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Disney discourses of self and Other:

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Disney discourses of self and Other:

animality, primitivity, modernity, and
postmodernity
a b
Shona Bettany & Russell W. Belk
a
Bradford University School of Management , Bradford, West
Yorkshire, UK
b
Schulich School of Business , York University , Ontario, Canada
Published online: 11 May 2011.

To cite this article: Shona Bettany & Russell W. Belk (2011) Disney discourses of self and Other:
animality, primitivity, modernity, and postmodernity, Consumption Markets & Culture, 14:2,
163-176, DOI: 10.1080/10253866.2011.562017

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 Consumption Markets & Culture
Vol. 14, No. 2, June 2011, 163–176

Disney discourses of self and Other: animality, primitivity,

modernity, and postmodernity
Shona Bettanya* and Russell W. Belkb
a
Bradford University School of Management, Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK; bSchulich
School of Business, York University, Ontario, Canada
Consumption,
10.1080/10253866.2011.562017
GCMC_A_562017.sgm
1025-3866
Taylor
2011
20Article
14
S.M.M.Bettany@bradford.ac.uk
ShonaBettany
00000June
&
andFrancis
(print)/1477-223X
Francis
2011
Markets and Culture
(online)

We need Otherness to define self. As our world widens in an age of global

commerce, travel, and entertainment, we encounter a sometimes bewildering array
of Otherness delivered at an ever-increasing pace. In light of postmodern diversity
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and hybridity, we need increasingly fundamental Others against whom to

construct ourselves. In the theme parks typified by those of Disney in Orlando,
Florida, we find several discourses that offer us a perspective on who we are vis-
à-vis the Other. The particular Others (and sometimes the particular selves) of
these discourses often come from the non-human animal kingdom as well as from
other human animal groups. The animal self/Other is not new and can be traced
back to Aesop’s Fables and earlier. But in the controlled and carefully planned
world of Orlando theme parks, supplemented by films, cartoons, animatronics, and
other “imagineering” techniques, the possibilities of representation are greatly
expanded. Nor is offering human Others a new thing and the “human zoos” of
some of the early North American World’s Fairs brought pseudo-villages full of
“natives” for spectator amusement and contemplation. In addition, various
depictions of human Others in film, print, and art can be seen in earlier eras,
ranging from William Rice Burrough’s Tarzan to Pablo Picasso’s Les demoiselles
d’Avignon. But in a postmodern, post-colonial, degendered era of self-
commoditization, global environmentalism, and multiculturalism, sensitivities are
quite different from those that prevailed during earlier attempts at stylized
presentations of the Other. Chauvinistic doctrines of superiority no longer go
unchallenged with the human animal Other, and the non-human animal Other
presents a somewhat less contentious alternative. In this paper the authors seek to
understand the Otherness crafted in Orlando theme parks, the messages they
convey, and the broader societal discourses invoked and mobilized. The contrasts
offered in these theme parks and that facilitate an understanding of our selves and
our place in the world include not only us and them, but also a conflated array of
here and there, now and then (past or future), human and animal, primitive and
civilized, he and she, good and bad, and responsible and irresponsible. The authors
do this by presenting auto-ethnographic accounts of their own engagements with
two Orlando theme parks, Disney Animal Kingdom and Anheuser-Busch
SeaWorld.
Keywords: Other; self; identity; ontology; theme parks; Disney; SeaWorld

Introduction: a critical ethnography

Any ethnographic project, even a quasi-ethnographic site visit such as this one has to
begin with the specifics of the ethnographers, central to the eponymous arrival

*Corresponding author. Email: S.M.M.Bettany@bradford.ac.uk

ISSN 1025-3866 print/ISSN 1477-223X online

© 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/10253866.2011.562017
http://www.informaworld.com
 164 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

