Simulated Imperialism

TDSR VOLUME XXV NUMBER I 2013 25 Simulated Imperialism STEPHANIE MALIA HOM Simulated imperialism is a paramount dynamic of the contemporary. It marks the mutual articulations of empire and hyperreality that build signifying distance into imperial formations and their discriminatory operations. The Disney empire is one of its most pernicious forms. This article looks to Disneyland to bring simulated imperialism into sharper relief by detailing its three interlocking movements: the signification of imperial processes generated by simulacra; the amplification of colonizing projects through simulation; and the interpellation of hybrid subjects between (im)mobility and (in)animation. It takes the It’s a Small World ride as its primary example. One of the oldest attractions at Disneyland, it provides a multicultural tour of a metaphorical global village wherein animatronic children, stylized in cultural stereotypes, sing and dance in the name of world peace. Yet this simulated world is one of deceptive heterogeneity. In fact, It’s a Small World reveals an idealized world to be one erased of all difference in favor of a white, English-speaking, and culturally American utopia. It thus spatializes the forceful presence of empire within its all-embracing discursive formation. To theorize simulated imperialism using this example is to position empire within the domains of unending semiotic breakdown and the globalized (im)mobilities that presently order our excessive, networked, high-carbon societies. This opens a way to think through imperial formations from the destabilized margins of signification, and from these limits, to search out radical possibilities for subversion and resistance in the spaces between the imperial and the hyperreal. Behold, Disneyland: degenerate utopia of ideological fragments and childhood wishes.1 It Stephanie Malia Hom is the President’s is a self-declared land of futures, frontiers and fantasies, with strikingly porous boundar- Associates Professor of Italian at the ies between such symbolic geographies. Space and time press against each other here, University of Oklahoma, Norman. passing, without rupture, from the furthest reaches of outer space to Main Street USA, 26 TDSR 25.1 from robotic futures to irrecoverable pasts determined by At Disneyland, imperial formations inhabit the inter- manifest destiny. We, too, pass seamlessly through these fic- stices of the hyperreal, pivoting along simulated vectors of the tive lands where there are no borders or passport controls. It physical and the psychic, interior and exterior, miniature and is a sort of time travel, for these are also the spaces and times gigantic, copy and original. Simply put, this is a locus where of childhood, when a visit to Disneyland was the ultimate the (post)colonial and the hyperreal converge. It is also where dream come true for so many.2 As children, we dashed be- we can attend to the ways that protracted imperial processes tween teacups and tiki rooms on a quest to experience every interact with the precessions of simulacra that shape contem- ride. At the end of the day, exhausted, we felt as if we had porary image society. It is here that a nexus of imperial for- mastered the park, domesticating its characters and conquer- mations is manifest that simultaneously generates, delimits ing its every land. We were imperialists in a Disney empire. and denaturalizes the impulse of our present historical mo- These sentiments of mastery are the percolations of ment: simulated imperialism. imperial debris at play in everyday life. They are also mark- This essay looks to Disneyland to bring the operations of ers of a salvage operation that resurrects the pleasures of simulated imperialism into sharper relief. It takes as its pri- imperialism linked to a seemingly vanished colonial order. mary example the spatial practices of the It’s a Small World Disneyland, as a place and an imaginary, entangles what Ann ride. As one of the oldest attractions at the theme park, it Stoler has called “imperial formations,” or processual con- offers a multicultural tour of a metaphorical global village stellations of decimation, displacement and reclamation that where animatronic children, stylized in cultural stereotypes, persist in the contemporary.3 These are the ruins of colonial sing and dance in the name of world peace (fig.1 ) . This empires resuscitated as processes that have their own life boat ride through an elaborate stage set is a simulacrum breath — surfacing and disappearing and resurfacing amidst within the archetypal simulacrum that is Disneyland. Yet physical remains (e.g., convict islands) and ruined bodies this miniature world is also one of deceptive heterogeneity. (e.g., landmine survivors) and damaged psyches (e.g., mental In fact, the