Theme Park

The item I found most interesting out of both sets of readings from Theme Park was in the second chapter, on Theme Park as a Land. There was a great deal of focus on theme parks that worked and theme parks which did not. Theme Parks that worked included Disneyland (naturally) Six Flags over Texas and Dollywood. It also touched upon failures such as Freedomland, and offered that the reason why some succeeded and others did not were the methods used to incorporate the theme into each park. While it mentions other causes like “history rife with stories of accidents, armed robberies, a disgruntled public, competition from the 1964-5 World’s Far and a lack of company vision,” (page 88). I’m surprised that there wasn’t a more economic or social aspect to the text’s account on what made a theme park fail. Much of the blame fell on either a parks inability to theme or producing a theme that did not have a wide enough appeal to attract anyone. While I’m sure this is a part of it, I’d be shocked if it wasn’t more to do with localized economic and social issues going on at the time. Implying that it’s all about the theme of the park leads me to ask: “Do you think Disneyland would have done as well if it had opened in Newfoundland? I mean, the theme would have been the same.” Well of course not. That’s just absurd. And yet that seems to be what Lukas is suggesting all throughout the second chapter.

I enjoyed the quote from Maxim Gorky regarding Coney Island at the beginning of the Theme Parks as Oasis section. While I knew of Coney Island I have never been there, having been introduced to it mainly through cartoons and comic books growing up (all the Marvel Comics were based in New York, and the characters would make frequent trips to the Island during ‘filler’ issues). I found it disheartening that the sections paints a picture of a Coney Island that has largely gone downhill since the invention of the Theme Park. Is this the case? That’s be disappointing. Another figment of my childhood down the drain. First Santa Claus, then last year the Easter Bunny, and now Coney Island. If it has failed, I would wonder why. Much more expensively run parks have survived in much less touristy locations over the years. Drive across Canada as a child and you’ll get it. Some of those amusement parks are just horrendous. But New York is still a major tourist location, so I find this deterioration of Coney Island odd and somewhat unbelievable. Perhaps I am reading the text wrong and clarification is necessary.

The picture of Window of the World in Shenzhen, China (page 87) actually reminded me a lot of a recent stay in Las Vegas. Which is odd. You would think that the pictures of Vegas would have reminded me of Vegas. But it was the miniaturized version of the New York City skyline, complete with the World Trade Centre, still intact. Now this book was printed in 2008, but I wonder when that picture was taken? I ask this because during my stay in Vegas I stayed at the New York New York hotel, where they have gone to extensive lengths to make sure that the towers (and the bad memories they bring) are seen nowhere within it’s walls.  While the skyscrapers were never portrayed on the resort’s façade, there are lots of places within where hasty repair work has been done. Every elevator was a silhouette of the skyline across it, with one large building in the middle. If you look, you can see that it used to be the trade centre, but that the space between them was coloured in to make one building. I know this isn’t much of a point, but it just made me realize the lengths these places will go to to make sure their patrons have a good time, free of anything that might bring them down, even a sad reality.

These two sets of readings from Theme Park were filled with many colourful things, some of which I found very interesting. Even though the text is divided itself into themes (land, machine, show, etc) it also features a loose chronology from the invention of the theme park into the present day incarnation(s). As such, we’re getting closer and closer into an era of theming and theme parks that I am personally familiar with. That said there were still some surprises, the “infant incubators” described on page 134 being one of the more shocking. There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong about this. When I saw this I really couldn’t quite grasp what I was seeing. I was convinced I was reading this wrong, that it was in fact showcasing the futuristic technology that would one day be able to save babies, like a Future World exhibit or something of the like. But no, a quick search on the Internet revealed that Dr. Martin Couney “operated a neonatal care facility as a 10 cent sideshow at Coney Island.” (Quote taken from Coney Island History Project, found at http://www.neonatology.org/pinups/coneyislandnurses.html.) I know I’m belabouring a simple point here, but I just can’t believe this existed. Today there are huge controversies over things like The Bodies exhibit in Las Vegas that features real human corpses. To me that pales in comparison to this. I’m moving on to my next point, mainly because I can’t find an argument here other than horror.

Actually, I think that lends fairly well to my next comment. On page 162 there’s mention of a lawsuit in which a child saw a Mickey Mouse actor in Disneyland without its head on and the parents sued because the child had been traumatized. Thinking about this case right after the “infant incubators” to me just shows us how far we’ve come. On a more serious note though, cases like this have always bothered me. There is some truth to theme park enthusiasts saying that much of their thrill is gone because companies are worried about lawsuits. In this case a park was sued not because of a death or an injury, but because a little girl learned maybe too young that make believe things were, in fact, make believe. Would they sue the department store if, next Christmas, the little girl sat on Santa’s lap and tugged on his beard and discovered he wasn’t real too? Of course not, the store doesn’t have as much money as Disney.  I tend to think that if the money those parents won would have been sunk into things like the prevention of sexual predators on the internet (or any number of other things that actually scar kids) the world would be a better place. Instead we have a world where the guy in the 100 degree Mickey suit can’t take off his head in Florida. Progress.