narrative, so beloved of modernist anthropologists. The arrival narrative sets the place
of the ethnographer, the reader, and the Other. The trope of “being there” is central to
this narrative. The ethnographers are the ones who have travelled to far away places,
they are “there,” unlike the reader who is “here.” The ethnographer has witnessed, first
hand, the life of the object of study, and has come back to write about it, unlike those
who have been the object of the ethnography and have remained “there” (Beaulieu
2004, 152). This is the powerful discourse of arrivals in anthropology and it is a domi-
nant discourse in modernist ethnographies. The arrival story from this perspective
begins in a hotel room in Orlando with a group of intrepid and heretical consumer
researchers, one evening. The discussion, briefly, concerned “here we are, what can
we be heretical about?” Shona Bettany, a first time heretical consumer researcher
(HCR) from the North of England found herself paired with a senior consumer
researcher, Russell Belk. So, no pressure … Due to a shared interest in animal–human
relations and consumer behaviour (Bettany and Daly 2008; Belk 1996) it was decided
that we would tackle Disney’s Animal Kingdom to add to ethnographic work done the
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previous day at Busch Entertainment Corp. SeaWorld, Orlando. The aim was to
explore and discover as critical ethnographers the Otherness crafted in Orlando theme
parks, the messages they convey, and the broader societal discourses of which they are
a part.
Critical ethnography is premised upon the assumption that cultural institutions
can produce a consciousness in which power and oppression become taken-for-
granted “realities” or ideologies. In this way, critical ethnography goes beyond a
description of the culture to action for change, by challenging prevailing conscious-
ness and ideologies exposed through the research (Thomas 2003). The critical
ethnographer takes us beneath surface appearances, disrupts the status quo, and
unsettles both neutrality and taken-for-granted assumptions by bringing to light
underlying and obscure operations of power and control (Madison 2005). This criti-
cal relation to the ethnographic field not only performs these functions but includes
a concern for the positionality of the ethnographer vis-à-vis the responsible and
reflexive production of representations. As critical ethnographers Noblit, Flores,
and Murillo (2004, 3) argue “Critical ethnographers must explicitly consider how
their own acts of studying and representing people and situations are acts of
domination even as critical ethnographers reveal the same in what they study.” In
this case we attempted to reflect and analyse the way we were produced as subjects
within the parks but also the way in which we are producing and enacting the field
within a complex relationship of power that Noblit, Flores, and Murillo (2004, 166)
describe as “traveling those blurred boundaries when Other becomes researcher,
narrated becomes narrator, translated becomes translator, native becomes anthropol-
ogist, and how one emergent and intermittent identity continuously informs the
other.”
So that is all very well, but how does it translate into the specificity of this
ethnographic endeavour? Travelling blurred boundaries requires the kind of intense
reflexivity that only emerges from an auto-ethnographic, first person approach to tell-
ing the ethnographic story. That is why in this paper we use auto-ethnographic
vignettes as a vehicle to explore and critique our own practice and how we are
constructed as researchers within the parks. Through these personal vignettes we craft
our own stories of our ethnographic exploration of these nature parks to explore
the themes of self and Other as constitutive of and generated from our own critical
ethnographic practice.
 Consumption Markets & Culture 165

Shona’s story – ethnographer as cyborg

So here I am sitting next to Russell Belk (I didn’t know him well enough to call him
Russ) in a taxi in Orlando going to Disney Animal Kingdom for the day. In what kind
of strange parallel universe could I have imagined this particular scenario? I keep
looking at him and thinking, “I am doing Disney with Russell Belk.” The only thing
anchoring me to some kind of reality in this surreal scenario is the familiar heavy
presence in my hand of my Canon EOS SLR camera. As well as being a consumer
researcher I am also a professional photographer. I look down at my camera and
exhale, this is the material object, my prosthesis, that will ground me during this
experience. The Myself + Camera cyborg is a different entity, and it is as this I become
the ethnographer within this field. Reflecting on this camera/self cyborg as ethnogra-
pher I would argue that as a photographer I tend to see places continually through the
mechanical diaphragm of my constant travelling companion, my camera. This
produces me, I think, as a very particular kind of consuming/experiencing subject
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within these themed environments. I don’t think that this is a unique kind of construc-
tion, quite the contrary, as the many and ubiquitous “photo opportunity” spaces in
these environments attest. I am clearly not the only person thinking, “What can I take
away from this?” “What can I capture …?”
On these two visiting occasions I think I have been struck mainly by the politics
of taking photographs and with reflecting not on what I am seeing and how to get the
best footage to reflect that and to tell a story about what I have seen (what might be
called a typical “being there” ethnographic narrative) but on how I am being
constructed as a seeing/capturing subject within those environments and ethno-
graphic/tourist engagements as my own cultural/historical/personal baggage collides
with the ethnographic field. Panasonic tag their new pro-sumer digital SLR camera
advertising with the line “everything matters.” However, drawing on Judith Butler’s
telling play on words (1993), “what matters” within the photographic possibilities of
the Disney (and other) Orlando parks seems very much prescribed. Being constructed
as a consumer/photographer within this environment I felt my consumer/photographic
gaze was constantly being directed towards scenes set up by the park for ideal images,
and this was coming into conflict with my ethnographer/photographer gaze that
resisted this decidedly unsubtle direction quite strongly.
As Sontag (1973), Haraway (1990), Ryan (2000), and Wells (2005) all argue, the
camera and another heavy metal object that conveys confidence to the holder, the gun,
have both been tools of colonization by the West of its many Others. The camera is
inextricably linked to colonization and economic exploitation, and configures (note
the metaphor) an unequal power relationship. The person behind the lens becomes the
viewer, the epistemic subject (the subject who knows) and the person/thing in front of
the lens becomes exoticized, Othered, and placed into a subordinate order of that
which is known. I don’t think it is difficult to make this connection, we capture things
in cameras that we want to show people at home, different things that they may not
have seen, we also (as is clearly evident in these themed environments) capture
ourselves or our family/friends/companions as “being there” in these strange and
(maybe) wonderful places (e.g., Belk and Yeh forthcoming). This tourism/photogra-
phy/anthropology/colonialism relation has been discussed in many texts (see, for
instance, Haraway 1990; Edwards 1992; Pultz 1995). Pultz discusses photography as
a way of literalizing stereotypes (with various justificatory purposes) and for exercis-
ing symbolic control over the bodies of others; both of these mechanisms are key to
the colonialist project. The camera (particularly my huge monster of a camera) is a
 166 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

