Many Maps, Many Meanings or Many Meanings of the Map

Bukatman (1991) associates Disneyland’s structure with the psychologists’ topology of the brain, which he said is echoed by situationalist cities. Bukatman says that Debord’s description of the situationalist city’s division into different quarters, where “each quarter will tend toward a specific harmony, divide off from neighboring harmonies; or else will play on a maximum breaking up of internal harmony,” foretold Disneyland’s division into different lands (p. 66). Debord’s (1955, online) description was actually published contemporaneously with Disneyland's opening in the mid-1950s (http://www.monoculartimes.co.uk/city-tours/psychogeography/urbangeography.shtml).

Using the brain metaphor, Bukatman (1991) notes:

Souvenir maps of Disneyland suggest such a model, the different-colored lands echo the diagrams of the cerebral lobes, while Main Street mimics the stalk of the central nervous system leading into the central hub (the corpus callosum), that links these different regions. (p. 65)

Bukatman goes on to observe that the right brain functions are captured in the whimsical nature of Fantasyland and the fantastic futures of Tomorrowland and are found on the right side of the park. Bukatman adds “it’s surely interesting that the rough-and-ready macho pragmatism represented by Frontierland and Adventureland are located in the left brain” and the left side of the park (p. 65).

Waldrep (1993) sees Disneyland as similar to the medieval maps, which Michel de Certeau describes as marking out “itineraries (performative indications…) along with the stops one was to make.” Waldrep suggests that as one visits the various different lands “one enjoys a set of preordained emotions much as one might in a staged pilgrimage of religious ecstasy” (p. 145). The terrains of these lands are not real, but imaginal ones through one’s own childhood, in the case of Fantasyland, or the nation’s childhood in the case of Frontierland and Main Street USA. Waldrep mentions that the “frontiers” between the different lands have a “mediating role,” and that the different lands themselves and their borders are

are about communication between zones, contacts, encounters, and struggles that require stories in order to be passed on. The frisson offered the visitor is the excitement without any of the (real) hardship. The experience one encounters are of the body—the threat of danger, pain, getting lost, the thrill of making it through. (pp. 145-146)

Disneyland is a centered space, with Main Street leading visitors to the hub. Marin (1984) points out that Main Street leads one from reality to fantasy. Fantasy is at the core of Disneyland and is symbolized by Sleeping Beauty Castle, which is located at the hub. Sleeping Beauty Castle is the first “visual magnet” or marquee and we will have more to say about the castle later, when we approach the different lands in turn. Marin creates a semantic structural map in which there are two different axes: the vertical fantasy-reality axis which runs from Fantasyland at the top to Main Street USA at the bottom and the horizontal historico-geographical distance and space-time axis that runs from the historical/geographical past and far off of Frontierland / Adventureland on the left, to the union of space and time in Tomorrowland where today and tomorrow are blended together. Marin’s musings about the map are a bit “left of center,” since he is a French communist theorist.

For Marin (1984), Frontierland represents the conquest of the West and America’s appropriation of land and resources. Frontierland’s rides center around conquest and exploitation, signifying “the temporal distance of the past history of the American nation.” Adventureland on the other hand, signifies temporal space and represents exotic locals and the flora and fauna found there. Marin associates Adventureland with colonialism, signifying “the spatial distance of the outside geographical world, the world of natural savagery. It represents the next possible fields of action, because adventure is also a frontier” (p. 250). On the opposite side of the map, we find Tomorrowland, which represents the future, and according to Marin it is:

Future-as-Space, Einsteinian Time, which realizes the harmonious synthesis of the two-dimensional world represented on the left part as time and space, time as historical, national past and space as strange, exotic primitivism. Tomorrowland is space as time, the universe captured by the American science and technology of today. (p. 251)

Marin (1984) sees both of these halves as having their own "excentric" centers. The left side has New Orleans Square, which mediates Adventureland and Frontierland. According to Marin, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride warns of the deadly consequences of hoarding of wealth instead of the free flow of capital— “the fantasy of primitive accumulation” whereas the right side’s excentric center is the "Carousel of Progress," which signifies the same permanent family experiencing endless technological progress, another fantasy—“the myth of technological progress” (p. 254). As these different views of Disneyland imply, there’s a lot of archetypal activity at work, or more properly, at play here, so let us look at the park in a more playful light, and see how Grof’s cartography might map onto the map of Disneyland.

More Playful Visions-- Nye and I

Nye (1981) distinguished eight different ways of looking at amusement parks [The "Amusing Ancestry" excursion, located in Frontierland says more about this], including seeing them as the “the closest approximation of the total play experience” (p. 73). Nye gives examples of how the different elements in Caillois’s (1958/2001) categorization of games are present in amusement parks. [Caillois’s categories and their archetypal links to Grof’s cartography can be found in the "Interlude"] In specifically applying Nye’s description of Caillois’s categories to the idea to Disneyland, we can see that the most well represented of Caillois’s categories at Disneyland are ilinx (vertigo) and mimicry or mimesis (imitation). From the various different attractions that spin you around in Fantasyland—"King Arthur’s Carousel," "Alice’s Teacups," and "Dumbo’s Flying Elephants" to the various different roller coasters and other thrill rides spread throughout the lands: "Big Thunder Railroad;" the "Matterhorn Bobsleds;" "Space Mountain;" "Indiana Jones Adventure;" "Star Tours;" and "Splash Mountain;" opportunities abound for vertigo, the chaotic state of "voluptuous panic" that momentarily destroys the stability of perception and causes disorientation (Caillois, 1958/2001).

