| We
Went to The Disneyland (5.03) |
||
 |
||
|
Kay,
Simon and I went on a pretend family holiday to Disneyland Paris.
Our friends seemed to think that this was funny, but I had at least
five rock-solid reasons for wanting to go: 1. The Banana Splits,
who monkeyed around in Anaheim back in the 70s, when I was an impressionable
young kid; 2. The Journal of Ride Theory, an excellent zine that
talks about themeparks and rides; 3. My friends' stories of working
for The Mouse; 4.My vague interest in Disney conspiracy theories;
5. It's fuckn Disneyland, man! And anyway, how creepy could
it be? Answer: very creepy and evil, but in a good way.
We bought a package deal and caught the Eurostar all the way there, accompanied by over-excited kids and a bossy Christine Hamilton-a-like who terrorised the mild family sitting opposite. When we got to Marne la Vallée we grabbed our bags and ran, determined to be first off the train. Disneyland is all about the build-up and the arrival. I had been looking forwards to it for months, my imagination whirring madly whenever I thought about what it would be like, exactly how big it might be (one Bluewater? A couple of West Ham Parks?) and how complete and detailed my trip 'inside the Magic' would feel. It's easy to look at all the promotional guff and think that Disneyland is going to be like living inside a fun-filled cartoon. So, we were running off that train towards the security check at the main gates going "We're here! It's Disneyland! Disneyland!" like a trio of demented freaks. The first thing that hits you is the music. Simon said that it wasn't just background muzak, the overly orchestrated fake ragtime being played through loudspeakers (and which changed style according to which sector of the park you were in) was supposed to be the soundtrack to your day. It got right inside your head almost immediately and made you feel as though you were having a mild psychotic episode. The second thing I noticed was the weird small scale of everything. In pictures the Disneyland Hotel and the Sleeping Beauty Castle look huge – as though you could actually climb one of those turrets and gaze out over the fairytale landscape. Forget it. I don't know how they do it, it could drive you crazy trying to work it out but believe me, those buildings may look big, but they ain't in real life. The most overriding thing I noticed was the cheapness and crapness of the park. Instead of a real live Main Street USA, the shop fronts backed on to a bunch of gift shops and a couple of super-rubbish cafés dispensing the requisite nine branded Nestlé products. There was no Barber Shop choir, no-one dressed up like olden days folk, and no fucking Mickey Mouse either. Thankfully my spirits were not dampened too much, we were in time for the daily parade which featured a group of black dancers as coal-dusted chimney sweeps, and which brought a strange over-emotional lump to my throat in a way that I can't explain. Perhaps I was just over-tired. During our two-day stay we went on just about everything. From 10am until 8pm we were the Disney. It's boring to go on about everything we did and everything we saw. The Disney way is make the punters feel as though their experiences are unique rather than the generic encounters of millions of visitors. Chances are that if you've been to any of the Disneylands around the world you'll know exactly what I did and how I felt about it. Put it this way: some rides were good, and some were rubbish. It's hard to tell exactly what the attractions are by looking at the official information because it doesn't describe it at all. Many are grouped by type: there are rollercoasters offering 30 second rides (your reward for queuing for an hour, the rides are short so that they can get you on and off as quickly as possible); rides where you sit in a gondola and sail around animated dioramas (Pirates of the Caribbean, described as "Dangerous pirates attack a port in a South Sea Lagoon" is one of these); and rides where you watch a film and are squirted by water or air (in "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" a giant dog sneezes on you). Plus there are shows (Donald Duck was played by a woman in Animagique, we saw his tits showing through the costume), and over-hyped bits of landscaping such as the Pocahontas Indian Village, a kiddie playground, or the job lot of taxidermied animals that decorate the train embankment. 
One thing I've got to mention is It's a Small World. IaSW is a gondola ride, one of the first Disney rides that seemingly never went out of fashion. You ride around a hangar decorated with creepy little animatronic dollies and plasterboard sets. They're supposed to represent children of the world all singing together as one. It is a truly insane Disneyfied vision of world unity, wave upon wave of creepy little dollies all staring at you. The soundtrack is the catchiest tune I have ever heard. I was humming it for a fortnight after going to Disneyland. I couldn't sleep without it popping into my head just as I was dozing off. I believe it is one of the most dangerous songs ever recorded, I actually feel brainwashed by it and to this end will not even allow its name to be mentioned around me – merely saying the title of IaSW makes you want to sing it. Because he is sick, Simon bought a recording of it which I have since hidden. I never want to hear that song again. 
Kay got into the Disney spirit by getting her hair cut at Dapper Dan's old tyme barbershop. Dapper Dan is really a moderately mulleted possibly gay hairdresser whose existence in the park is a bit of a mystery. His shop is tucked out of the way and filled with symbols of fake turn of the century small town America including a spitoon, an old-fashioned telephone and a collection of shaving brushes. Kay's short back and sides cost about £15 and made her look like a little French schoolboy. I should mention that we stayed in the Hotel Santa Fe, the cheapest one in the complex. It was basic, allegedly a Pueblo, but really just a glorified motel with a fibreglass bathroom and a telly that had three Disney channels and the Iraq war on the news. The previous inhabitants of our room had left a visitor report card which was not very flattering. It read: "More like a prison camp than a hotel. Will certainly not return." We weren't put off by this grinch, we knew that we weren't getting a bargain, Disneyland seeks to separate you from your money for as little as possible in return, it's expensive, trashy, dehumanising entertainment; altruism isn't their bag. 
At Disneyland different permutations of the same crap – food, rides, gift shops – give the illusion of variety and choice. It's hard to leave the park, it's like the citadel in Logan's Run, you have no idea what lies beyond the boundaries. Meanwhile the Disneyland interior is disorientating with its over-loud sickeningly catchy music, weird scale, and landscaping that hides all of ride's mechanics and is not to be taken at face value. Even the weather felt stage-managed. What's more bizarre is that, give or take a few pushy Italian students who don't know how to queue, everyone is well-behaved, litter is swept. If anything fucks up, we didn't see it. Our big rebellion was peeking behind a door that says "Cast Members Only" but there was nothing to be seen, just a short corridor. If we learnt one thing whilst we were there it was that you couldn't cheat the system. I saw a teen-boy wearing a 'Fuck Authority' t-shirt at breakfast whilst his parents tried to pile their trays high with bread rolls in a pathetic attempt to get their money's worth. It was like watching peasants scurrying for the landowner's scrapings. PS. This little article is only the tip of my Disneyland experience. I could talk about this trip for hours. E-me if you want to know more. |
     
|
|