powerful tool for this as it has the fiction of verisimilitude built into it – we believe
what we see in a photograph – in fact, producers of camera equipment bank on this
fiction. The technology of digital capture is progressing in the direction of more sensi-
tive sensors, more mega pixels and RAW shooting all wrapped up in the promotional
rhetoric of realism. For me then, the challenge of being a critical ethnographer, partic-
ularly in this setting, is to explore how NOT to reproduce those colonial, dominating
ethnographic accounts. In order to do this, I need to immerse myself into the mise-en-
scène as a highly reflexive critical ethnographer, open, as the instrument of research,
to the various ways in which I am being produced as a subject within the ethnographic
encounter, and the way I am producing the ethnographic field as my object.

Russell’s story
I had a predisposition not to like Animal Kingdom. Even when I visited Disneyland
(Anaheim) as a kid in the 1950s, I thought there was something vaguely wrong with
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the primitive natives and cartoonish anthropomorphized animatronic elephants and

hippos on the Jungle Cruise of Adventureland. As Shona and I got out of the taxi at
Animal Kingdom I was prepared to see the live animals similarly domesticated and,
well, Disneyfied. I had read Mary Yoko Brannen and John van Mannen’s critiques of
Anaheim and Tokyo Disneylands and was also prepared to see mandated painted-on
smiles in this adjunct to the “magic kingdom.” I had also done some fieldwork at Tokyo
and Hong Kong Disneylands where I had seen both seduction and resistance to “Disney
magic.” But I suspected most guests were of the former type and would become willing
participants in the co-creation of meaning and the co-seduction into a childlike state
of infantalization where adults could scarcely be distinguished from their children. My
best analogy before entering the park was that parents would become co-conspirators
hiding the animal suffering in the same way they hide Santa’s identity and urge their
children to marvel and believe. Not that the children would merely be innocent pawns;
rather like agent Mulder on X-Files, they would want to believe. Or so I imagined.
Another influential predisposition came from having read Yi-Fu Tuan’s Domi-
nance and Affection (1984) emphasizing how we dominate and transform animals for
our amusement. Those bubble-eyed goldfish are a good example – their big eyes are
often scarred from bumping into the bowl, while observers and owners just find them
cute. I also knew too that Mickey Mouse and other Disney cartoon characters had been
transformed from their original incarnations in order to be cuter and more neo-natal,
with the big eyes and chubby cheeks of puppies and kittens, or baby humans for that
matter. I wasn’t quite sure how Disney imagineers would create this cuteness in live
animals. But I was certain that we would get a sentimental story of baby animals with
anthropomorphized human characteristics somehow projected onto them in the
tradition of Dumbo the tragically Flying Elephant, Nemo the hopelessly lost clown
fish, or Bambi the sadly orphaned deer. And the really sad thing is that I am a sucker
for this kind of thing and inevitably end up crying like a baby by the end of the cartoon
story. But then, I AM the one who had a collie named “Lassie” as a child – another
tear-jerker motif if ever there was one. Besides the original story of Lassie Come
Home, there was also a long-running television series called Lassie at the time. Lassie
was not only the loving companion of 10-year-old Jeff in the series, he was also the
smarter “sibling” of the two. For example, in one episode Jeff was bumbling about,
trying to complete a school assignment to find an igneous rock. He searched in vain,
until his wiser older “sibling,” Lassie, brought him one. And even though, or perhaps
 Consumption Markets & Culture 167

because, I fell for this dog-as-hero as a child, I was now on my guard not to be
beguiled by cute animals once again. My love/hate relationship with animals domes-
ticated for human amusement had made me wary if not hostile toward Disney’s
productions in Animal Kingdom, even before I scanned my thumb prints and had my
bag examined in order to enter the theme park.

