Description
What can Disneyland tell us about the (changing) politics of American exceptionalism? This paper will argue that Disneyland is built upon an exceptionalist understanding of America’s history (and future) in order to present a space which both embeds at home and exports abroad American exceptionalism, identity and beliefs. It will do this by exploring the lands within the parks as 'iconic sites' that memorialise and display America’s greatness, looking at how these draw on the nation’s expansionist history through spaces such as ‘Main Street’ and Frontierland’ that (re)present America as it once was, but also spaces that view America as it could be such as ‘Tomorrowland’ and ‘EPCOT’ which seek to make real a utopian vision of the future only possible through democratic neoliberal capitalism. It will argue that much like the American dream itself Disneyland is mythical, presenting a version of the nation that never really existed, but acts as a physical manifestation of America’s unique history and exceptional identity that is then exported across the world through its global locations. My paper will develop an everyday politics approach that draws on literature on banal nationalism, popular culture and consumerism to explore how Disneyland embeds and exports America.
