Stephanie Rutherford
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674404
- eISBN:
- 9781452946740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674404.003.0002
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
This chapter considers how Disney packages and sells nature as part of its collection of goods at the Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park. It addresses Disney's influence as a cultural producer and its ...
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This chapter considers how Disney packages and sells nature as part of its collection of goods at the Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park. It addresses Disney's influence as a cultural producer and its longstanding project of reimagining nature, which culminated most recently in the construction of the Animal Kingdom. It explores Disney's efforts to remake itself as an agent of conservation through its “Environmentality” program and projects like the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. It concludes with a discussion of Disney's role as a biopolitical institution that enframes nature, and draws out lessons about how one of the most influential corporations in the world acts as an agent in the construction of a particular brand of green governmentality.Less
This chapter considers how Disney packages and sells nature as part of its collection of goods at the Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park. It addresses Disney's influence as a cultural producer and its longstanding project of reimagining nature, which culminated most recently in the construction of the Animal Kingdom. It explores Disney's efforts to remake itself as an agent of conservation through its “Environmentality” program and projects like the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. It concludes with a discussion of Disney's role as a biopolitical institution that enframes nature, and draws out lessons about how one of the most influential corporations in the world acts as an agent in the construction of a particular brand of green governmentality.
Stephanie Rutherford
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674404
- eISBN:
- 9781452946740
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674404.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
Take four emblematic American scenes: the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park in Orlando; an ecotour of Yellowstone and ...
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Take four emblematic American scenes: the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park in Orlando; an ecotour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; the film An Inconvenient Truth. Other than expressing a common interest in the environment, they seem quite dissimilar. And yet, as this book makes clear, these sites are all manifestations of green governmentality, each seeking to define and regulate our understanding, experience, and treatment of nature. This book shows how the museum presents a scientized assessment of global nature under threat; the Animal Kingdom demonstrates that a corporation can successfully organize a biopolitical project; the ecotour, operating as a school for a natural aesthetic sensibility, provides a visual grammar of pristine national nature; and the film offers a toehold on a moral way of encountering nature. But one very powerful force unites the disparate “truths” of nature produced through these sites, and that, the book tells us, is their debt to nature's commodification. This book's analysis reveals how each site integrates nature, power, and profit to make the buying and selling of nature critical to our understanding and rescuing of it. The combination, it argues, renders other ways of encountering nature—particularly more radically environmental ways—unthinkable.Less
Take four emblematic American scenes: the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park in Orlando; an ecotour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; the film An Inconvenient Truth. Other than expressing a common interest in the environment, they seem quite dissimilar. And yet, as this book makes clear, these sites are all manifestations of green governmentality, each seeking to define and regulate our understanding, experience, and treatment of nature. This book shows how the museum presents a scientized assessment of global nature under threat; the Animal Kingdom demonstrates that a corporation can successfully organize a biopolitical project; the ecotour, operating as a school for a natural aesthetic sensibility, provides a visual grammar of pristine national nature; and the film offers a toehold on a moral way of encountering nature. But one very powerful force unites the disparate “truths” of nature produced through these sites, and that, the book tells us, is their debt to nature's commodification. This book's analysis reveals how each site integrates nature, power, and profit to make the buying and selling of nature critical to our understanding and rescuing of it. The combination, it argues, renders other ways of encountering nature—particularly more radically environmental ways—unthinkable.
Carol Magee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031526
- eISBN:
- 9781617031533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031526.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter, like the previous one, focuses on particular facilities at the Walt Disney World Resort where there exist certain implications for the perception of Africa in American popular culture. ...
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This chapter, like the previous one, focuses on particular facilities at the Walt Disney World Resort where there exist certain implications for the perception of Africa in American popular culture. In this chapter, the focus is on Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (DAKL), which focuses solely on Africa and Africans. To be specific, DAKL presents an Africa south of the Sahara, a geographic divide that distinguishes between Arab Africa to the north and black Africa to the south. A closer look at DAKL reveals that the experience is conceived as a safari which re-creates the African savanna in Florida. At the lodge, visitors can eat African food, watch African animals roam, and learn about African cultures. The problem that the chapter addresses, however, is similar to the problems in representation that were evident in the previous cases. Like them, the Africa at DAKL is nature and animals, operating as stereotypes and thus producing negative resonances and problematic implications.Less
This chapter, like the previous one, focuses on particular facilities at the Walt Disney World Resort where there exist certain implications for the perception of Africa in American popular culture. In this chapter, the focus is on Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (DAKL), which focuses solely on Africa and Africans. To be specific, DAKL presents an Africa south of the Sahara, a geographic divide that distinguishes between Arab Africa to the north and black Africa to the south. A closer look at DAKL reveals that the experience is conceived as a safari which re-creates the African savanna in Florida. At the lodge, visitors can eat African food, watch African animals roam, and learn about African cultures. The problem that the chapter addresses, however, is similar to the problems in representation that were evident in the previous cases. Like them, the Africa at DAKL is nature and animals, operating as stereotypes and thus producing negative resonances and problematic implications.
