Copyright by Stephanie Jean Kolberg 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Stephanie Jean Kolberg Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Spaces of Indulgence: Desire, Disgust, and the Aesthetics of Mass Appeal Committee: Jeffrey Meikle, Co-Supervisor Steven Hoelscher, Co-Supervisor Janet Davis Elizabeth Engelhardt Mark Smith Paul Adams Spaces of Indulgence: Desire, Disgust, and the Aesthetics of Mass Appeal by Stephanie Jean Kolberg, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Acknowledgements I owe the completion of this dissertation to so many people who have helped me along the way. First of all, I would like to thank my committee members for all of their amazingly helpful feedback and guidance throughout graduate school and throughout the dissertation process. Thank you to co-chair Steve Hoelscher, for always encouraging me to clarify my ideas and to think harder about methodology and approach. While I didn’t end-up mentioning Freedom Ship in my final project, the seminar paper I wrote for his class on American Space and Place got me thinking about the idea of cruise ships as mini-utopias, and his amazing lecturing skills, which I got to witness as a teaching assistant in my second year in grad school, continue to provide a model to me of what engaged teaching looks like. Many thanks as well to co-chair Jeff Meikle, whose super keen editorial skills and consistent encouragement throughout this project helped me keep up the momentum and get things done, and helped me believe that I could in fact do what I was trying to do. I am positive that this dissertation would have been a much more painful experience if Jeff had not allowed me to bounce off the various and often disconnected ideas I had about all of this along the way. Thank you to Janet Davis, whose feedback has led me to think more carefully about political economy and about history, and who has inspired me to delve deeper in various directions I would not have otherwise considered. Thanks to Mark Smith, who has pushed me to think more about taste cultures, and who I too got to know as an excellent model for teaching when I was a teaching assistant in his Main Currents class. Mark’s ability to make almost any topic under the sun fascinating is inspiring. Thank you to Elizabeth Engelhardt whose input has stoked my curiosity to look further into issues of gender and into the history of the iv restaurant, and whose positive encouragement has pushed me to take my analysis further. Thank you to Paul Adams, who has made me look closer at issues of invisibility, power, and the possibilities of service-industry subversion, and who has also clued me in to the importance of scanning the Internet for the buzz around small town restaurant reviewers. I am lucky to have been part of such a warm and vibrant department and community, and all of the faculty members and staff in the Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin have played a big role in this. In addition to my committee members, Bob Abzug, Julia Mickenberg, Shirley Thompson Marshall, Nhi Lieu, Cary Cordova, Randy Lewis, Cynthia Frese, Stephanie Kaufman, and Valeri Nichols- Keller have all contributed greatly to an open and supportive environment. Ella Schwartz has been an invaluable help through all of this, and I’ve always looked forward to running into her in the office. Thanks to Rich Heyman in the Department of Geography and the Environment, whom I had the pleasure of working for as a teaching assistant for three semesters, and who has opened my eyes to the wonders of Sanborn maps and, most of all, CLUG. Thanks to the staff of the Jerome Laurence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute at Ohio State, and to Laurence Miller of the WoIfsonian, whom I am grateful to both for his love of cruise ships and for his kind and valuable assistance with archival materials. I would also like to thank the American Studies Department at Cal State Fullerton, which got me started in this direction in the first place, and I continue to be grateful for the various friendships and connections I made there, including those with Pam Steinle, Mike Steiner, and Cindy Maram, among many others. The nights at Stadium Tavern were some good ones indeed. v I would like to thank my parents, Dick and Vicki Kolberg, who have always been incredibly enthusiastic and supportive of my decision to be (seemingly forever) in grad school. I am completely certain this whole process would have been much rougher if it had not been for them, and I have always looked forward to the breaks in school when I was able to get away and to go back home again. Thank you also to my sister, Ashley