Edith Cowan University Research Online Theses: Doctorates and Masters Theses 1-1-2001 Imagineering the community: The vagrant spaces of the malls, enclave estates, the filmic and the televisual Dennis Wood Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Wood, D. (2001). Imagineering the community: The vagrant spaces of the malls, enclave estates, the filmic and the televisual. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1029 This Thesis is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1029 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. 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Dennis Wood BA Faculty of Communications, Health and Science Edith Cowan University This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2001 DEDICATION To Colleen: my inspiration, strength, friend and love. To Siobhan who gives support without expectation and patience without question A special dedication to my father, John (Arthur) who died before he could read this - I still miss his calming ways. I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my knowledge and belief: (i) incorporate without acknowledgment any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any institution of higher eduction; (ii) contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text; or (iii) contain any defamatory-- material.~~--- ------- ____ _ Dennis Wood USE OF THESIS The Use of Thesis statement is not included in this version of the thesis. Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... viii Introduction • Other(ed) Real-And-Imagined Sites ................................................... xii The Imagined Spaces ............................................................................................ xx vii Comedramas: engaging the enclaves ....................................................................... xxx The advertisements: souvenir of the sights .............................................................. xxx Embarcation: charting the chapters ......................................................................... xxxi A side trip to the Sea(Change) - part two .............................................................. xxxii The 'imagined' spaces -part three ....................................................................... xxxiv The 'real' spaces - part four ................................................................................ xxxvii Part five - outro ................................................................................................. xxxviii I MAPPING THE LIE OF THE LAND Chapter One • Touring Disneyville .............................................................................. 1 The Scopic and the Spatial .......................................................................................... 5 'Practicing' participation and apartheid ..................................................................... 12 Confronting Communities: Community as Fourth Spatiality ..................................... 15 Disney Consciousness, Disneyland, Disneyville ........................................................ 21 The 'moving' medium: community and the cinema ................................................... 26 Chapter Two• Historic Community: The 'Lived' and 'Livable' Spaces .................. 38 From enlightenment to enclave .................................................................................. 48 Chapter Three • Tempora(ri)ly in Thirdspace: Heterotopias and communisphere, vagrant space and the vagrant....................................................... 66 Foucauldian Frottage ................................................................................................. 75 II SIDE JOURNEY Chapter Four • SeaChange and the Virtutopia .......................................................... 99 Utility of Utopias: The Return of the Repressed ...................................................... 103 The 'Perfeck' Place ................................................................................................. 119 Chapter Five • Watching the sitcom: Community, communisphere and the poverty of participation in M* A *S*H....................................................................... 130 Touring the Sitcom: The Familia(l)r Museum .......................................................... 135 M*A*S*H and the Aleph of Communisphere .......................................................... 151 M* A *S*H as Disneyville ........................................................................................ 153 The either/or and also spaces of M* A *S*H: Disneyville meets Disturbia ................ 161 III 'IMAGINED' SPACES Chapter Six • The imagineered virtutopia of The Truman Show ............................ 172 Blue skies ... nothing but blue skies: ......................................................................... 175 Chapter Seven • Pleasantville: 'A Fairytale' ............................................................. 193 You can colour my world: Return to Main Street .................................................... 204 Chapter Eight• Muriel's Wedding: The family and the communisphere............... 216 Poverty of participation: The badlands of be-coming ............................................... 221 From Muriel to Mariel...and back again (only this time with feeling) ....................... 231 Muriel, the Heterotopia and the Two Castles ........................................................... 240 IV 'REAL' SPACES Chapter Nine • Bringing the land to life(style) ..........................................................249 'Picture Perfect': The Enclave Estates and the Ads .................................................. 252 Enclave Estates: The Days of 'The Vines' and (Range) Rovers ............................... 254 The Palpable Place of Participatory Poverty ............................................................ 276 Chapter Ten• Touring the community: Its all in the mall ....................................... 281 Freeze Frame: There's (Still) Life in the Mall .......................................................... 282 It's a (S)mall World ................................................................................................ 289 Set(tling) for the Mall .............................................................................................. 294 The Smile of the Cheshire Cat: A Comment on Community .................................... 297 Vagrant spaces and the mall .................................................................................... 305 VOUTRO Chapter Eleven• Community, place ma[r]king and the vagrant space................... 317 (Place) making a 'statement' ................................................................................... 320 Visualising the vagrant ............................................................................................ 330 The big (t)ask- the new (sub)urbanism ................................................................... 334 Villagibility and the mall ......................................................................................... 343 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 347 ABSTRACT The idea of 'community' is an all pervasive and persuasive notion within society. But it is an elastic concept used by diverse groups and institutions to rally people to a cause or to reassure the public in times of (perceived) calamity. Of late the various forms of the media and certain elements of society have been focussing their attention on the 'breakdown of community' values citing the (perceived) rise in crime, the (supposed) fragmentation of the family and the (hypothetical) loss of respect for authority and authority figures as contributing to an ailing communal sensibility. However, as Anderson (1983) has argued in his discussion on the rise of nationalism, the 'community' is always an imagined entity. This study investigates this concept of the imagined community and looks at how this notion is manifested (and sold to the public) in