An Examination of How Disney Commodifies Its Spaces Though Merchandise

• In Event: 64.026 - Disney as Curriculum

Abstract

Fjellman (1992) calls Walt Disney World (WDW) “the most ideologically important piece of land in the United States” (p. 10). Perhaps this is why WDW is a site ripe for a critical spatial theory lens because it is a chance to explore how ideas are infused into physical spaces. Fjellman’s book details the appeal of the park is its ability to bring ideas, such as American exceptionalism, utopian fantasies, childhood innocence, and Hollywood entertainment, to life in spatially significant ways. In other words, guests can step into a world that is the spatial manifestation of hegemony. There are various ways to explore WDW through a critical spatial lens, but this paper, relying on research conducted in parks themselves, will focus on how the Disney company commodifies WDW spaces through its various merchandise.
Scholars (Lefebvre, 2007; Massey, 2007; Soja, 2010) in critical spatial theory hope to illuminate the ways in which humans assign meaning to spaces through a discursively mediated and socially constructed process and how, conversely, the spatial works ontologically alongside the social and the historical. Building off of critical spatial theory, Helfenbein (2010, 2011) and others (Casemore, 2008; Kincheloe & Pinar, 1991; Whitlock, 2007), hope to see how the spatial works curricularly to both produce knowledge and signify which knowledge is of most worth. To tailor a critical spatial theory framework for research within WDW, this paper relies on various Disney scholarship (Budd & Kirsch, 2005; Garlen & Sandlin, 2016; Sandlin & Garlen, 2016) including: Fjellman’s discussion about the specific connection between commodification and WDW and Bryman’s (1999, 2011) concept of Disneyization.
Over the course of four days, pictures were taken of every item of merchandise the researcher encountered that explicitly referenced the parks and their spaces within. These photos were then analyzed for similarities and differences in terms of what type of merchandise, their price, and/or other distinguishing characteristics.
Initial findings indicate that the Disney company employs a scattershot approach to spatial merchandise, putting it in every form imaginable, from clothing to Christmas ornaments to toys. Additionally, merchandise fell into two general categories of themes, either referencing specific rides within the park or indicated the specific year the purchaser visited the park. At the time of this submission, more analysis is being conducted, but two initial implications can be drawn from findings. First, Disney recognizes how important space is to their guests’ identities by offering merchandise that allows them to display their favorite areas and/or rides of the park. Second, the merchandize itself the item evokes fleeting nostalgia for the last visit so that guest will return for another.
Altogether, the Disney company recognizes the importance the spatial plays in both the satisfaction of their guests’ visits and the ability to lure more to come and spend money. In the end, this paper examines how WDW reifies hegemony through a curriculum that commodifies place and space to teach its guests that the WDW is the most important place they will ever visit.

Author

• Gabriel Stephen Huddleston, Texas Christian University