Walt Disney and the Architectural Packaging of the Mythic West Author(S): Michael Steiner Source: Montana: the Magazine of Western History, Vol
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Frontierland as Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Architectural Packaging of the Mythic West Author(s): Michael Steiner Source: Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 2-17 Published by: Montana Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4520031 Accessed: 26/05/2010 17:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhs. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Montana Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Montana: The Magazine of Western History. http://www.jstor.org FBONUTIKEHID gas Tbmorrowlanl Walt Disney and 1e Architectral Packaging ofthe Myic West by MichaelSteiner When Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, ,. California,Frontierland (below, . ; 1955) welcomed tourists:ti version : Disney's ofthe historic .:::'>, ,-i Wild West. : :-. :'A . k:' ; -- i~ ,~ !;;~-:!~: ~ :~:'~ 111~::!:~ ! :, ::: _/;~f :' :, :ti i _.| S_ _ _ Ls_~ 5 i .; .. t . .. ....... J *; v Sunday,July 11! 1955, was a messy day fol Walt Disileyl After andmousetrap demonstration of a friendlyaton1ic reaction nearlya decadeof obsessiveplanning) eleven months of fren- in Tomorrowlarld.A gas main exploded in Fantasylande ziedconstructiorlu and nine months of televisedprogress re- The excitementcrescendoed, however, in Frontierland. portsnDisney's mental map of the worldwas readyto be born In a dressrehearsal for things to comein theWhite House, in Anaheim.Walt's soothillg fireside chats had involvedmil- C;RonnieReagan, as he wasintroduced, stood before the lionsof TV tray-clutchingfamilies in thebuilding processz and rusticstockade and welcomed Americans to theWild West. now this sharedvision of paradiseregained was aboutto be He beckonedthe televisionalldience to reclaimfrorltier realized.In an actof Prometheanaudacitar, Disney's imaginary gloriesaxld be ;'thefirst to enterthe gates of tiIneinto our worldhad been etchedupon the land and embeddedin the historicpast3 The loggedgates swung openo the throng publicmind. It was a dreamcome true:a fabricatedland of pushedinto the fort,and the camerasfocused on a group neatlypackaged regions that would become the key symbolic of agitatedkids in coonskincaps demandingto see their landscapeof modernAmerica and the best knownand most new frontierhero. ;4WhereXs Davy Crockett?5' they asked copiedplace on earth.Although DisneyXs rage for orderand a worriedArt Linkletter who was n:zightily relieved when reassuringarchitecture would resonate throughout America and Fess Parkerand BuddzrEbsen galloped upon the scene muchof theworld, Disneyland itself had a difficultand untidy stilldripping from an unplanned battle with a quirkylawn birth. ' sprinkler.C;We took a shortcut through the Painted Desert Narratedby the robust triumvirateof Art Linkletter, Bob and got sidetrackedby a packof peskyredskirls,X' Davy Cummings,and Ronald ReaganXABCXs televised colrerageof axldhis sidekicktold the widemouthed youngsters. "It took the swelteringfirst day featureda ragged almost carnivalesque us a whileto polishthem off." From this brush with fron- gtparadedown Main Street {J.S.A. with barbershop quartetsX tierbravado and brutality!the scene shiftedto the over- mariachis,Native Americandancers, and people in space suits loadedand listing deck of theMark Twaino where a visibly ¢, and scuba gear, all colliding and vying for attention. Excited distressedIrene Dunne smashed a bottleto launchthe dan- crowds skirted snowdrifts of trash. Womens spike heels gerouslycareening vessel on its maidenvoyage up theRiv- 6,t_ pockmarkedthe asphalt. Children urinatedin conve- ers of America.It was a thrilling out-of-kilterday in t_ nient crannies. There was a botched Ping-Pong ball FrontierlandiIl 1955. MONTANATHE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Thewestern frontier wasequaly appealing twenty- Southern California landscape, the Disney people had eight years later inJapan and thirty-seven years later deliberately evoked a startling contrast with everyday I in France. Opening on a blustery day in April 1983, life.6 Tokyo Disneyland was an immediate success. Of those From Big Thunder Mountain, the Grand Canyon present, the largest crush of people-many wearing ten Diorama, the steamboat ride around Monument Val- gallon hats and cowboy boots-patiently waited for the ley, and the forests of saguaro cacti inside the park to Western Rivers Railroad, the Mark Twain riverboat the flashy necklace of postmodern western-themed ride, or the