Authors note: this is the first in a series of
articles that weigh how different eras of themed entertainment have been
influenced by their historical context. In Theme Park, Lukas (2008) asks a
question of central importance to the study of the history of the modern theme
park: how does the creation of the artificial reflect the society that creates
it? Lukas posits that “we must understand the trajectory of the theme park in
the form of historical whispers, thematic shouts in the night and rhizomatic
influences of direction and misdirection” (23). In agreement with Lukas’s
thesis, these articles will attempt to piece apart different examples of how
themed entertainment has illustrated greater societal trends, aspirations, and
concerns.
The nineteenth-century saw pervasive
societal change in Western and Central Europe as a massive wave of
industrialization transformed the continent’s urban centers and power
structures. The dominance of Smithian economics at the turn of the century
contributed to a new industrial order defined by laissez-faire policies, the
division of labor, and mass production. These forces combined with many others
to form commodity culture, defined by Marxist political theory as the
widespread assignment of economic value to objects previous void of economic
meaning. This commodification had effects on the quality of life for the
citizens of urban Europe but also on the structures that defined their life,
including recreation. This is the topic that Susan Ingram focuses on throughout
her three contributions to the collection Placing
History: Themed Environments, Urban Consumption and the Public Entertainment
Sphere.
The commodification of
leisure can be seen early in the Industrial era in British pleasure gardens and
music halls, in which public entertainment was privatized. These gated
experiences had entrance fees and competed with each other for patrons,
presenting new and innovative programming to lure urbanites to their grounds.
They raised the stakes for leisure by taking many different recreations and
combining them under one gate and charging a premium for that convenience. In
“Public Entertainment in Nineteenth-Century London”, Ingram (2003) details the
wonders found at Cremorne, one of the most popular pleasure gardens in London
in the mid-nineteenth century (see Fig.1): a shooting range, circus, theater,
dance hall, bandstands, and boating were spread across 12 manicured acres supplemented
by theming elements like temples, pagodas, and even primitive animatronic
animals (45-6). Just like the mass produced tools and goods that emerged as a
result of new industrial practices, these recreations were commodified by their
being combined under a single price tag. In the case of each pleasure garden,
the product was not each individual recreation but the greater experience
defined by the business’s brand.
Figure 1: Cremorne Gardens, London,
England; Cremorne was typical of pleasure gardens in operating several
recreations inside of a quasi-public space, gated and commodified by an
admission fee. So strong was its brand that a “franchise” was opened haring its
name in Melbourne, Australia (Levin, 1864).
To trace the larger history of
this commodification, we must pay special attention to the world’s fairs of the
nineteenth century. Though the exact introduction of commoditized recreation is
debatable, England’s Great Exhibition of 1851 can be cited as the moment of its
broader recognition. This was largely due to how its message of industrial
progress and modernity (embodied in the fair’s most famous structure, the
Crystal Place) was paralleled by the introduction of its new patron, the
consumer. Says Ingram, “Charging admission fees across the board without
exception, then, served to establish industrial standards of identity,
encouraging patrons to view both themselves and others by the size of their
wallets” (2003a, 56). Just as industrialization destabilized the old political
and social order with the introduction of the capitalist bourgeoisie, the
introduction of the concept of the consumer within the fairgrounds revolutionized
the state of recreation in London. Ingram
summarizes this in another article, this one titled “Theming and the Crystal
Place: An Historical Perspective”: “Visitors [of the Great Exhibition]… were
confronted with and had to make sense of a new, dislocating reality, in which
they found themselves under the roof of the same building, occupying subject
positions based not on traditional social status but rather on purchasing power
and disposable income” (2003b, 143). Through this, the Exhibition not only
prophesized the creation of a new industrial order but enabled it through its
treatment of its patrons.
These world’s fairs also
marked some of the earliest imaginings of themed entertainment as it is
understood in its contemporary form today. The Great Exhibition of 1851, in its
egalitarian approach to recreation, utilized theming as a tool to further its pro-industrial
message. Says Ingram, “Commodified exhibits had to appeal to the greatest
number of visitors possible. The ones that succeeded were the ones with
multiple significations, those which could bridge the instruction/ amusement/
commerce divides” (2003b, 144). Though the exposition created a space in which
all patrons were presented as consumers, its organizers catered to the diverse
preferences of the varied classes attending by crafting a method of
presentation that was sensationalist and yet also carried meaning (see Fig. 2).
Figure
2: The Crystal Palace,
interior; the most significant structure of the 1851 Great Exhibition, the
Crystal Palace symbolized the achievements possible through industry and
commerce both in the engineering marvel of its structure and the theming elements
of the attractions within (McNeven, 1851).
This was done most
significantly through the exoticizing of Other (foreign lands, cultures, and
peoples). Regarding the use of Other, Ingram continues, “The panorama-type
displays and the exorcized cafes and restaurants were all instructional,
offering forms of what would become increasingly sought after knowledge about
far-away places, while at the same time amusing through difference and
spectacle” (2003b, 144). Cross-continental travel was still limited to a small
class of elites and capitalists that could afford it, and so the appeal of reproductions
of foreign places among lower class Europeans was a popular element of pleasure
gardens and other proletariat entertainment options. By bridging the
“instruction/ amusement/ commerce” divide, the theming of the 1851 Great
Exhibition took these reproductions, used them to provide information, and then
framed this information to attach meaning relating to the fair’s message of
progress through industry and commerce.
