The Walt Disney Company’s pattern of including elements from American history into their movies, shows, and theme parks all started with Walt Disney. Walt was not just focused on fantasy and the possibilities of the future- he also had a great love and nostalgia for the past. Although Walt Disney’s childhood was far from ideal, he loved his childhood small town of Marceline, Missouri, and remembered it fondly. In fact, Main Street U.S.A. in the Disney Parks are all modeled after Marceline.1 Walt, like many other Americans during his lifetime, also loved everything about the Wild West. This led him to create successful shows like Davy Crockett in the 1950s, and also inspired him to create Frontierland, a feature in many Disney parks.2 These all show a very idealized view of history and gloss over the difficult parts.
While these idealized views of history could be problematic and have led to the problematic stereotyping of cultures such as the Indians in Peter Pan, nostalgia is also one of the biggest factors and appeals that drive people to come to the Disney parks in the first place. In fact, nostalgia appeals to adults more than it appeals to children because it gives them the chance to relive their childhood.3 With the ideal view that Disney parks present of the past using things like myths and folktales, it is almost impossible to not look back on it fondly. The use of things like lifelike Audio-Animatronics in the parks make this idealistic and nostalgic view of a past and history that never existed seem all the more real and attainable.4 For Disney’s America, Disney wanted to expand on this basis to create something even bigger.
- Wills, John. Disney Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2017). ProQuest Ebook Central. ↩︎
- Wills, John. Disney Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2017). ProQuest Ebook Central. ↩︎
- Bryman, A. Disney & His Worlds. Routledge (1995). Taylor & Francis Group.
↩︎ - Bryman, A. Disney & His Worlds. Routledge (1995). Taylor & Francis Group.
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