Main Street: Disney World And The American Adventure

Virginia and Frank Salamone explore the concept of Main Street U.S.A in the Disney theme parks in their article Images of Main Street: Disney World and the American Adventure. In the reading the authors discuss Walt Disney’s idea for Main Street, U.S.A and other sections of Disneyworld like EPCOT (Experimental Prototypical Community of Tomorrow). They discuss how the parks spin American history placing a pretty picture on top of everything. However, for the purpose of this reading response I will be looking outside of the parks and into Celebration, Florida. Celebration is a town located relatively close to Disneyworld and Walt Disney conceptualized the idea of the town. I will explore how Celebration is an example of Walt’s perfect America.

The authors explain it as, “a cleaner, more innocent, and better America is continually reinforced all along Main Street. From the city Hall, the Penny Arcade, to the Ice Cream Shoppe and the City Square, everything is the way we wished we remembered it, complete with a jolly mayor who greets everyone in his orbit” (Salamone & Salamone 86). Additionally, when visiting Disneyworld, in order to access any section of the park you have to go through Main Street. From my understanding, Main Street is how Walt envisioned every town’s main street across America to be like. I do not think there is anything wrong with this vision. Who would not want to live in a town where the mayor greeted as we went for a cone of ice cream? Sounds like a dream to me. However, it is just that, a dream. When thinking of Sudbury and its ‘main street’ I think of Elm Street in the downtown core. Elm Street is not the main street that Walt envisioned, at one end there is a court and a jail and at the other end is a bus station that many people try to avoid because of the stereotypes attached to those who are downtown and ride the bus. This is far from the main street that is in the core of the Disney theme

Most Disney films exclude other ethnicities, of course there is the exception of Princess in the Frog, but that even has some controversy. On the Celebration website it has a list of different community groups, much like any community it has the generic Rotary Club, Girl Scouts and a Garden Club to name only a few. Out of the 36 groups, two of them target ethnic groups. There is Celebrasil, which allows you to share your Brazilian culture, and Club de Espanol, which allows you to share your Spanish culture. Furthermore, when browsing the photos on its website there was very little ethnic diversity. Yes, there were other ethnicities represented, but not to the extent that I would picture in American culture today