17. the Kiss Goodnight from a Galaxy Far, Far Away
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17. The Kiss Goodnight from a Galaxy Far, Far Away Experiencing Star Wars as a Fan-Scholar on Disney Property Heather Urbanski While scholars have examined what can be labeled transmedia tourism or destination fandom in relation to texts such as the BBC’s Sherlock and Twilight,1 satisfying the fan impulse to visit the galaxy far, far away is more complicated. Star Tours, the franchise’s signature attraction at the Disney Parks, has embodied experiential fandom since 1987, with its spaceport terminal queue area and exhibit narrative of a thriving space tourism company. Tied into Disney’s relaunch of the Star Wars franchise with The Force Awakens, the Disney Parks have kicked into high gear to expand opportunities for guests to experience the saga, particularly at Hollywood Studios in Orlando. Disney Parks are not the only venues creating Star Wars experiences. In her analysis of original qualitative data gathered from fan-attendees at two London-based Star Wars “immersive attractions,” Emma Pett highlights that “the appeal of event-led cinema and interactive media is cross-generational and demographically diverse—and perhaps more closely linked to estab- lished fan loyalties than to the appeal of the immersive experience in and of itself.”2 Pett discusses, for example, Secret Cinema’s staging of The Empire Strikes Back, which included a nightclub replica of the Mos Eisley cantina where attendees were assigned identities and missions, and interacted freely with costumed character actors. Pett describes the event as one “designed to downplay the mainstream branding of the franchise, and accentuate, 1 See, for example, Stijn Reijnders, “Stalking the Count: Dracula, Fandom, and Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2011); Christine Lundberg and Maria Lexhagen, “Bitten by the Twilight Saga,” in Contemporary Tourist Experience: Concepts and Consequences, ed. by Richard Sharpley and Philip R. Stone (New York: Routledge, 2012); and Christina Lee, “‘Welcome to London’: Spectral Spaces in Sherlock Holmes’s Metropolis,” Cultural Studies Review 20, no. 2 (2014). 2 Emma Pett, “‘Stay Disconnected’: Eventising Star Wars for Transmedia Audiences,” Participa- tions: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 13 (2016): 153. 254 STAR WARS AND THE HIstORY OF TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING via immersive roleplay, the potential for fans to display subcultural capital and being ‘in the know.’”3 My position “in the know” of both the Disney and Star Wars fan com- munities, influenced by my identity as what Henry Jenkins calls an aca-fan,4 is a deeply personal, affective one, as many of my experiences involved attending events with family. Family and aca-fandom have combined for years through such experiences as the (now discontinued) Star Wars Weekends from 1999 through 2015,5 the Last Tour to Endor party in 2010, and the runDisney Inaugural Dark Side Challenge Race Weekend in 2016—all hosted at Walt Disney World in Orlando. My first costume for WorldCon was a Jedi robe, my niece and nephew wore custom costumes (designed and created by my mother) for the Last Tour to Endor, and I have traveled hundreds of miles the past two years just to see the new Star Wars film on opening night with my sister and her children. My triple identity as Disney fan, Star Wars fan, and popular-culture scholar provides me with a distinctive vantage point for considering the fan dynamics and subcultures on display at the Disney Parks. Where other chapters in this collection examine the many mediations of the Star Wars saga over the past 40 years, the reflections in this chapter are much more personal in nature. Still, as a scholar who embraces the aca-fan label, these personal reflections are processed through an analytical lens, leading me to identify and question the tensions at play between inclusivity and gatekeep- ing within Star Wars fandom experiences. In this chapter, I compare my experiences and perspectives on Star Wars fandom with the intentionally and expressly exclusive Secret Cin- ema event described by Pett. Engagement and immersion within the Star Wars franchise, as I have experienced it in the Disney Parks, offers a stark contrast with other fandom experiences, such as Secret Cinema and San Diego Comic-Con. Rather than appealing to the more exclusive tendencies of fandom, Disney Parks explicitly welcome fans with any level of experience with the franchise, no matter how “original” or new that experience might be. It is difficult to imagine anything more mainstream than the Walt Disney Corporation, and recent changes and additions to the Star Wars 3 Pett, “‘Stay Disconnected,’” 158. 