"Mickey Mouse" History: How Disney Parks Portray the Past

Pretty much everyone I knew growing up had been to a Disney Park. It was either Disney World or Disneyland (or, if you were one of the lucky ones, both of them) or EPCOT, which, for kids my age, was not nearly as cool as the princesses and princes at the Magic Kingdom. Growing up, though, we never recognized that Disney was attempting to show us history. 

My parents, on the other hand, remember Disney in a much different fashion. They remember Disney films on everything from history to biology being shown in classrooms in their middle schools and high schools. Disney's attempts to educate were much more obvious then.

Now, however, it is much different. My generation did not grow up watching educational films on America created by Walt Disney and his corp of Imagineers; instead, we grew up on Disney's animated princes and princesses and his marvelous theme parks. These theme parks were Walt Disney's way to reinterpret history as he wanted to see it. 

There is an important distinction that should be made before I continue this post. There are two Walt Disneys, according to Mike Wallace's Mickey Mouse History: Original Walt, who is Walt Disney himself, and Corporate Walt, who is the WED Enterprises, Inc. Corporate Walt took over for Original Walt after Disney's death in 1966, and has operated ever since. 

It was Original Walt who conceived the idea for the Disney Parks in California and, later, Florida. He  created a place which was "clean, wholesome, and altogether different from the seedy carnivals he remembered from his youth" (Wallace 135). Here, Disney built his own version of history, starting with Main Street, the first place visitors come to when entering a Disney Park. 

Main Street, USA at Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida

"It is a happy street," writes Wallace, "clean and tidy, filled with prancing Disney characters. It has a toylike quality...It is like playing in a walk-in doll's house that is simultaneously a shopper's paradise, equipped with dozens of little old-time shops with corporate logos tastefully affixed" (135-6). Supposedly, Main Street is based on the main street of Disney's childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri; looking at Disney's actual life history (a childhood of displacement and perambulation across America) shows this to be false. Instead, Wallace points out, Main Street, USA, is Disney's idea of what Main Street should be like. "Original Walt's approach to the past," Wallace writes, "was thus not to reproduce it, but to improve it [author's italics]" (136). Imagineers call this "Disney Realism," "where we carefully program out all the negative, unwanted elements and program in the positive elements" (Wallace 137). 

Disney also embraced this perfected view of history in the Hall of Presidents. A brief video elaborating on the Constitution and the threats it had faced in the past is followed by a display of animatronic presidents, moving and talking about their presidencies. 

The Hall of Presidents

Wallace points out that each president is portrayed with a degree of detail "characteristic of Hollywood costume dramas" (139). The audience is held in rapt attention by the presidents, occasionally whispering as famous names are mentioned. When Nixon is spotlighted, however, "chortles and guffaws break out" because, as Wallace notes, "The contrast between the official history and living memories is too great...and the spell snaps under the strain." Wallace, after leaving the show, asked a worker if it had just been a bad day for Nixon, and was told in reply "that no, the crowd always rumbles when RN takes a bow" (139). 

This problem of connection between past and present led to Corporate Walt's creation in 1982 of EPCOT and its American Adventure. 

The American Adventure, EPCOT

The American Adventure departs from the history portrayed at the Magic Kingdom in that it includes African-Americans, women, and Native Americans. It follows American history, as narrated by (animatronic) Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin, covering everything from the American Revolution to the lunar landing. Despite including groups that had been excluded or portrayed in an unflattering light in the Magic Kingdom, it still glosses over the parts of history that Corporate Disney found distasteful, including the complete elimination of the Vietnam War and the fights for union rights. While it is a step in the right direction, it still holds back.

What Disney history (or, as Wallace terms it, "Mickey Mouse" history) reveals is the desire to teach while entertaining, and improve while appearing to teach the truth. This is similar to what happened in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, as America struggled to find a true national heritage. By creating his own version of America, Disney commodified American history, turning it into something that could be bought and sold. It becomes an idea to be passed on to future generations - an idealization, instead of the actuality. 

What Disney promotes is a perfected idea of the past - a glossy magazine cover, with no problems, no ills, no issues of race or gender. It's a beautiful dream, but it remains just that - a perfected dream.