There was a line on page 104: “predicting what they will want after they leave a ride and incorporating it into the park layout.” This reminded me of a PC game I used to play called RollercoasterTycoon. In it you get to plan your own amusement park (not a theme park, I now know the difference). The more I read about the planning that goes into these parks, the more I realized how accurate the game was. You control all the aspects and layout, down to where garbage cans and maintenance workers went. The game’s AI is meant to simulate the waxing and waning desires of consumers and park goers, and does so very effectively. It’s actually very interesting to see this on a grand scale in real life when I’m actually at theme park or themed area, and to realize that while a person is unpredictable, people on masse are exceptionally predictable.

These last two readings from Theme Park, focussing on theme park as a brand and theme park as a text respectively, were really the most interesting to me. As a fiction writer, the idea of successful branding intrigues me, as I’d somehow like to emulate it. Not in the theme park milieu to be sure, but I think any author would be lying if they said they didn’t fantasize about their work being as popular as Walt Disney’s. So the focus on Disney in these chapters was relatable to me on many levels, is what I’m trying to say. I love the amount of effort and thought that goes into Disney parks. They could easily rest on their laurels at this point and still draw large crowds, but they don’t. Things like the “hidden Mickeys” referenced on page 175 prove that. It also goes back to something I’ve mentioned in class, about corporations seeking to “gameify” reality and turn everything into a game that rewards people for continued spending. A few years ago there was a contest to see who could find all the hidden Mickey’s in Disneyland and take pictures of it. I think the total number of hidden Mickeys was quite large. The prize was huge, but Disney made much more off the amount of people flocking to their park to try and win it. They had successfully gameified what was already a fun family experience. There are hidden Mickeys in the movies as well, and people love pointing them out. There are literally thousands of videos on YouTube of people showing you where they found Mickeys, proudly proclaiming how smart they are. Disney doesn’t order these videos taken down even though it’s using their animation in a way that definitely constitutes copyright infringement. Why would they? I wouldn’t turn down the free advertising, either. There’s just too much to talk about. The fact that Disney could have had a nuclear reactor if they had wanted one was just awesome to me. I would have had to have done it. The Pirates brand they talk about on 183 also intrigued me, as they’ve made a successful movie franchise out of what basically started as a two-hour commercial for their oldest and least up-to-date attraction. By the time the movie came out, I remember thinking that there had been a movie about it before. Because I knew I knew the name, I just couldn’t think from where. And they carefully left the Disney insignia off all the posters to make sure not to alienate older viewers. This is a case of marketing becoming a vicious circle now. What used to be simple logic (successful movie means theme park attraction based on it) now is complicated. The ride spawns the movie which spawns the cereal and the game which spawns another ride. And it’s everywhere. At one point, during the height of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles popularity, there was a comic book based on the television show that was based on another comic book. If that isn’t circular themeing I don’t know what is. Themeing is so popular that even uncreative people take a go at it. Like the Nara’s Dreamland people mentioned on page 186. I’m surprised Disney didn’t sue them for their bones.

Theming seems so popular that it has made its way into everyday life with micro-theming.  I would have initially thought of Vegas, but now that I read I can see it everywhere, like Starbucks and the new Burger Kings and McDonalds designs. Have you been in the ‘newer’ McDonalds? Because now there’s two. There are the ones that maintain the kid-friendly playplace atmosphere, and there are the ones like on Torbay road that try to look like a coffee hipster Starbucks ripoff. It’s actually quite impressive, and at least gives a reason for there being so many of them if they’re going to be diverse.

This leads to theming to the Nth degree, by which I mean that everybody is doing it. Everyone’s cashing in.  I refuse to believe that the owners of Hitler’s Cross didn’t know what they were doing. That was themeing for publicity’s sake. Games like Rollar Coaster Tycoon and novels like the Horrorland series of books (spun off from Goosebumps) pray on people’s love of themeing. The knowledge of “Comcastic Island” bothered me though. A theme park in a virtual space? Isn’t all virtual space supposed to be ‘fun’? Shouldn’t it all be like a theme park? Why do we need a theme park within a theme park? It’s not helped by the fact that I did work for Comcast… and was in fact there when I read this chapter. My coworkers got a kick out of this section.