Fieldwork locations
Disney’s Animal Kingdom park opened in 1998, as part of the Florida Walt Disney
World complex. It is comprised of a 500-acre wildlife park with animal exhibits, rides,
shows, and attractions in seven themed areas: Oasis, Discovery Island, Africa, Asia,
Camp Minnie-Mickey, DinoLand USA, and Rafiki’s Planet Watch. Popular attrac-
tions at the theme park include Expedition Everest, a high-speed roller coaster train
journey with an encounter with a Yeti, an “It’s Tough to be a Bug” show, and a 3-D
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show of the root system of the Tree of Life. In addition there is a Kilimanjaro Safari,
an open-air safari vehicle that tours Disney’s wildlife animal preserve, and Dinosaur
– a simulator ride in darkness that takes you back 65 million years to save the last
dinosaur. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is also known for their entertainments including
the “Festival of the Lion King” and the new “Finding Nemo: The Musical” live show.
A second field site was Orlando’s SeaWorld – part of a chain of marine-life-based
wildlife parks founded in 1964 by four UCLA graduates, Milton C. Shedd, Ken
Norris, David Demott, and George Millay. In 1989 the chain was purchased by the
now Belgian-owned Anheuser-Busch Company. The parks feature orca (killer
whales), sea lion, and dolphin shows and zoological displays featuring various other
marine animals. The iconic figurehead for the park is Shamu, the Orca. There are
operations in Orlando, Florida; San Diego, California; San Antonio, Texas; and (until
2001) Aurora, Ohio. In 2007, SeaWorld Orlando announced the addition of the
Aquatica water park to its adventure park family, which already includes SeaWorld
and Discovery Cove. In 2008 Busch Entertainment announced plans to open a fourth
SeaWorld in Dubai. Although we came upon it too late to include in our discussion,
an excellent treatment of the representation of Shamu and other commodified crea-
tures at Sea World can be found in Desmond (1999).

Analysis
The politics of whales (or Shona visits the Shamu show …)
The day prior to our official HCR outing to the Animal Kingdom, I took myself off to
SeaWorld, primarily to see the famous Shamu show, a touristic encounter long rumi-
nated over, as will become apparent! I arrived at the Shamu show early. Sitting in the
concrete stadium and surveying the huge glass sided tank that the whales perform in,
I reflected on how many times in my life I had really, really wished I could visit the
killer whales at one or another of the SeaWorld parks. While I was a penniless single
student mother, which was for most of my children’s younger lives, my wealthy brother
would take his family to Orlando every year. I always waited for him to return with
his photos and video; you could keep the other parks, I just wanted to watch Shamu.
It reminded me of my family and my children as I was sitting there alone in the stadium,
clutching my camera. I reflected on how strange life can be that I was there at last, but
on my own and as part of my working rather than family life. While in this heightened
emotional state, the whales were released in the main tank to start their “warm up” prior
 168 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

to the show and I got a huge lump in my throat which actually surprised me. I realized
I was bringing a huge amount of baggage to the stadium, and that these beautiful creatures
were expected to deal with it, to resolve it in some way. I think this is probably an example
of Craik’s (1997) argument that the experiences of tourism are consumed through the
lens of prior knowledge, expectations, fantasies and mythologies that emanate from the
tourists home culture and largely not from the destination. In the UK, (and I suspect
in the USA also) the trip to Orlando with the children, and particularly the SeaWorld
killer whales, has reached mythological status as an important rite of passage that helps
to construct the “ideal family.” As an impoverished single mum, Other to that idealized
construction, I could never provide that, and those feelings of inadequacy I experienced
every year, watching my brother, his wife, and their children on a thousand minutes
of “Orlando videotape,” flooded into the tank along with those beautiful black and white
creatures. I wished with all my heart that my children were there, although as young
men now, I doubt they would have even considered participating!
Orlando SeaWorld was the first park I visited. It was opposite my hotel and I walked
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from my hotel (yes, walked – a proscribed behaviour in Orlando) over the road and
across the acres of car parking on my first day to go there. I was struck by the number
of children and families, especially toward the end of the day, who appeared to be
stressed and miserable, it was as if the burden of the mythological “Orlando SeaWorld
Visit” became too much – an emotional overspill of this touristic rite of passage. Hall-
man and Benbow (2007) have described zoos and animal parks as culturally laden
spaces in which the emotional geographies of the family are enacted, the family itself
is being enacted through the visit to the park, and it is for this purpose that the visit takes
on so much emotional significance. Being an ideal family is clearly hard work.
Cue evocative music and husky-voiced narrator … “For each of us there comes a
moment, a defining instant in our lives, that will change it forever …”. Music lifts,
becomes more Celtic, drums beating, lilting female voice sings in Enya style, viewing
screens come together with a film of a small boy in a fishing boat out at sea, seeing
an orca leap out of the water … “there comes a moment in everyone’s life when you
stop wondering and begin to believe.” Cue Shamu … music becomes loud, epic,
heroic, Shamu leaps out of the water, the crowd goes wild …
Agent Mulder may believe in extraterrestrials and children may believe in Santa
Claus, but what does it mean to believe in whales? In any case, the directors of the
Shamu show have certainly got their act together as I am almost hysterical at this
point, catching on with the crowd and being absorbed and disassembled by the
spectacle unfolding before me. My camera is on my knee, forgotten, that is just about
as disassembled as my cyborg ethnographer self can get. I am thoroughly enjoying the
show, the orcas are magnificent, the trainers brave and agile. I hate circuses but this
water ring has me transfixed, I hate seeing non-domestic animals in captivity with a
vengeance, but these captive near-relatives of the ubiquitous circus pony and chimps
tea party have me awestruck and childlike. I am almost relieved when the break comes
as I don’t think I have exhaled for 10 minutes. The break gives me a moment to ask
myself why I (as animal lover Shona) am not horrified by this show, and why I (as
cyborg ethnographer) am disarmed, and I don’t really have the answer. I understand
from Debord’s perspective how the spectacle disassembles at the very moment it
unifies, and how this sucks one into the social relations being played out, but how to
“detour” this aural/visual assault on eyes, ears, body, and soul is far from clear to me
sitting there with half a pool of sea water over me and my eyes shining bright. As it
turns out the Shamu show itself offers me a way out …
 Consumption Markets & Culture 169

