Notes on the Geography of Fantasy

Hollywood: Reality and Fantasy -- Sorting out the Difference
· CBS eliminated poor people from TV soaps because too many viewers sent packages of food and clothing.
· Marcus Welby, MD -- a TV doctor -- received tens of thousands of letters asking for medical advice.
· 53 percent of viewers of the TV show ER say they learn important health-care information from the program.
· Rural small town residents who experienced no crime, named "crime in the streets" as the major problem in their communities.
· The average person in United States watches 4 hours of TV per day.
· TV is a powerful medium: it substitutes fantasy for reality.

Where and what is Hollywood?
· "Chiefly between our ears!," according to Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life, "in that part of the American brain lately vacated."
· Hollywood is a metaphor for Beverly Hills--many of the TV and movie stars and the people associated with these industries once lived there.
· Ben Stein, The View from Sunset Boulevard: "U.S. life on TV represents the distorted view of an elite of guilt-ridden Los Angeles-based writers and producers."

Disneyland: "The Happiest Place on Earth" (76 acres; opened 1955)
· movie sets that people can actually play on .
· heights of buildings are 5/8 (63%) of real structures .
· workers are trained to be actors.
· movie landscapes and places actually become real!
· best of imagined and plastic history--Germany's most famous 19th century castle is in Disneyland!
· best adventure from the world over (without real danger and effort).
· vision of technological utopia.
· escape from drab, corrupt, inefficient reality.
· a place without racial and income clashes, confrontation, environmental problems .
· a world of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, middle-class values and behaviors.
· one vast vanilla-flavored American melting pot.
· entertainment is education; education is ideology (see, Herbert Schiller, The Mind Managers).

Popularity of Disneyland
· attendance in 1955: 3.8 million visitors
· attendance in 1972: 21 million customers -- more than the attendance at all major league baseball games; twice the attendance at all NFL football games
· one day record: 82,000 in 16 August 1969
· total up to 1983: 250 million visitors have passed through Main Street

Disney World, Orlando, FL: Reality and Fantasy
· Florida legislature created Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967
· district is exempt from local and state zoning laws, land use, building codes
· district has power of eminent domain
· controls all services: water, sewage, roads, transportation
· tax-exempt bonds issued to build park--lower interest rates than from banks
· tried to keep as many economic activities (hotels, golf, camping, restaurants) as possible within the park (28,000 acres, size of Liechtenstein)
· whereas in Disneyland, a much smaller park, most economics outside park
· only 100 full-time residents: Disney officials and top managers
· no schools, huge savings for district
· yet 30,000 employees in park: must commute long distance for affordable housing
· contradiction: Walt Disney Company espouses free enterprise, except in its own markets!
· company state
· EPCOT: experimental prototype community of tomorrow--one planner said: "I have seen the future and it does not work."

Other theme parks: over 30 large-scale theme parks in United States alone
Tennessee, Nashville: Grand Ole Opry or Opryland [torn down about 1997]

400-acre park
five music towns: jazz, blues, country, folk, western, contemporary
attendance: 1.2 million (1972)
owned by National Life & Accident Insurance
visitor names used by agents to sell insurance

Southeast Ohio: Bibleland

camel rides, fishing in the Sea of Galilee, rides in the land of milk and honey

Florida, Orlando: Splendid China

76-acre park
$100 million construction cost
4,200 mile long Great Wall reduced to .5 mile!
typical Chinese "main street" of the 13th century

Japan, Tokyo:
1) Disneyland, licensed by Walt Disney: 10% royalty of tickets; 5% of food sold
2) Western Village, a Japanese theme park: 80-foot replica of Mount Rushmore cost $30 million to construct!

France, Paris: Euro Disney

open in summer of 1992
about 33% of initial development costs paid for by government
500,000 visitors per year yet lost $ 514 million in 1993
attendance much less than expected:
1) 1990s recession;
2) French dislike U.S. culture: wine now sold in restaurants to attract them!

Germany, Ruhr valley: Warner Brothers' film-leisure park planned

London, United Kingdom: Vinopolis

devoted to the joys of wine for 400,000 visitors/ year
attractions: ride a scooter with a televisual windscreen through Italian vineyards; fly a jet over Australia's grape kingdom

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 May 1997; last revised on 29 November 1999.