4 Henry Jenkins, “How to Break Out of the Academic Ghetto,” Confessions of an Aca-Fan, July 12, 2006, accessed May 15, 2017, http://henryjenkins.org/2006/07/how_to_break_out_of_the_ academ.html. 5 For example, at the second Star Wars Weekend in 2000, I won the trivia contest held in what was then called Disney-MGM Studios. Several cast members expressed surprise that “a girl” was still left in the final rounds. THE KIss GOODNIGht FROM A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY 255 experience in the Disney Parks reflect what I see as a purposefully open embrace of that broadly communal experience. A Brief History of Star Wars in the Disney Parks Despite vocal negative fan reaction to the Walt Disney Company’s pur- chase of Lucasfilm in 2012, the Disney Parks have maintained a licensed relationship with Lucasfilm for decades. The first Lucasfilm-Disney Parks collaboration produced the 3D film Captain EO, which premiered in 1986, followed the next year by Star Tours, a motion-simulator attraction with a Lucasfilm-produced Star Wars video and storyline.6 I experienced Star Wars in the Disney Parks (almost exclusively in Walt Disney World) for more than a decade before joining organized fandom with the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia. The online “flame wars” on sites like TheForce.net when The Phantom Menace was released left me with a profound distaste for online Star Wars fandom. Of course, toxic fan practices, like gatekeeping to only allow in “true” fans, hurl- ing heavily gendered insults, and creating an unwelcoming environment for anyone who does not identify as white, cis-gendered, straight, and male, also appear at real-life events. Such toxicity was especially noticeable during the Last Tour to Endor party in August 2010 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; not because it was the first time I encountered it, but because it was the first time I was not attending a fandom event solo. That year, I convinced my parents, my sister, her husband, and their young children to attend with me. Seeing the toxic behavior through the lens of how my mother or seven-year-old niece were treated was eye-opening. Clashes regarding acceptable decorum while children are present, particularly the use of expletives, persisted throughout the several hours at the Last Tour party. While hours-long queuing is common at conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con and even the Star Wars Celebration (with which the Last Tour party was affiliated), this is not the case at Disney Parks such as Hollywood Studios. The elaborate Disney ride queues are designed to be part of the story, are nearly always indoors, and are permanent fixtures intended to accommodate all but the largest of holiday crowds (such as on New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July). Similarly, a FastPass system has been in place for nearly two decades to reduce waiting time. This is the Disney Parks ethos 6 As I write this, the first pictures of the construction of new Star Wars Lands at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland are being promoted ahead of the 2019 opening dates. 256 STAR WARS AND THE HIstORY OF TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING I was accustomed to and expected to be in force at the Last Tour to Endor party. Unfortunately, because of this ethos, Hollywood Studios was not equipped to deal with the massive crowds of Star Wars fans that night, for whom standing in a queue for hours was not unexpected. This clash of fan ethos led to overcrowding on a hot and humid August night, heated tempers, and the abusive language that all too often follows such strained conditions. As the release of The Force Awakens approached, however, the story-first ethos of Disney became central again to the Disney Parks experiences, making 2016 the start of what feels like a new chapter for Star Wars fandom. My own 2016 adventures started on the Disney Fantasy, one of the ships in the Disney Cruise Line, with its inaugural Star Wars Day at Sea cruise in Janu- ary. On the event day, many passengers wandered around decks in full cosplay, while most sported branded t-shirts and hats. Tusken Raiders wandered the Atrium, interacting with passengers while Rebels episodes played continuously on FunnelVision, the huge screen overlooking the family pool. That screen participated in the storytelling with a video of an Imperial officer warning of Rebel infiltration, after which point stormtroopers dispersed among the crowd. The ship’s horn, which typically cycles between seven iconic Disney tunes, instead played the “Imperial March” several times during the day. The day was capped off by a fireworks show that opened with the introductory crawl from A New Hope on the FunnelVision screen. The performance felt very similar to the 2009 Star Wars in Concert event I at- tended in Philadelphia, built around clip montages assembled along similar themes to match the music (like “Duel of the Fates” synced to lightsaber battles from the various films), with the addition of costumed actors posing on stage. Scenes from Rebels were included in the fireworks show, as were clips from all seven films, though scenes from The Force Awakens were used sparingly since the film had opened less than a month before.