Ah, Disney World, the happiest place on earth, where everyone can be a kid again. While enjoying myself the past two days, I was brought back to my childhood trips to Disney, and I also made some new observations about this magical place. Since becoming a student of qualitative research and learning new ways to observe the world, Disney World was particularly rife with interesting things to wonder about. Two things really caught my eye, but oh, there were many more. The two I want to share are the Country Bear Jamboree and the walk around the world in Epcot. Jean Baudrillard came to my mind because he’s a thinker in the area of simulations. In the spirit of full disclosure, I haven’t actually read his work (yet), but I have read others that reference him. What he basically says is that the world is constructed by humans, so the world is our own simulation. Each culture is a different construction or simulation of the same world, but then, you have places like Disney World, which are simulations of simulations. The people in their own culture (a simulation) create another world (or simulation) and then create a simulation of that simulated world. So, we walk through this simulation of a simulation, and live in the imaginary place, childlike. I like that, but now I also walk through and wonder about what these simulations of simulations are saying about the original simulation.
So let me begin with the “Country Bear Jamboree.” When Dan first went to Disney World as a kid, he, for whatever reason, really liked Br’er Bear. Br’er Bear was a part of the Country Bears. That first trip, Dan bought a stuffed Br’er Bear and it’s still floating around at his parents’ house, the source of a few jokes and stories. So, when we saw that the Country Bear Jamboree was about to begin in Frontierland, well, we just had to go and see Br’er Bear again. We were herded into a quaint little auditorium reminiscent of the Grand Ole Opry. As the show began the curtains revealed an animatronic bear in a top hat that would introduce the different acts in the show. Maybe I didn’t put two and two together to begin with, but the “country” in Country Bears means the back woods type of country and whoever created this show really took that idea and ran with it. These were not just plain country bears, they had four inch overbites, 2-4 teeth (max), beer bellies, suspenders, crazy eyes, thick drawls and homemade instruments. They weren’t just simple sweet ol’ country bears, they were the most exaggerated form of simple. I might just say dumb hillbillies, and I’m pretty sure that’s what they were saying by presenting these characters in this way. And I couldn’t help but notice the few female bear characters. I think there were only two (at least that I remember). One was silly and fat, and the other characters were sure to point out how fat she was and the other one was a svelt seductive bear swinging from a swing with flowers on it. The male bears were mesmerized by her beauty. So, yes, this is meant to be a fun and nonserious form of entertainment, and I can see that (though I think one of the crazy-eyed bears will be visiting my nightmares soon). But I also wonder what this representation of Country Bears is really saying about people, behavior, stereotypes, etc. Is this just a simulated make-believe world of hillbilly bears, or is this simulation of a simulation a place to reinforce societal norms by poking fun at what is not considered the norm?
The other place where this same sort of situation came to mind is the walk through the world part of Epcot. This has always been my very favorite part of Disney World ever since I blew on a harmonica in Germany and my dad made me buy it. I used to love to look at these places and dream of going to the real ones someday. Disney does a good job of making things look pretty nice and decently “authentic,” but of course it’s not the same as the “real” place (what “real” actually is, is up for debate). This time, again, I felt strong urges to visit all of the places I hadn’t yet been (a few less than the first time). What made me look at things differently though, was a student that I talked to before I left. In my course this summer, I had a student from China and we talked about my trip to Disney World. She had been there a few years ago and we got to talking about my favorite part and I asked her what she thought of the “China” in Epcot. She wrinkled her nose and said that the dragon there wasn’t really like the dragons that they have. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but the wrinkled nose told me plenty. Then, my brother-in-law mentioned that the people that work in each of the “countries” are required to be from the real country. That’s neat and it makes things more authentic, but when I got to Morocco and wanted to eat some falafel, I saw the “real” Moroccans wearing these costumes that made them look a bit like Aladdin, complete with gold bells hanging from their shirt sleeves, and I thought, they cannot possibly like this. “This” being this simulation of their culture that, though celebratory is some sense, is also boiling it down to a set of stereotypes. Morocco, like China (like every country really), is constantly changing and this simple representation can’t “really” give someone a feel for what the “real” Morocco is like, but then again, can anything? Without being a part of the culture, even if we visit the actual country, we will probably only take away that which we want to see, possibly more than in Disney World, but still a partial understanding of what Morocco really is. So it makes this interesting simulation of a simulation a way to think about culture in general. People construct their own culture, but they are also constructed, in turn, by it. So when someone else tries to make a simulation of that culture it becomes complex and intriguing. What are these simulations saying about the “original” simulations?
I’m on the plane back home and starting the descent. Time to get back to simulation sweet simulation.
