Just as fantasy creations escaped from amusement parks early in the Twentieth Century, and found themselves all along roadsides in Southern California, Disney designs have followed their fantastic ancestors and made their way out into the world influencing just about everything.  Disney design has become the prototype for more and more “real” environments – both urban and residential, from strip malls and shopping centers, to urban restoration; whole townscapes have been models after Disney’s Main Street USA.  Disney’s genius for theming influenced not only other rival theme parks, but is present in themed restaurants and the Las Vegas strip. Disney design is not the only thing that Disneyland has to offer the world; here are some important lessons that Disneyland has to offer about life and play.  So, we will take one last stroll around Disneyland, going through each land in turn, beginning with Main Street USA taking a freewheeling tour, and a backwards glance at these archetypal lessons of the lands.

Main Street USA

Since our discussion of Disneyland began with a map, this final section will begin there as well.  The map of Disneyland yielded many meanings.  What this might mean to us, is that we can make our own meanings for things, that something as simple as a souvenir map, can open up worlds one never imagined, and allow us to see things in different ways.  Main Street USA sets the tone for the entire Disneyland adventure, and knowing where you are at all times is important.  Main Street USA and the hub function in this way as orienting devices.  So does Grof’s cartography.  All of them allow us to understand archetypally, where we are and what kinds of experiences to expect.  In my own life, when I am feeling totally overwhelmed by something and feel like there is no end, I just keep in mind that this feels like Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrix II (BPM II), the beginning of the birth process before the cervix has opened. I usually try to get a handle on the situation by changing the structure of what I am doing.  As Main Street sets the tone for the whole experience, we can apply this in our own lives, and set the tone for conversations, meeting, parties, etc. with a little advance planning and “preframing.” This lets people know in advance what is important and what kind of overall feeling you want to convey.  Information is important, but so is ambience, and we see the importance of that on Main Street USA. 

Main Street USA also serves a mediating function in the park, and as the "Child of Times" excursion discusses, mediating between opposites is one of the main functions of myth, too.  We live in a very polarized time, and so mediating between extremes, and dealing creatively with opposites seems like an important thing to do.  Disney mixed everything and was not afraid to cavalierly cross over categories, which is what play and bricolage do.  The "Child of the Times" excursion shows that Disneyland is bricolage, and Disney was a very skilled bricoleur, who playfully combined things without concern for their “truth value.”  What was important to Disney was the “use value” of things.  He was really onto something with this, and since most of our “truths” are just illusions anyway, maybe we should hold them more lightly.  Disney also used technology to his own advantage, and we can do the same. 

We have seen in several places, how we can use technology in service to the imagination.  The Disneyland television show harnessed the power of that medium to showcase Disneyland park.  Disneyland Park harnesses the power of the Disney organization’s artistic and technological expertise from his film career, especially animation, in bringing the imagination into a three-dimensional reality.  Disneyland uses technology to its imaginal advantage and is also a celebration of the same.  This dissertation similarly through the technology of the Internet, brings all of it to you in the comfort of your own home, just as Disneyland the television show did for Disneyland.

Main Street USA is a very harmonious place, and unlike normal urban environments, competition is absent on Main Street USA.  The Latin roots, of "competition" mean "to strive together," and we have taken this to mean "to strive against."  Main Street USA works because all of its elements strive together to tell a specific story.

The Hub

Let's make our way to the hub, the center of Disneyland, which reminds us that we need to give ourselves leeway to play.  Although the hub is not a land, it is a very important place.  We not only need the time and space to play, but latitude and permission to play with things—to be able to combine them in new and different ways.  Just as Disney idealized the future and childhood in Disneyland, we need to remember that childhood is our future as a species.  That childhood has tremendous gifts to give us, however play and other neotenous qualities need the time and space, and the recognition that they deserve. Disneyland is a place that reminds us of the importance and power of remaining "child-like."  As Frank Sinatra so lyrically reminds us from the movie Young at Heart (Douglas, 1954):

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you / If you’re young at heart

For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind / If you’re young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes/You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams / And life gets more exciting with each passing day /And love is either in your heart or on its way

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth / To be young at heart

For as rich as you are it’s much better by far / To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105 / Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive

Then here is the best part / You have a head start /If you are among the very young at heart (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank-sinatra/55277.html)

Keep the hub in mind, leave room for leeway.  Too much structure, holding things too tightly doesn’t allow the wheel to turn. Similarly if you think you’ve "got it all figured out," you might be suffering from too much structure.  You need to allow a little play in the system, as Derrida reminds us—don’t get stuck in the “truth value” of things. The hub reveals that emptiness is important, too.  Only when we leave empty spaces and places in our lives, can new things truly come in.  People are so overscheduled with activities now, there’s no place for play.  Maybe, like Disney, you can use the structure to your advantage and schedule in some play time—or time to do nothing at all. 

Stuart Brown (2002, unpublished manuscript; 2003, unpublished chapter) and Brian Swimme (1995, cassette) show us the importance of neoteny.  Beginnings and childhood, that is where all creativity is—don’t close yours down by getting too scheduled. Neotenous qualities are the most precious gift of our species. “As Montagu makes abundantly clear, the goal of development is to retain these childlike qualities into adulthood, not to abandon them as so many of us have done” (Mendizza and Chilton Pearce, 2003, p. 127).

Neotenous traits elicit kindness, as we know from interacting with young children and puppies.  Disneyland is the place of neoteny and similarly reminds us of the importance of being kind and caring.  As Buckaroo Banzai (Richter, 1984) quipped:  “Be kind, because no matter where you go, there you are.”  James W. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan said: “Shall we try a new rule of life from tonight: Always try to be a little kinder than necessary. “ Good advice.

New Orleans Square and Adventureland call us to be liminal, to invert normal relations and celebrate simple joys.  Practice switching points of view from time to time, because this can be truly liberating.  "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the "Haunted Mansion" both do this; switching points of view tends to shake up consciousness a bit, and that can be very refreshing and renewing.  These rides have also become movie stars in their own right, breaking the normal Disney tradition; they also creatively elude the boundaries of the berm, in proper Plutonic fashion.  Maybe we can similarly find interesting ways to expand beyond our limits using liminality.  We can expand our consciousness through decentering ourselves—something which Hillman would certainly approve. We might become less egocentric and begin to realize, that "it's not all about us.”  We can become a supporting player in the larger cosmic drama. Celebrate communitas, drop your defenses and connect more deeply with others.  Disneyland allows us to do this, and to see that these roles are simply roles that we are playing. By dropping these masks that we wear from time to time, we are able to be more ourselves.  Similarly, we can try on different roles and see how they fit, if we remember that they really are just roles. Play can be truly transformative, or serve to intensify existing relationships in your life, helping you feel more connected.

Play allows us to feel more unity, to go with the flow, to go with the “quo” as it were.  But play is a Trickster, too, and allows us to be able to rebel against the status quo as well.  Upset your own established order!  Add a little bit of spontaneity into your routine, which will be freeing in and of itself.  Give yourself permission to play. Do not crowd play out of your life, as carnival was crowded out, play and carnival are necessary for renewal, and both have a necessary mediating function. 

Frontierland

Frontierland, which celebrates our nation's childhood imaginally, is the location of the "Amusing Ancestry" excursion, which highlights Disney’s historical predecessors. Disney’s ancestors offered play spaces of many shapes and natures, from parks that provided respite and showed the compensatory value of play, to exhibitions and amusement parks, which intensified experiences as another way of playing.  Disneyland and play have it all.  Disney took inspiration from everywhere in building Disneyland, we too can do the same.  Disney took a little something from here, and a little something from there, in true bricoleur fashion, and used those odd bits for his own ends.  He took whatever he thought would be useful and left the rest, and Disney piggy-backed on others ideas as well.  We can do that, too, with the world around us and also with our histories.  Disneyland was built as a team effort, with the collaboration of many talented people.  We, too, can tap the resources and talents of those around us, to help us bring our dreams into reality.

Continued on page 2

© 2005-2007 Karen Pohn
Karen Pohn is not associated in any official way with the Walt Disney Company, its subsidiaries, or its affiliates. The official Disney site is available at www.disney.com. This web site cosmicplay.net is my dissertation for my PhD in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, www.pacifica.edu
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