Disney World and Posthistory

Abstract

Tr his study deals primarily with Disney World and is presented, at least in places, in narrative form, following a linear time frame, an actual walk-through analysis of Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, and, most importantly, the retention of my two sons as participants and speakers. The study intends to show the skewed history, ahistory, or posthistory of Disney in theme parks that have eradicated all sense of shame from history. It also will show that Disney World is based upon an elaborate and highly successful blueprint of high modernism (and assembly-line capitalism), whose major trope, I contend, is metaphor, while the actual experience of the park must necessarily follow a postmodernist line of thinking/experiencing, whose major trope is metonymy. Thus, the experience of the park is often at odds with the blueprint. Further, I want to show that the major critics of Disney's theme parks (excluding Max Apple in fiction and the South Atlantic Quarterly issue devoted to Disney), Louis Marin and Jean Baudrillard, have given an aerial view of Disney, with no actual proof that either one ever set foot in the park or went on any rides. Their analyses rely on blueprints, conceptual thinking, and figures of resemblance (meta-