Cinderella's Castle

[osprey_archer]

I'm working on my course syllabus about American carnival, so I've been looking for articles about Disney World. Everyone writes about Frontierland and Tomorrowland - because they're easy to slot into narratives about the tension between American nostalgia for nature and hope for technological utopia, the American mythic West, etc.; and of course Main Street USA slots nicely into the nostalgia paradigm too.

No one seems to write about Fantasyland.

Given that Disney is described as having a "mystical bond" with the American psyche, I find this a little weird. Apparently the American psyche has a great honking fairytale castle plopped down in the middle of it! What does it mean?

Do we secretly yearn for monarchy? Or are princesses merely a metonymy for our yearning to be special, the center of attention? Does the anachronistic castle - a castle with little in common with real, defensible castles - point to an inherent romantic unreality at the center of the American soul, and if so, is that good or bad?

Or are the people who talk about Disney's mystical bond with the American psyche just full of it? Maybe the castle is just a castle.

Comments

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

I feel a mystical bond with that castle. Especially if it ever might contain Belle's library.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Belle's library! I didn't see Beauty and the Beast till I was in my teens, and I feel my childhood was impoverished by not having Belle's library in my imaginative repertoire.

I have a friend who proclaims that it's one of her life goals to replicate Belle's library. I'm pretty sure that if she accomplishes it, that library will become a place of pilgrimage for all bookish Disney fans.

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

Until then, here are many other pilgrimage sites. (http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78) Happy Friday!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

American nostalgia for a romanticised European past? Maybe part of the legend of the pioneer who subdues the untamed continent (or, at least, someone else's continent) is the backdrop of castles and princes that he leaves behind him?

I did some work for a British firm that sold 'heritage' coach tours of Britain to the American market, and was surprised to find that one of their big destinations was Leeds castle in Kent. Historically it isn't particularly interesting, and as a defensible castle, most of Wales beats it hands down - but like Disney's castle, it *looks* romantic!

(In any debate about whether the British should have a monarchy, you can be sure that the line will be trotted out that the Americans like us having a Queen, and that tourism would surely be affected if we only had an unromantic president).

Or, as you say, possibly castles are just good fun. :-D

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I wonder how often cowboys get compared to knights in Westerns? This would be worth looking into, perhaps...

And yes, of course! The romantic and indefensible castle: always the best castle, except perhaps for the ruined castle. Although when you think about it, ruins are even more romantic and indefensible than any castle that still has all it's walls, so the principle still holds.

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of thinking along the same lines as bunn. Imperialism/manifest destiny/the Monroe Doctrine were all pretty much still in full swing at the time Disney designed & built Disneyland with Sleeping Beauty's castle at the center (Alaska & Hawaii weren't even states yet).

Especially since the US was winding up for the Cold War, and the Monroe Doctrine was kind of used as a basis/precident for the idea that the US had not only the right to interfere with the spread of European interests (e.g. - communism) in the "Western sphere", but also the duty to do so.

I mean, if that doesn't speak to feudal lordship and the absolute necessity of castles to ward off seige attacks, I don't know what does.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think you have a future in academia. Balloon this out to 2000 words and throw in a few footnotes, and lo! you have an article!

How do the princesses fit into this narrative? Do they speak to America's (delusional) image of itself as ever-innocent?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think the princesses might be a non-threatening version of the medieval peasant idea that the royal family can't possibly be bad people? It's the bureaucracy and administration that surround them that are corrupt.

Hence, big federal goverment is bad, but princesses are good, because they require saving and subsequently, marrying. And of course fairytale princesses don't mind at all marrying shepherds who have Proved Themselves (by exploring the wilderness and returning with treasure and wisdom), so they are natural egalitarians. :-D

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I vote for "full of it."

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

But that cuts short all the juicy theorizing!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't have an answer to what it means, exactly, but I'm thinking about how ballads came over from Scotland and continued to be sung in the Appalachians, and how some details would shift, but others wouldn't, so you'd get this weird mix of a farm-country tale, but with kings or swords in it, too. So maybe it's something like that? We don't really have castles here in the United States... but they're part of our storyverse.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

They're definitely part of our imaginary geography. I wonder if it's the fact that we don't have them that puts them at the center? They aren't there, so we yearn for them more.

[enemyfrigate.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Fantasyland equals Fight Club?

BTW, I would love to see your Carnival syllabus when it is finished.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

If you PM me your email address, I'd be happy to send it to you.