“People just like us …”

Husky voice is back.… “When our nation calls, we at Anheuser-Busch and Busch
Entertainment wish to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation, and in honour
of your service and dedication we would like to present this very special tribute.” Cue
evocative Celtic music, on the screen sweeping vistas of the American west, US flags
fluttering, images of rugged clean cut men and young women in military uniform,
“you come from adversity and challenge.” Cue horses galloping in the snow – cut to
cityscapes at night “you come from the farmhouses and the high-rises, you are people
just like us …” cut to lone female silhouetted running on a hill in the dusk “… doing
things we could never imagine …”. Cue fighter jet, the sound of the jet’s afterburners
is immense, it drowns the music out, vibrating in the spectators’ bodies, cue
paratroopers throwing themselves out of planes “you have dedicated your lives to
protecting ours, we offer our thanks.” Cue Shamu … the crowd goes wild.
What? My jaw has dropped open. Yes … that was what I was looking for, now I
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feel dirty and tricked – I look down at my camera.…

It is only fair to say at this point that I am a staunch anti-war campaigner, regularly
attending the large anti-war protests in the UK, but also doing the mundane but more
challenging “small stall in the town centre” type of political work, so I suppose that
this affected me more negatively and strongly than many others in the audience. This
is evidenced by the whoops and cheers at the finale to this tribute when one of the
trainers asks anyone in the audience who is past or present Armed forces from
the USA or UK “or any of our allies around the world” to stand up and be given a
tribute from the crowd. My response to this was how dare they use these beautiful
creatures to promote their war? I left the show unhappy at what I had seen, and
bothered by my participation in it. Othered again.
Later, while writing my notes and starting my analysis I reflected on how the
whale species has traditionally been used as a potent political symbol for naturalists
and for the left in politics and the green in outlook, but here the whale1 was working
very effectively as a symbol for a quite different political agenda. There were clear
parallels being drawn between the whale and its natural existence and the natural order
that was being maintained, secured, and fought for in the war. On reviewing the tapes
of the show there were several occasions where the status of the orca as a predator, as
a violent, killing creature that paradoxically wishes to live peacefully in its cultures
and family groups were discussed. Much was made of the fact that the whale has no
“natural” predators and that it was higher up in the order of things than most other of
its kind, and that killing, even of one’s own kind, was sometimes necessary to main-
tain the “natural” order of the earth. Nature, it seems, is whatever we imagine it to be
(Franklin, Lury, and Stacey 2000).
I endeavoured to shed some light on why the whale specifically is such a potent
carrier of cultural meanings that has been enrolled quite successfully into these bi-
polar extremes of political endeavour. In studies of animal symbolism, researchers
from different disciplines have tried to understand how and why particular animals are
used for symbolic purposes. Holt (1996) observed that animals are used universally
for symbolic purposes and examined why particular animals are selected for specific
types of exploitation by human cultural groups. Sperber (1996) found that extraordi-
nary and anomalous animals provide the most powerful symbolic resources for human
cultures. Douglas (1966), using her example of the pangolin, which has scales like a
fish, but climbs trees; looks like a lizard, but is actually a mammal, to highlight the
special symbolic power of anomalous animals. Kelly (1993) argues that the most
 170 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

