Reading Gold and Revill’s “Exploring Landscapes of Fear: Marginality, Spectacle and Surveillance” got me thinking about the role of suburbs in the articulation and reproduction of fear in/through landscapes. What I am particularly fascinated by is the themed suburb. Suburbs in general have long been criticized for fostering—perhaps among other things—a nostalgia that seems to go hand-in-hand with exclusionism. Themed suburbs are more explicit expressions of the desire to be both cut off from the perceived dangers of the outside world, and to dwell in the oneiric longings of idyllic pasts we never knew.
There are numerous examples of themed suburbs throughout North America and perhaps well beyond, suburbs modelled curiously after Olde English towns, turn-of-the-century Southern Americana beachside communities, and even Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest. Perhaps the most startling example has to be Celebration, Florida, the utopic, white-picket-fence suburb designed and owned by The Walt Disney Company. The official website boasts that Celebration is constructed to resemble a “classic,” “traditional” American town of yore, while early brochures marketed the community as “a place of caramel apples and cotton candy, secret forts, and hopscotch on the streets.”
The discourse around Celebration is completely fascinating (look here and here, for example). There are, of course, many critics who argue that Celebration is nothing short of a totalitarian structure that prohibits its residents from forming local government, and forces them to abide by strict guidelines regarding the upkeep of their properties so as to perpetuate the Disney fantasy. Gold and Revill’s ideas about spectacle, marginality and surveillance can be aptly applied here.
What's also interesting, recalling the brief mention of Baudrillard in class a few weeks back, is the idea of simulacra-infused “non-places” we now all inhabit—or at least Baudrillard himself would have argued. Baudrillard in fact wrote that Disneyland was the most authentic place in all of America, for the simple fact that it doesn't pretend to be real, but in fact shamelessly espouses its fantasy. From his article “Disneyworld Company”:
There are numerous examples of themed suburbs throughout North America and perhaps well beyond, suburbs modelled curiously after Olde English towns, turn-of-the-century Southern Americana beachside communities, and even Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest. Perhaps the most startling example has to be Celebration, Florida, the utopic, white-picket-fence suburb designed and owned by The Walt Disney Company. The official website boasts that Celebration is constructed to resemble a “classic,” “traditional” American town of yore, while early brochures marketed the community as “a place of caramel apples and cotton candy, secret forts, and hopscotch on the streets.”
The discourse around Celebration is completely fascinating (look here and here, for example). There are, of course, many critics who argue that Celebration is nothing short of a totalitarian structure that prohibits its residents from forming local government, and forces them to abide by strict guidelines regarding the upkeep of their properties so as to perpetuate the Disney fantasy. Gold and Revill’s ideas about spectacle, marginality and surveillance can be aptly applied here.
What's also interesting, recalling the brief mention of Baudrillard in class a few weeks back, is the idea of simulacra-infused “non-places” we now all inhabit—or at least Baudrillard himself would have argued. Baudrillard in fact wrote that Disneyland was the most authentic place in all of America, for the simple fact that it doesn't pretend to be real, but in fact shamelessly espouses its fantasy. From his article “Disneyworld Company”:
Disney World and its tentacular extension is a generalized metastasis, a cloning of the world and of our mental universe, not in the imaginary but in a viral and virtual mode. We are no longer alienated and passive spectators but interactive extras [figurants interactifs]; we are the meek lyophilized members of this huge "reality show."
A indepth look into the relationship between fear and fantasy/nostalgia would be more than worth an attempt. This I'll throw out to all of you.
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