Experiencing ‘Asia’: ‘Disenchanted enchantment’ in Disney’s ‘Animal Kingdom’

Umberto Eco argued that visitors to the Disney Park ‘must agree to behave like robots’, as if they are victims of Disney mind-control, but in fact, the Parks depend on an awareness of the gap between the real and the virtual. Visitors enjoy being immersed in a hyperreal environment, while remaining aware they are inhabiting two worlds at once. Saler refers to this as the ‘ironic imagination’; it produces a ‘disenchanted enchantment’. The Disney Park visitor is enchanted, not simply by the spectacle, but by the ‘magic’ of imagineering to manufacture imagined other worlds. This article focuses on the land of ‘Asia’ in ‘Disney’s Animal Kingdom’ (DAK). Joe Rohde, the imagineer behind the park, has defined its core ‘theme’ as ‘the intrinsic value of nature’; the various attractions are designed to highlight the conflict between the ‘material’ and the ‘spiritual’. Beyond this obvious ‘eco-message’, the park revisits a meta-narrative of western discourse: the clash of nature and civilization, East and West. Moreover, Disney is using technological means to simulate the ‘intrinsic value of nature’. Thus, DAK may be said to offer a postmodern ‘virtualization of the sacred’ through the wonders of imagineering.