parktrotter

By the time we settled down on a curb for the 6:30 Christmas Fantasy Parade, we had been in Anaheim for three days, nearly all of that time in the grip of Disney, and I was approaching the point at which I had enough of the Magic.

Disneyland is, of course, a wholesome version of Las Vegas, an intentionally overwhelming experience. Here is a fine description of the mental atmosphere in Las Vegas, from In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle by William Fox. He is describing developer Steve Wynn’s art collection, and the opening of a Guggenheim gallery on the Strip:

Both the art and the gambling are aspects of spectacle. The Strip, once competition arrived in the form of gambling in other states and on Indian lands, morphed into mass spectacle.  It became a pedestrian experience where people go to stroll the neon-lit sidewalks at night in order to participate in something larger than life, larger than themselves.  You go to Las Vegas precisely because you want to be overwhelmed by an excessive visual ordeal.  We define and describe spectacle by the use of superlatives, and Wynn tells you on his taped message that his paintings are the “most expensive” and “the best.”  The Guggenheim’s advertising offers the viewer no less.

Disneyland operates by the same kind of absolute sensory overload, only of a very sugary sort. In the parades, the dose of sugar is dangerously large.

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