potent animal symbols can be divided into three main categories: those that are feared
and admired; those that could be used as a metaphor for humans; and those that are
anomalous in some way.
It is certainly true that the whale has a long history of being both feared and
admired. In Moby-Dick, Melville (1851) presents the whale as a symbol of unparal-
leled greatness, an awe-inspiring wild creature, a figure that cannot be vanquished.
Moby-Dick charts the (futile) attempt by man to conquer nature. The flip side of this
allegorical tale is presented in the Shamu show, as man does indeed conquer nature,
or at least nature as represented by the orca, who is tamed and trained to do man’s
bidding. In the Shamu show the orca is presented as the “Other” of nature to man’s
(dominating and superior) culture, but is also held up as a mirror for a very specific
form of human selfhood. Orcas are easily used as metaphors for humans, and this
forms an important part of the Shamu experience as we are told that orcas live in
stable cultural groups (pods) quite reminiscent of human cultural groupings. They
exhibit social behaviour, vocalization, and play similar to human behaviour, they
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reach sexual maturity at 15, have young approximately every five years until the
age of 40, orcas usually end their lives (in the wild) at 50 years old (in captivity this
is halved). They are mammals so their young are born live and are nursed for
around two years. They are highly intelligent with advanced communication and
problem-solving skills. They are carnivores with a varied diet and hunt for their
prey in packs using sophisticated hunting techniques. They are known to occasion-
ally kill their own kind. It is not difficult, given this information, to draw parallels
between human and orca species.
In terms of powerful symbolic animals that are anomalous and not easily catego-
rized, here too the whale scores strongly. The most obvious anomaly is that the whale
lives in the water and yet is a mammal like us, it breathes air and is a sea dwelling
creature. Further to this, it is anomalous in that it is a non-human animal and yet it is
perceived popularly to be highly intelligent, perhaps even more intelligent than
humans. This is evident in popular culture, for example, we do not find it difficult to
believe in Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home (1986) that the only creature capable of
communicating with aliens are a pair of humpbacked whales time travelling from the
past. In the powerful discourses of Christianity the whale is also seen as anomalous.
In the story of Jonah and the Whale, the whale acts as God’s symbolic ally, as it saves
Jonah and gives time for repentance in order to do God’s bidding. On the other hand,
in biblical stories the whale is also connected strongly with the Leviathan, the monster
associated with Satan, and the belly of the whale with hell. In Jonah’s parable, the
whale is seen as “worldly” an equal protagonist to the main human characters, but a
creature of the earth, of the chaos and uncertainty of the sea. This world/earth anomaly
with regard to the whale is an important one to help address the issue of why whales
are political, and why they seem to have been inscribed quite successfully into bi-polar
extremes of political discourse. Chapman (2007) discusses the world/earth distinction
through the work of Hannah Arendt. For Arendt, Chapman argues, the world:

is not everything that exists, but that which is the product of human work, as opposed to
just of nature … [it] is the place that human individuals inhabit with others. It gives
meaning to the life of the individual and the community of which they are part. Only in
the world are we unique individuals, with our moral triumphs and failings. (2007, 435)

Within the concept of the earth on the other hand:

 Consumption Markets & Culture 171

it no more matters that the individual people alive now are different from those alive 100
years ago, than that the ants I find in my garden this year are different individuals from
the ones that were there last year. Whereas in the world we are each a unique, individual
person, on the earth we are all simply members of the same species. Our differences are
matters of variations in biology, not matters of personal identity or moral excellence.

The whale is a powerful and ambivalent political symbol, we would argue, because it
inhabits both earth and world, we see the whale as our equal in intelligence and behav-
iour in the world, and yet it is a creature of the earth that surpasses our own inhabita-
tion and status. In writing Moby-Dick, Melville addressed this in a chapter entitled
“Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish? Will He Perish?”:

We account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in individuality. He

swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the
Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin … In Noah’s flood he despised Noah’s
ark; and if ever the world is to be flooded again, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats,
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then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equa-
torial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.

Although following this discussion it is clear that the whale has historically been,
and continues to be, a potent symbolic resource, there is more to this analysis than the
bodies of the whales themselves. Somehow I cannot see the politics of the Shamu
show working in a more natural setting – for example, orca watching off the coast of
Canada would surely jar with the sabre rattling politicking as opposed to the images
of war and smooth cultural messages that blend into the Orlando Shamu show (see
Mowat 1972). Benbow and Hallman (2008) argue that, like the ambivalence of the
whale itself documented above, zoos and animal parks are themselves inherently
ambivalent, with multiple discourses of education, science, and entertainment
enfolded into common understandings of what their purpose and function is. Spotte
(2006) argues that because of this ambivalence the semiotics of the zoo (let’s call it
what it is) are troubling to the spectator who, like myself in the auto-ethnography
presented, struggles to find meanings and to resolve the cultural tension. Spotte offers
other key ambivalences that he argues are presented to the spectator to stimulate this
cultural tension, the zoo, he argues also sits between modern/postmodern, animality/
anthropomorphism, and reality/simulation. This last dualism is a classic touristic
tension; as Stokes (1999) documents, touristic experiences generate a kind of
“semiotic anxiety,” the perpetual nagging question of “is this real, or is this just a
show?” (143; see also MacCannell 1999).
The politics presented through the Shamu show help us to resolve these cultural
tensions, I would argue that the razzmatazz of the Shamu stadium decontextualizes the
orcas, so that the meanings being promulgated can be more easily written on their
bodies. Moreover, within the powerful discourses that the zoo is a place of learning
(Broad 1996) and a place where we learn our place in the natural order of things
(Jamieson 1985) that political message is written very powerfully. The orca within the
Shamu show sits within a sea of naturecultural ambivalences. As such it is a potent
conduit and embodiment of cultural meanings at a moment when we are made
vulnerable and searching for some kind of resolution to the “semiotic anxieties” we
cannot bear. At that moment of being offered “an invitation to comply or collude in
the construction of a particular universe rather than in the deconstruction of its bound-
aries” (Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter 2003, 54) the orca provides a tempting
resolution.
 172 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