The whimsy of such theming
proved apt in simultaneously carrying positivity towards industrialization and
shedding the weight of the realities that industrialization wreaked on the
urban working class. Ingram elaborates: “theming enacted a kind of sublation,
serving to relieve what Alexander McClung has referred to as ‘the tensions and
anxieties of the present” (83)…Modernizing urban expansion thus found in the
world exhibition its first major outlet, a temporary respite from the pressures
to which it gave rise…put otherwise, they can be considered a heterotopia, ‘a
compensatory space defined through its difference from the sites and work of
the everyday’ (Phillips 91)” (144). In this sense, the 1851 Great Exhibition
was hugely successful in promoting positivity towards the new industrial order,
introducing industry and commerce as sources of solutions to the problems they
had created. Theming sold the industrialized masses on the urban situation in
which they found themselves.
If
the exoticizing of Other in theming seems familiar, it is because they are
found in most themed spaces following the Great Exhibition. Ingram states, “By
the next universal exhibition in Paris, in 1867, there were exotic restaurants
with ethnic music, spicy dishes and waitresses in national costumes, and people
were displayed as parts of exhibits for the first time, something which would
become standard and very popular practice” (2003b, 142). Nations saw that they
could market difference and exaggerate exoticism in their pavilions to draw
profit. Theming began to be used as a tool for sensationalism rather than
conveying a specific message. This is evident in the changing nature of world’s
fairs over the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ingram notes, “Beginning
with the 1867 Paris exhibition, themed attractions appeared in the grounds
outside the pavilion buildings, and with the introduction of a ‘midway’ at the
1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, they were given their own separate space”
(2003b, 142). Theming no longer had to exist attached to meaning, it could now
operate as meaning in itself. Indeed, as corporate influence increased at the
fairs, this separation of theming accelerated (2003b, 142). In “Meet me in
Vienna (Alt-Wien), Meet me at the
Fair”, Ingram says, “The increasing dominance of the midway zones would lead one
to believe that the world exhibitions seem to have been less about forming
citizenries than they were about opening up new markets or forming new
customers” (2003c, 89). In this way, theming was commodified by offering itself
for sale independent of any meaning attached. The product was the experience of
the theming itself.
Figure 3: Adventureland, Disneyland,
California; a contemporary example of using Other as commodity. The left image
shows various referential architecture loosely based on traditional styles from
Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands. Exoticism is used to sell
itself, with no additional meaning attached. The right image illustrates the
blatancy in which the commodity of Other is marketed (Slater, 2010).
From Ingram’s work we can
thus see how the commodification of leisure in Industrial Europe lead to the
rise of themed environments as we know them. Theming, first used as a means of
proliferating a positivity towards the industrial order at the 1851 Great
Exhibition in London, became self-sustaining as a commodity itself through its
representations of an exoticized Other, and could thus be used as a vehicle for
profit outside its original use. This solidified itself as a tool in the
arsenal of designers for commercial projects worldwide, and has significant
connotations in the themed entertainment industry today. Understanding this
industrial past allows professionals in themed entertainment to recognize how
theming is affected by its context and yet exerts its own forces as well. This
series of articles will continue to examine the path of themed entertainment
through history, adding further insight to the field’s contemporary state.
References
Ingram, S. (2003a). Public entertainment in
nineteenth-century London. In S. Ingram & M. Reisenleitner (Eds.), Placing history: Themed environments, urban
consumption and the public entertainment sphere (pp. 34-77). Wein, Austria: Turia + Kant.
Ingram, S. (2003b). Theming and the Crystal Palace: An historical perspective. In S.
Ingram & M. Reisenleitner (Eds.), Placing
history: Themed environments, urban consumption and the public entertainment
sphere (pp. 137-144). Wein, Austria:
Turia + Kant.
Ingram, S. (2003c). Meet me in Vienna (Alt-Wien),
meet me at the Fair. In S. Ingram & M. Reisenleitner (Eds.), Placing history: Themed environments, urban
consumption and the public entertainment sphere (pp. 83-99). Wein, Austria: Turia + Kant.
Levin, P. (1864). The
Dancing Platform at Cremorne Gardens [Painting]. Retreived from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cremorne_The_Dancing_Platform_at_Cremorne_Gardens_by_Phoebus_Levin_1864.jpg
Lukas, S.A. (2008). Theme park. London, England: Reaktion Books Ltd.
McNeven, J. (1851). The transept from the Grand Entrance [Lithograph]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Exhibition#/media/File:Crystal_Palace_interior.jpg
Slater, S. (Photographer) (2010). [Untitled photograph
of the midway of Adventureland, Disneyland, California]. Retrieved from http://disneyshawn.blogspot.com/2010/10/into-world-of-adventure.html
Slater, S. (Photographer) (2010). [Untitled photograph
of a sign in Adventureland, Disneyland, California]. Retrieved from http://disneyshawn.blogspot.com/2010/10/into-world-of-adventure.html
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