Mimicry, or imitation can be found in the Fantasyland rides where the ride takes you through the different stories of favorite animated classics. The main character in the different rides, such as Snow White, in "Snow White’s Scary Adventure" initially was not present by Walt’s design. It was intended for the riders to be able to put themselves in the main character’s place and experience the story from their point of view. Later the characters were added in, because some people were confused by their lack of presence; but it was precisely this lack of presence that encouraged the identification. These rides were designed to “allow children to ‘step into’ and become a part of their favorite animated films” (Doss, 1997, p. 181). ∆RC[dl2]

Alea, or chance, is present in the way that Disneyland is experienced—in the freedom or randomness of the guest’s experience of the park itself, which Marin (1984) specifically refers to as “an aleatory moment and a choice to be made” (p. 247). The hub facilitates guests being able to go wherever they want whenever they want with no set order that everyone would follow, and the “general layout of the parks allows for freedom of choice” (Finch, 1983, p. 415). Disneyland was designed to help people to be able to choose what to see next and to enable them to easily get back to the hub, reorient themselves, and head off on another adventure.

Agôn, or competition is present in the underlying structure of the park. Agôn, according to Caillois (1958/2001) highlights especially the ruled and bounded nature of games, which are usually circumscribed in both time and space, and have rules that the players agree to follow. The word competition means “to strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or victory.” The term comes from the late Latin competere, which means to “strive together,” and from Latin com to coincide, be suitable” and petere to seek, in other words to seek with (AHD, 2000c, p. 376). As can be seen the original Latin had a different inflection, being more with than against. Competition itself, as we normally conceive of it is, in the “strive against” sense, not very present in the park, although one can find competition in video and other games in the various arcades. This “strive against” competition is everpresent in the outside world, and Disney sought to avoid this in his park, and consciously engineered competition out. Competition results in feeling threatened, which is exactly opposite of the atmosphere of reassurance that the park seeks to embody. ∆RC[dl3] [You can learn more about this in the "Art of the Show" excursion, located in Fantasyland in the complementarity principle section.] Disneyland, was designed to be unlike the amusement parks of Disney’s day:

He wanted to replace the risk taking, sense of danger, commercialism, salaciousness and morbidity associated with amusement parks’ standard “thrill rides,” barkers, concession stands, games of chance played for prizes, and sex and freak shows, with safety, wholesomeness, patriotic and educational values. (King, 1981a, pp. 119)

This being the case, Disneyland originally on purpose did not have many of the features that Nye elucidated in his description of amusement parks, and only later did Disney add roller coasters to the Disneyland, due to their immense popularity.

Archetypal Nature and Cartographic Correspondences

As Disney’s entertainments are geared for a mass audience, they have to work with universal concepts. At Disneyland, Finch (1983) notes 40,000 or more people may experience a ride each day, so Disneyland does not have the luxury of catering to particular tastes of a special group, they must appeal to everyone:

One could take every feature of the parks and explain its appeal in terms of some instinctive or emotional response common to almost all of us. The emphasis on the “common factor” does not encourage the designers to indulge in intellectual subtleties, but it does make for a fascinating series of archetypal experiences . . . the Disney parks . . . are designed to satisfy the existing imaginative appetites of tens of millions of men, women, and children. (p. 422).

In the films, Disney often turned to classic children’s literature, myths and fairytales, which, themselves drew upon archetypal material. At Disneyland, some of the films provided the basis for different rides, so they incorporated archetypal themes from the Disney films. Let us see how these archetypal themes play out against Grof’s cartography through the four outer planetary archetypes, and see how they correspond to the different lands of Disneyland

I propose that Main Street would be associated with the planetary archetype Saturn, with Main Street's structuring, traditional, historical past focus, as well as its function of separating the guest from the outside world, and preparing them for the rest of the journey which is similar to the separation phase of a pilgrimage or rite of passage, as we will see shortly on our tour. Fantasyland would be associated with the planetary archetype Neptune, focusing on fantasy and illusion and the confusion between illusion and reality, where Disney’s imaginal film images become realized in three dimensions. Tomorrowland, with its future orientation, celebration of technology and progress, and utopian feel would be associated with the planetary archetype Uranus. According to Marling (1997) “the whole western half of the park—is given over to the excitement endemic to liminal places where nature and civilization are competing for hegemony, while the outcome is still in doubt” (p. 103). Bukatman (1991) feels the same way, so Adventureland and Frontierland, and especially New Orleans Square would be associated with the planetary archetype Pluto. Adventureland and New Orleans Square draw on exotic yearnings, the desire to confront the unknown and the rebellious spirit of carnival.

Let us play just a bit more with this idea and bring a few other cartographies into the mix. If we look at Marin’s (1984) historico/geographic distinction about Frontierland and Adventureland, we can playfully situate Grof’s cartographic correspondences to the outer planetary archetypes onto Disneyland’s original four “lands,” in the following way: Fantasyland and Tomorrowland would retain their association with the planetary archetypes of Neptune and Uranus, respectively, while Frontierland, based on America’s historical/temporal past, could be associated with the planetary archetype of Saturn—the ruler of time. The exoticized, primitive, savage portrayal of the geographic past of Adventureland could be archetypally associated with the planetary archetype Pluto. The Disneyland television series in the 1950s was arranged into these four themed lands as well—Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland and Tomorrowland. [An excursion is available on Main Street USA –"The Child of the Times" which talks about Disneyland the park as a sibling of Disneyland the television show.]

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