Is Disneyland the great American artwork?
Getty ImagesThe California theme park and its international offshoots are more valued than ever for their craft and design. Are they art, symbols of unchecked capitalism, or both, asks Al Horner.
In art we both lose ourselves and find ourselves, the old adage goes. It's hard to think of a place that embodies this better than Disneyland, the California orange grove turned emblem of US culture that visitors have been losing themselves in for six decades now.
As well as allowing visitors to immerse themselves in imaginative lands they can walk (and ride) through, it's also full of findings about the psyche of America. "It's an extremely revealing window into how America interprets the world and itself," says Todd Martens, a LA-based writer and self-described Disneyland addict. Stepping into Disneyland, he notes, is like stepping into a storybook, spanning multiple Americas that never were. There's its version of a swashbuckling South, full of pirates, ghouls and drooping Spanish moss (New Orleans Square). There's its take on the Wild West, full of gold rush prosperity and rootin'-tootin' saloons (Frontierland). There's even a vision of a retro-fantastic future, which predicts US colonies thriving out among the stars (Tomorrowland). Fantasy they may be, but these tell us about the country that created them, its desires and projections. "The good and the bad," as Martens puts it.
AlamyBut is Disneyland art? Certainly, of late, there has been an increasing desire to see it as such. For all the cultural prominence of Disneyland, and despite the 18.6m visitors it draws each year, the park has not traditionally been discussed in those . Neither have its sister parks in Florida, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris or Shanghai (all of which are also-rans according to Disneyland purists, who argue that Disneyland is the only park Walt Disney made himself and therefore the only one that truly matters).
However, that is changing. Last month, a new documentary series, Behind The Attraction, debuted on Disney+, highlighting for the first time the technological and artistic ingenuity that goes into the theme park's most famous rides. It follows a fascinating in-depth history of the park, The Imagineering Story, that premiered on Disney+ in 2019. "For the first time, Disney is trying to tell its own story and acknowledge the ingredients that make up the magic," says Mark Brickey, an artist and presenter whose podcast Disneyland for Designers unravels the design secrets that make the place tick. His show is proof that it's not just the Mouse House themselves leading the charge in the fight for recognition of its artistry. Online, a groundswell of podcasts, websites, YouTube channels and Instagram s have emerged breaking down the park's inner-workings, and pushing for it to be reconsidered within our culture. For decades, Disneyland has been synonymous with frivolous fun and popcorn-fuelled entertainment. Now, fans are wishing upon a star for Disneyland to be seen as more than that.
Moving that needle isn't easy. In 2015 Martens wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times, titled Single Rider: Going Solo at Disney. It detailed some of the stigma he receives as a man in his 30s who adores Disneyland: the "prospective girlfriend [who] said it was creepy", the confused looks at dinner parties. The piece concluded with a lie. "Do you stay here for business":[]}