Disney Overview and Orientation 3

Neptunian Playground

Disneyland has been called heart-shaped (Marling, 1997). I envision it more of a womb. Disneyland’s shape is like an inverted triangle, the symbol used to represent the feminine in many different symbol systems. In China, the triangle is a water symbol, pointing the direction of the falling rain, and is a symbol of the feminine. In Hinduism, the triangle is the life-giving form of Durga, an aspect of the goddess Parvati—Shiva’s partner. For the Hindus, the yoni, which is the Sanskrit for womb, is symbolized by the downward-facing triangle and was associated with the vulva and the pubic triangle (Biederman, 1994, p. 394). For the Pythagoreans, the triangle itself means cosmic birth (p. 353--354.). The symbol delta [∆], which looks like a triangle is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet and is shorthand for change in modern mathematics. Donaldson (1993) in discussing the womb in relation to original play notes:

We all begin life in the same way, playing in the dark, as a sphere nestled within another sphere. The womb is our first playground, mother is our first playmate and play is the energy source offering us live, support, trust, energy and possibility. For the next nine months, we snuggle within our mother’s body. We share her body, food, blood and feelings. More “in touch” than we will ever be, we feel the sense of oneness inherent in original play. The womb is a matrix of being that bridges the gap between individuals. The result is a powerful, instantaneous, synergistic and harmonious rhythm . . . . The womb is our earliest matrix of life. Besides nourishment it provides other truly basic life skills: trust, balance, kindness, touch, blending and love. This is life’s play. In play workshops adults often tell me that playing was a profound experience that has brought them to tears, but they cannot say why. I believe in such cases we have a fleeting recognition. What we sense is original play, that sense of oneness, before we were conscious. (pp. 25-26)

Disneyland, too, is an amazing playground that is designed to evoke precisely the same feelings that Donaldson describes. Disneyland is also a very touchy place, and lavish attention is paid to texture and feel. Harmony abounds. [In the "Art of the Show" excursion, located in Fantasyland you can how Disney creates this harmonious feeling—what has been called “the architecture of reassurance.”] Let us look more generally at how the womb and Disneyland might be similar and see if this description of womb applies to Disneyland.

The womb is a very structured place, where activity is highly regulated. There is one way in and one way out, and the womb is specifically designed not to let the outside influences impinge. As we will see in our discussion of Main Street USA, there is only one way in and one way out of Disneyland. The park was specifically designed this way, to prevent guests from the disorientation they might feel if there were multiple entrances and exits. Disruptive elements are kept out through security screening at Disneyland’s entrance, and visual disruptions are kept to a minimum—including height restrictions of neighboring properties, so that they do not impinge on the view inside the park. Control is a major part of Disney’s magic. ∆RC[dl4] [The "Art of the Show" excursion located in Fantasyland and says more about the role of control.]

Disneyland is a bounded space, separated from the outside world by the berm, just as paradise is separate from the outside world and, as paradise's original meaning of a “walled garden” suggests. [An excursion into Disneyland’s associations with paradise, nostalgia and utopia can be taken in Tomorrowland on the "Looking-Back, Looking-Forward" excursion.] Marin (1984) notes that the berm and the railroad are circular, linear, continuous boundaries that enclose Disneyland. The Disneyland Railroad, one of the initial inspirational features of the park, encircles Disneyland, eternally returning to the same stations. Marin notes that “one neither enters nor leaves Disneyland by means of it” (p. 244).

Joseph Chilton Pearce (1980) notes that “the womb offers three things to a newly forming life: a source of possibility, a source of energy to explore that possibility and a safe place within which that exploration can take place” (p. 18). Disneyland, as we will see on the course of our journey, offers exactly this.

When the womb is functioning as intended, and the mother is in a safe, peaceful environment, and wants the baby; the womb is experienced as a safe, harmonious, paradisial place, where all the growing fetus’s needs are met. In Grof’s cartography, this would be BPM I, the womb before the onset of birth, associated with the planetary archetype Neptune. Disneyland meets all of these descriptors and Walt specifically designed the park with the needs of his guests in mind, often changing things to reflect this responsiveness. Walt met the guests where they were, and did not speak down to them, or go over their heads:

Disney had the uncanny ability of providing people with the kinds of things which set them at ease. “Walt never wanted to change anybody,” says John Hench. “he always figured that people were great just the way they were. We were always attempting things that would force people to move around somewhere or other, and he would say, “look, if they walk through there, you pay them for it somehow.” He never developed the kind of contempt you sometimes find in people in the advertising and publicity business. The concept of giving people what they want is often held up to ridicule, but the truth of the matter is that we rarely get an opportunity to see this kind of philosophy in action. More often we are confronted with the notion of giving the people what someone thinks they want. Disney never consciously played down to the public, treating it instead, as deserving of lavish attention (Finch, 1983, p. 421-422) ∆RC[dl5]

Disneyland, like the womb, is a very structured, controlled harmonious space. [The "Art of the Show" excursion located in Fantasyland shows this, and also contains side excursions into important play concepts such as transitional space and flow.]

Schickel called Disneyland an “atmospheric park” (King 1981a, p. 119). Not only is Disneyland a Neptunian place, because it is all about the imagination, but Disneyland has a rather watery nature physically, too. There are a large number of man-made lakes and waterways in the park, which aside from providing a park-like atmosphere, have a cooling effect, which is important during the warmer summer months. Many of the rides also use water as a medium of transport or have water involved in part of the ride: the "Matterhorn Bobsleds," "It’s A Small World," "Splash Mountain," "Pirates Of The Caribbean," "Storybookland," and the "Jungle Cruise," as well as the now defunct "Submarine Voyage" and motor boats all include water. And there is watery transport available on the Rivers of America; the "Indian Paddle Canoes," "Mike Fink’s Keel Boat," and the giant paddle wheeler "Columbia." The landscaping and plantings also help provide a park atmosphere as well as separating the crowds into smaller groups (King, 1981a). While we are on the subject of atmosphere and harmony, let us go to one of the most harmonious of all of Disneyland’s creations, Main Street USA, as we begin our grand tour of Disneyland to get the lay of the different lands.