southern fried chicken served at the Lucky hotels flanking it, Euro Disney reeks of the imagined Nugget Cafe in Westernland.2 On that rain-soaked West, particularly the Southwest. "It's truly the leg- opening day, an Australian journalist was moved by ends of cowboys and Indians that rule this land," con- Japanese devotion to the Old West, especially the sight cluded one opening-day observer. "It's just the kind of "iron-willed Japanese Crocketts in dripping coon- of place where John Wayne-loving Europeans can get skins" canoeing furiously to Tom Sawyer's Island, a dose of what they must think is America."7 The power "huddling under umbrellas, paddling with their free of this creative geography is underscored by the thou- hands, and each paying 300 yen for the fun."3 Larger sands of Europeans who wave cowboy hats and yee- and more spacious than its Anaheim parent, the To- haw lustily at Buffalo Bill's Wild West show every night. kyo park, with its Westernland, was designed to pro- The transnational lure of the mythic West is embod- vide a crowded island-bound people-especially ied in the multitudes who forsake French cuisine to Japanese men-with the illusion of open space and chow down on barbecue ribs, chili, and grits at the plenty of swagger-room where good always defeats evil.4 antler-festooned Chuckwagon Cafe or who eagerly stay IfJapanese men seem drawn to the vigorous, samurai- at Antoine Predock's pseudo sunbaked Santa Fe Ho- like morality of the American West, Europeans seem en- tel, where French staff members outfitted as cowpunch- tranced by its sun-bleached immensity. When it opened ers say "howdy" at the drop of a hat.8 in April 1992, Euro Disney was indicted as "a cultural It is a long way from Crockett's rustic stockade in Chernobyl" that "is going to wipe out millions of chil- Anaheim to Predock's enigmatic pueblo in Marne-la- dren," as a gaudy pastiche of "solidified chewing gum Vallee, yet both places indicate that the frontier is and idiotic folk stories taken straight out of comic books America's most potent myth and Disney its most effec- for fat Americans."5 Nonetheless, visitors to Euro tive merchandiser. The mythic power of the frontier is Disney seemed most willingly captivated by the park's well known. It is a compelling story of heroic people rendition of the West, by its transformation of a lush encountering a rugged land, of intrepid pioneers ful- Marne valley beet field into dry, desolate Marlboro Man filling their destiny in an untrod wilderness. It is a country. Condensing the diversity of the American West multileveled narrative fraught with triumph and trag- into a dusty red environment as different from its ver- edy that, for better or worse, unites Americans and dant French surroundings as exerts a tremendous global pull. "What the Mediterra- the greenery of the nean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of cus- Disneyland river tom, offering new experiences, calling out new is from the dry institutions and activities," Frederick Jackson Turner eulogized in 1893, "that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely."9 Although Turner urged us to find better myths to . replace the dead frontier, people On opening day,Davy Crockettand his ' sidekick George Russell, played by Fess Parker and Ebsen were much S, (left) Buddy (far left), in demand by youngsters wearing coonskin caps in imitation of their hero. SPRING1998 ,s' MICHAELSTEINER everywhere cling to frontier dreams and the belief that 189os. Frontier nostalgia reached the Great Plains al- "America is West and the wind blowing."10 "If there is most the moment the westward movement ended there one fact about the United States that can be stated with- with William F. Cody's first Wild West show-"The out fear of successful contradiction," James Thurber Old Glory Blow Out" in North Platte, Nebraska, on asserted, "it is that Americans, or the vast majority of July 4, 1882-complete with a mock stampede of ragged, Americans, are in love with the Far West, the Old Fron- remnant buffalo, the species a younger Cody and oth- tier."'1 Often a bitter experience for pioneers themselves ers had blasted nearly to extinction. By the end of the and a genocidal nightmare for indigenous people who century, more than seventy Wild West troupes were stood in their way, these grim realities were rapidly touring the United States and Europe, staging mock recast into a triumphant morality play replete with spec- battles between white "Rough Riders of the World" tacular landscapes and a pantheon of heroic figures as and former Indian enemies who, like the buffalo, sur- soon as the real frontier had faded.