We’re off to see the wizard: Russ’s take on Animal Kingdom

My prior biases to the contrary, Disney’s Animal Kingdom employed a script with the
appearance of great concern for the environment, human rights, and animal rights, all
dished up with post-colonial sensitivity. Disney is no doubt aware of the criticisms
that have been levelled at it and the critical stance of many academics toward popular
culture and “Disneyfication.” In an age of global warming and ecological conscious-
ness, such criticisms are no longer restricted to academia, but are a part of grade
school curricula, youth organization teachings, and popular culture. But Animal
Kingdom has done its best to nullify such criticisms with a very PC (politically
correct) version of Disney as conservation-minded steward of the earth, the sky, and
the seas. This is perhaps most effectively presented in the first attraction that visitors
are likely to enjoy in the park: the Kilimanjaro Safari.
The first clue that this is going to be something different than the hokey and
demeaning portrayal of African animals and natives in the Jungle Cruises of the
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various Disneylands (Anaheim, Tokyo, and Hong Kong) and Disneyworld’s Magic
Kingdom nearby in Orlando, is in the queue waiting under a faux thatched roof station
for our 30-foot safari bus. At each turn of the line, a television plays Discovery Chan-
nel type documentaries about African wildlife interspersed with clips from a “ranger”
(“Doctor Catherine Johnson”) and a native “flying game warden” (“Wilson Matua”).
The latter two figure in the narrative adventure that is to follow. Wilson explains that
he was born on the animal preserve the visitor is about to enter (actually opened in
1998) and that his mission is to help stop poachers who illegally harvest rhino horns,
elephant tusks, and the skins of exotic animals like lions, cheetahs, and gazelles.
Wilson romantically intones in African English that “What you see with your eyes,
you treasure in your heart,” and enjoins the listeners to “join us in the battle” against
poachers.
Shortly after our jungle khaki-clad female driver Mickey (“only slightly less cool
than Mickey Mouse”) sets out into the “800 square mile” (really 500 acres or less than
1 square mile) animal preserve and she points out a few animals and speaks a few
Kiswahili words before we find we must take a “detour” over a partially “collapsing”
bridge. We also hear Wilson and Catherine on the air to ground radio. They vow to
help guide us to more animals. But soon there is a distress call. Poachers are after an
elephant (Big Red) and her baby (Little Red) and we can help head them off. After
eliciting the cooperation of passengers, Mickey takes us “off the preserve” in hot
pursuit. We pass the poachers’ camp, complete with piles of ivory and rhino horns.
But soon we find Wilson’s plane has landed, the poachers have been captured, and the
elephants are safe from slaughter. After this updated version of Dumbo with touches
of Bambi and the Disney version of Little Red Riding Hood, we return to the station
from which we departed. The tour took less than half an hour, but visitors who buy
into the narrative feel they have had an adventure and have helped to save Little Red
from becoming an orphan because of the greedy and heartless poachers. Moreover,
they have played a heroic role in saving our vanishing wildlife.
The Kilimanjaro Safari is only the start of the eco-conscious conservationist ethos
paraded by Disney in Animal Kingdom. Our next activity was an “African” train ride
to the ambitiously named Conservation Station. Both the train ride and the station
ostensibly provide a behind-the-scenes look at Disney’s activities in the park and in
caring for animals and the planet. The train journey made evident that the “wild”
animals of the park are contained by fences and although Disney would be loathe to
hear the words, this is essentially a large drive through zoo. As one of the employees
 Consumption Markets & Culture 173