ride’s spatial practices reveal an idealized world to disorders). Imperial formations leave material traces, yes, but be one erased of racial, cultural and linguistic difference in they operate more potently as relations of force — allocating, favor of a white, English-speaking, and culturally American reappropriating, deflecting, excluding, denying, deferring, utopia. Thus, the ride materializes the forceful presence of disavowing — within the politics of the present. How impe- empire within its all-embracing discursive formation. rial formations persist in the present is exactly the challenge What follows is a close reading of the It’s a Small World that Stoler set for postcolonial scholarship: to momentarily ride that theorizes the three interlocking operations of simu- unbind, and thus to reveal, the sinews that link the “historical lated imperialism: the signification of imperial processes blunting” that has come to characterize postcolonial stud- generated by simulacra; the amplification of colonizing ies with “the political life of imperial debris, the longevity of projects through simulation; and the interpellation of hybrid structures of dominance, and the uneven pace with which subjects articulated between (im)mobility and (in)anima- people can extricate themselves from the colonial order of tion. It shows the imperial and the hyperreal to be mutually things.”4 It is this task that I take up here. constitutive in the contemporary. Such a theorization reveals figure 1 . Exterior view of the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. HOM: SIMULATED IMPERIALISM 27 the positioning of empire within the domains of unending tices structured in dominance,” insofar as the visitors to each semiotic breakdown and the globalized mobility systems that experience imperial affinities, becoming metaphorical Orien- order the excessive, networked, high-carbon societies of the talists and Roman centurions, respectively.8 early twenty-first century. Simulated imperialism amplifies colonizing projects through The built environment is an especially privileged site for simulation. It thus brings the colonial past into the hyperreal this type of analysis because it gives fixed physical form to present, suffusing the aforementioned practices of domi- shifting imperial formations — as many architectural stud- nance with nostalgia for colonial space-time. The colonial, ies of colonial empires have shown.5 Here, I use the term then, is always-already the consequence of shifting imperial “colonial” (and its variants) to describe an attitude that desires formations.9 What is more, simulated imperialism evokes the forced settling of physical and psychic territories, among colonial pasts that have always been rooted in fantasy. It them the nineteenth-century European scramble for Africa produces mirages, hallucinations, specters that do not corre- and strategies of internal colonization. And I take “empire” spond to historical realities. It is simulation at its best. (and its variants) to mean that curious sway of imperium and For example, the Bab Al Shams desert resort in south- emporium that binds the neoliberal present to these variegated western Dubai evokes a colonial past that never existed. colonial pasts.6 Empire is thus always-already multivalent. It A self-styled Arabian oasis, it masquerades as a pseudo- operates, unevenly and contentiously, across different tempo- Ottoman caravanserai where visitors can indulge their every ralities and geographies, macro- and micro-scales, and politi- Orientalist impulse, from gazing upon belly dancers to riding cal and economic spheres to establish and reinforce differen- camels. If one so chooses, one can even go “behind the veil” tial sovereignties that continue to subjugate the less powerful. by dressing up in a burqa. Thus, it offers a tableau vivant of This essay calls attention to the particular constellation revivified Oriental stereotypes, a collision of colonial fantasy of empire and simulation that builds signifying distance into and hyperreality where visitors may enjoy the pleasures that imperial formations, but that is no less potent in its discrimi- once belonged to European colonizers. Disavowal, too, struc- natory effects than more physical processes. The Disney tures this amplification, insofar as Bab Al Shams itself be- empire is one of its most pernicious forms. To situate empire comes the site of ideological illusion wherein visitors, know- within simulation also opens a way to think about imperial ing full well that the resort was built on the backs of modern- formations — and empire — from the destabilized margins day slave laborers and continues to be run by indentured ser- of signification. From these limits, we can stake out new

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