Disney World's Idealized America

Note: The following column was first published in September 1985.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The first thing you feel is safe, and you notice that things are quieter than they should be. People walk more slowly than they usually do.

The urban scurry, the over-the-shoulder glancing, the keep-your-purse-under-your-arm walk of the city dweller is absent.

You are at Walt Disney World in Orlando, the most calculated interpretation of the American dream ever created.

It is an American city where people walk without fear. It is a place where people stroll hand-in-hand and don't worry about much.

For the price of admission, for the high price of admission, peace can be yours.

Walt Disney guessed correctly many years ago that someday our greatest wish would be: "Please don't hurt me."

Nothing bad is allowed to happen to you in the Magic Kingdom. You could, I suppose, leap in front of a horse-drawn trolley. But the horses probably get training every week in stepping over people.

Every detail is taken care of. Need a washroom? There are more than even the weakest kidneys would require. There are first-aid stations, and places to get a cash advance on your credit card, and centers where you can nurse your baby.

There are no newspapers — Disney was smart enough to see to that. But his real genius was to realize that people want an America that never existed.

That is why the entrance to the Magic Kingdom is an idealized American Main Street, the kind of Main Street we all dream about.

The streets always are clean on this Main Street. The water is pure. The bugs have been removed from the air.

There is no graffiti. Nobody asks you for spare change. The trains run on time.

A monorail takes you from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot, Disney's monument to corporate America.

There, I went on the ride sponsored by General Electric. The rides in Epcot essentially are the same whether they are sponsored by GE or Exxon or General Motors.

They all show you a future shaped by the benevolence of giant corporations, a squeaky-clean future where there are no unsafe products, no poisoned air and no risk of nuclear accidents.

There is no hunger, there is no want.

Big business has seen to that.

But the GE ride makes a major miscalculation. It is the only mistake I found in Disney World.

The people in each little car get to choose their own ending to the ride. Everyone gets to punch a button and vote.

The votes are totaled by computer, and the majority rules. The ending is then projected on a screen, and it is either a space journey or a trip under the ocean or something like that.

But the other couple in my car froze when the time came to vote. You choose, they said. You do it.

They had not come to Disney World to make decisions. Choice is very un- Disney. His is a world free from the burden of choice.

The rides pick you up and drop you off and show you things. All you have to do is observe.

It is comforting. It is almost narcotizing. And again, it is a pretty good analysis of what we have become.

We have become a nation of watchers. Television, movies, video recorders. You name it, and we'll watch it.

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, though it is none of those things. The best part of it is something called "World Showcase."

Around a manmade lake (crystal clear, of course) stand replicas of cities from around the world. There are small but nicely done versions of the Eiffel Tower, Chinese temples and Indian pyramids found in Mexico.

Each country creates its own idealized version of how it would like to be thought of. You can walk through seven countries, dine in local restaurants and buy local goods.

And everywhere you go, you hear people saying the same thing: "I guess we don't have to go to Europe now. We've been there."

They say it as a joke, but they are only half-kidding.

Disney's goal was to make it possible to see the world without ever having to leave America.

It is a world that speaks English and takes dollars. It is a world where everyone loves us.

It is a safe world.

And like everything else here, it is a fantasy.

But it sure is nice while it lasts.

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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