer on consumerism and the consumer society to take poverty
seriously. 47 He argues that essentially the poor in consumer society are not nor-
mal. They cannot participate as fully fledged members because they do not have
the means to succumb to the blandishments of the suppliers of goods and services.
48
They are therefore, as he puts it, ‘flawed consumers’. In a consumer society, the
crucial point is not that the poor do not work, or that their work is irregular or
meagrely paid, but that they do not consume, or more precisely, they do not con-
sume in the manner that consumer society expects and that Disneyization is
designed to encourage.
Bauman’s discussion reminds us that in our fascination with the discovery of
consumerism, we should not ignore the poor simply because they do not fit the
general picture. He reminds us that a significant number of people are disenfran-
chised from consumerism and by implication from what Disneyization has to
offer. In a sense, they are only capable of what I would call limited consumption,
that is consumption that is limited relative to the supposed criteria of a consumer
society. But from the position of Disneyization it is not just that the poor are
flawed consumers that is striking, but that they are limited citizens. Their ability to
enter the temples of Disneyization is limited not just by their capacity to purchase
its offerings but also because they are heavily guarded and under surveillance.
This issue, like the others that I have suggested in this section on ‘anti-Disneyization’,
is an unsettling matter that may make Disneyization vulnerable to ideological
criticism even though it is possibly less likely to attract the attentions of anti-
globalization campaigners and writers.

The Economic Meets the Cultural

Disneyization provides a striking illustration of a process to which many writers
have drawn attention, namely, the growing interpenetration of the economic and
the cultural. Although the two spheres have always been linked, as Lash and Urry
have argued: ‘the economy is increasingly culturally inflected and … culture is
more and more economically inflected. Thus, the boundaries between the two
become more and more blurred…’ 49 The former process is evident in the way in