Kolberg, who has been a great source of good conversations and laughs along the way, and whose ability to get things done, and to get them done phenomenally, has always amazed me. I have always looked forward to our summer adventures, and am absolutely positive I would not have as many Strand bags if it wasn’t for her. Many thanks as well to Jeni Rohlin, who’s been an amazing friend throughout all of grad school and beyond. I’m indebted to one of our conversations in particular, in which she really got me thinking about mobility and the way it linked many aspects of my dissertation together. I cannot imagine not being able to pick up the phone and divulge all manners of salacious and mundane details to her. Thanks also to Kassie Watson, Alex Bundy, and Jimmy Atwell. Jimmy opened my eyes to the world of Tom Goes to the Mayor, and for that, and numerous other things, I thank him. Here in the Department of American Studies, I have been lucky to get to know many incredible grad students, and each one has made this a place I am sad to be leaving. The great friends in my dissertation group, Rebecca Onion, Becky D’Orsogna, and Gavin Benke, have been central through all of this, and are among the reasons I have felt so glad to be in the department. All are incredibly astute and critical readers, and I have greatly enjoyed getting to read and learn about their work as well. They’ve each helped push me to consider ideas and approaches I otherwise would not have; I miss the days of study forts and Mandola’s. In addition to great conversations and vi commiserations about various aspects of grad school, all of the dinner parties and movie nights and coffee shop work days and swims at Barton Springs are some of the things I love most about Austin and about grad school, all of which would have been much less fun if it hadn’t been for them in particular. I want to thank the other members of my cohort: John Cline, Andy Jones (and his mad dissertation defense note-taking skills - thank you!), Christina Garcia Lopez, Jacqueline Smith, Marvin Bendele, and Lisa Powell; I’m happy we’ve been in this together. And to the Blunderbuss crew - Irene Garza, Dave Croke, Josh Holland, Andi Gustavson, Eric Covey, and Marsha Abrahams – you guys rule. I would also like to thank other friends and fellow grad students who made everything more interesting, each in different ways: Katie Feo Kelly (who led an awesome ASA panel and got me thinking about the gendered aspect of “stuff”), Andrew Busch, Tracy Wuster, Jennifer Jefferson, Anna Thompson Hajdik, Renee Searfoss, Jeanette Marie-Therese Vaught, Audrey Russek, Charlotte Nunes, Pete Mongillo, Kevin Kelly, Jessica Mitchell Bendele, Kirstan Ryan, Nick Muntean, Laura Smith, Tina Reid Crawford, Gabrielle Russo, Carly Kocurek, Danny Gerling, Toni Fassi, Ben Lisle, Susan Quesal, Vicky Hill, Amy Nathan Wright, Kimberly Hamlin, Allison Wright, Annie Peterson, Chelsea Martinez, Robin O’Sullivan, Andrew Hamsher, Andrew Friedenthal, Anne Gessler, Sean Cashbaugh, Brendan Gaughen, Sherri Sheu, and Jennifer Doane. And thanks to Hole in the Wall. Lastly, I want to again thank Gavin Benke. What can I say? He’s one of the best people out there. I cannot imagine doing any of this without him. vii Spaces of Indulgence: Desire, Disgust, and the Aesthetics of Mass Appeal Stephanie Jean Kolberg, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Co-Supervisors: Jeffrey Meikle and Steven Hoelscher This dissertation examines the narratives surrounding spaces that represent a fantasy of democratized pleasure, power, and excess. In looking at the construction of the gentlemen’s club image, the promotion of Carnival cruise ships, and the discourse surrounding Red Lobster, this project explores the way different types of “indulgent” consumer spaces embody tensions between disgust and desire, and serve as examples of the way various anxieties and ideals are formulated and invoked as articulations of/contests over aesthetic meaning. By putting seemingly disparate types of consumer spaces into conversation with one another, this dissertation seeks to analyze underlying interconnections which would otherwise remain cordoned off in separate disciplines and within separate schools of thought. The upscaling of strip clubs into gentlemen’s clubs, beginning in the 1980s, reveals the methods by which so-called elements of disgust have been disguised, and in which aesthetic cues have been employed to minimize feelings of transgression and to bolster a sense of mainstream “normalcy.” Through downplaying elements seen as lower-class, gentlemen’s club owners have attempted to obscure cues of transgression in order to normalize zones of male power.