stated, “It wouldn’t do if our endangered tiger were eating our endangered deer; it
wouldn’t be a ‘Disney Moment.’”
Departing the train at the Conservation Station, we passed a man talking about
how Disney is saving the cotton-top tamarin (very cute) that is illegally traded in
Latin America. Most park visitors walked by without slowing their pace. We pass
displays and banners exhorting visitors to share space with animals and realize that
the whole world is our backyard. Part of the display is human-size cut-outs as well
as costumed employees portraying the cartoon Mowgli from Disney’s version of
Kipling’s Jungle Book. The televisions overhead now show monitor lizards and
clips of our “eco heroes.” I get the feeling that they are heroes because they save
animals endangered by human encroachment so that they can be captured and
presented to other humans to gaze upon – the human gaze focused on our animal
Other (Berger 1980).
As if to counteract this message, we next encounter a heavy-handed save-the-
forest play featuring Pocahontas and talking trees. Here the clear-cutting lumber jacks
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are the villains and the poor forest trees and animals are the victims. We, the audience,
are cast as the heroes and heroines who are the only ones who can save these hapless
victims. But save them for what? Apparently, according to the storyline, because of
the medicines and fuel they may provide us to continue our mechanized domination
and despoliation of the planet.
We go on to learn in the “behind the scenes” area, that Disney’s Wildlife Conser-
vation Fund provides matching grants for research that benefits gorillas, bears, alliga-
tors, and other wild animal species. This may seem a stretch for a profit-minded
entertainment firm, but it is an image reinforced both by a video clip from Walt
himself about the environment and by an equipped lab performing a cataract operation
(we are told) on a “real” monitor lizard. The operating room looks authentic although
the adjacent laboratory includes a photo of a vet tech with “horse pills.”
As our journey through Animal Kingdom continues we meet another docent/
guide talking about bats, love birds, and alligators. I hear an overweight woman
comment, “Now we’re getting our lesson.” Her husband concurs, “We’re getting
our education.” We interview a 30-year-old woman from Illinois with her six year
old on the path between Animal Kingdom’s Asia section and DinoLand. Asked
about the conservation area, she explains, “We we’re going to go there, but the
petting zoo won out instead.” Although the whole conservation thrust appears to
have been lost upon this woman and child, as well as many other visitors, we find
one final metaphoric use of Disney’s heroic ecology. In the Asian section there is a
pseudo-Aknor Wat that, like the animals of the world, is shown as being recon-
structed and saved by the Theme Park. Granted the original Ankor Wat in Cambo-
dia is preserved in a state of ruin, but Disney even portrays itself as saving what it
constructed as a replica ruin.

Conclusion
There is likely a hierarchy of human attempts to elevate their species from those of the
rest of the animal kingdom. Hunting, fishing, meat-eating, vivisection, and rodeos lie
at one end of the dominion-exerting continuum, while companion animals and anthro-
pomorphic cartoon animals seem to lie closer to the other end (e.g., Serpell 1986).
Zoos, circuses, and animal shows fall somewhere in the middle. These arenas are also
changing in an effort to appear more humane, and conservation and patriotism are
 174 S. Bettany and R.W. Belk

mantles with which the venues studied have tried to cloak themselves. Disney’s
Animal Kingdom scrupulously avoids the zoo label and its practices of blending
cartoons and anthropomorphism into its treatment of animals have influenced institu-
tions that do embrace the zoo label as well (Beardsworth and Bryman 2001; Davies
2000).
Whether the animals on display are performing whales and dolphins or corralled
African and Asian animals presented for 30-minute “safaris,” they are nevertheless
spectacles for our amusement more than enlightenment. As wild animals disappear
along with their habitats, these are the only places we are likely to see them outside of
cartoons and animatronics (other Disney creations). As Ryan (2000, 217) observes:

For many of its early practitioners, the practice of “camera hunting” was not always
distinguishable from ordinary hunting. Organized photographic hunting in fact marks a
shift in the terms of domination, away from a celebration of brute force over the natural
world, to a more subtle though no less powerful mastery of nature through colonial
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management.

The colonial aspect may seem to have disappeared in an era of supposed post-
colonialism, but Disney adventures like the Jungle Cruise and the Animal Kingdom
Safari both provide nostalgic neocolonial re-enactments of the great white hunter
dominating both natives and animals (if only a bit less paternalistically with “Wilson”
on the AK Safari):

The most memorable characters on the Jungle Cruise are simulated elephants, hippopot-
ami, gorillas, and snakes. In this sense the ride parallels the practice of those Americans
who can afford it – who travel to exotic parts of the world to see, in the most comfortable
manner possible, the animals rather than the people. Here we have the middle-class
version for those who don’t mind being crowded together on shared seat cushions.
(Fjellman 1992, 226)

The only difference on the heavily scripted AK Safari is that the animatronic charac-
tures of Disney’s Jungle Cruise are fewer and “real” animals populate a “real” game
preserve, albeit one that is considerably smaller and more controlled than the 800
square miles of the script.
Whatever the conservationist and nationalistic rhetoric of Disney’s Animal
Kingdom and SeaWorld’s performances, there is no denying that they are places of
human control and enforced marginalization. Berger’s comparisons (1980, 24) are most
apt and a fitting close to this brief look at the Animal Kingdom in Orlando theme parks:

All sites of enforced marginalization – ghettos, shantytowns, prisons, madhouses,

concentration camps – have something in common with zoos. But it is both too easy and
too evasive to use the zoo as a symbol. The zoo is a demonstration of the relations
between man and animals, nothing else.

All of this reminds us of an only half-facetious lapel button reading: “Save the
whales.… Collect the entire set.”

Note
1. The author recognizes that “killer whales” are in fact not of the whale species, but are of
the dolphin family, however, they are commonly referred to as whales in Western
cultures.
 Consumption Markets & Culture 175

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