A few pre-tour announcements are in order, beyond the familiar "Keep your arms and hands inside the vehicle." and "Hold on to your hats and other belongings." As previously mentioned, as we pass through the different themed lands, keep the different archetypes in mind, because this is not only an atmospheric park, but an archetypal park as well. Icons will help you more easily identify which archetypes are at play and what archetypal themes the excursions will be flavored by. A warning is in order here though. According to Jung, the gods never come alone—they are always intermingled and intertwined with each other and it is “a well-nigh impossible undertaking to tear a single archetype out of the living tissue of the psyche” (Downing, 1991, p. xix) and John Muir (2004), as we heard back in the method section wrote: “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” The same is true at Disneyland, so in some excursions, different archetypes tend to sneak in and make guest appearances. The excursions have been located by their major planetary archetypal theme, and are not as disciplined as Disney employees who are never seen walking through a land in the wrong themed costume.

The Grand Tour of Disneyland’s Lands

Main Street USA

Main Street USA is “one of the most successfully designed streetscapes in human history” and has exerted enormous impact (Francaviglia, 1981, p. 148). Main Street USA is a “classic landscape” and has become a revered environmental icon and Francaviglia notes that Main Street USA

ranks with the best of world squares and plazas in presenting an adaptive design genius; this may be difficult to accept from the creator of cultural icons like Mickey Mouse—nonetheless it is in itself one of the shrewdest and most successful designs in history” (p. 148)

Main Street has no competition. Main Street's harmonious, complimentary color schemes and thematic design have spread beyond Disneyland and influenced everything from strip malls, restaurants and hotels, to urban restoration. [The "Art of the Show" excursion located in Fantasyland says much more about the importance of complementariness at Disneyland].

Main Street as Strategic Opening Shot

Main Street is “scene one, ” as Walt called it. Main Street orients us, and sets the stage for the rest of the Disneyland experience. All guests come through this “common point of entry,” which facilitates the sense of shared experience (Marling, 1997, p. 61). Walt felt that this was important, not only to minimize the feeling of disorientation, but “he wanted everyone to be channeled in the same way to have their visit to Disneyland structured as part of the total experience” (Thomas, 1976, p. 251). Part of this structuring included leaving the outside world behind, which was part of the Main Street experience as Marling (1997) explains:

But during scene one—the ritual procession through the ticket gate, under the railroad station, and down Main Street—the layout of Disneyland allowed for no deviations from the master narrative. Everybody made the same trip from the station into town, the same long walk that the newcomer from somewhere else had to make back in 1900. The act of entry was a rite of passage telling the stranger to shake off the customs of that other place—the formless sprawl of Los Angeles out beyond the parking lot, the town two or three stops down the railroad tracks. Here, on this spot, the day started afresh, with a new set of rules. (p. 86).

This is similar to the separation stage of rites of passage. [Notions of liminality and pilgrimage can be found in the "Antistructure" excursion located in New Orleans Square /Adventureland.] ∆RC[dl6]

Main Street is like a movie set, its facades are a prominent design feature. Main Street was created, like Disney’s films through the collaborative efforts of Disney and his art directors turned imagineeers for Disneyland. “Like a film it is a mixture of memories, facts, old stories and fleeting impressions" (Marling, 1997, p. 62). Disney was a brilliant bricoleur, always tinkering with things and never afraid to combine things together in new and different ways. He took ideas from everywhere, and “inside the berm, the things he liked reshuffled themselves into a series of coherent streetscapes in the blessed absence of things he didn’t” (Marling, 1997, p. 170). [In the "Amusing Ancestry" excursion in Frontierland you can explore some of influential ideas and places that helped shape Disneyland ]

The rest of the park will similarly mix things together, but always harmoniously. And this all begins at Main Street USA, where harmony, good feelings, and nostalgia are the main attraction—setting the feeling-tone for the entire Disneyland experience. [Although nostalgia and harmony pervade the park, you can explore more about nostalgia on the "Looking-Back Looking-Forward" excursion located in Tomorrowland and also See the important role that harmony plays in the "Art of the Show" excursion in located in Fantasyland.] Finch (1983) describes Main Streets at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World as:

superlatively good musical-comedy stage sets designed by some of the best set designers of their time. Like other stage sets, they are covered with a kind of Pop sauce made of plastics, glass fiber, paint, and anything else that happened to be handy. (Finch, 1983, p. 433)

The smaller scale of Disneyland’s Main Street USA, Francaviglia (1981) notes is “a romanticized assemblage of architecture, carefully controlled in matters of style, period, size, scale and color” (p. 143), which gives it an intensity and a tightness “almost urban; yet familiar,” and has an “intimate small town feel” (p. 143). Main Street USA evokes positive feelings, and “the scale and proportions make for nearly perfect visual and architectural homogeneity” (p. 147). Main Street’s scale is slightly less than life-size, which enhances the sense of friendliness and intimacy. It establishes the right mood for the rest of the park and puts visitors in a receptive and nostalgic state of mind:

The sensation is one of experiencing a very familiar milieu—something akin to a memory yet hauntingly like a movie or film set . . . we recognize the place by its ambience and the feeling it generates . . . we’ve all been there before, even if we never lived in—or have been to—a small town. (Francaviglia, 1981, p. 147)

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