Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience

This book addresses Disney parks using performance theory. Few to no scholars have done this to datean enormous oversight given the Disney parks similarities to immersive theatre, interpolation of guests, and dramaturgical construction of attractions. Most scholars and critics deny agency to the tourist in their engagement with the Disney theme park experience. The vast body of research and journalism on the Disney Imagineersthe designers and storytellers who construct the park experienceleads to the misconception that these exceptional artists puppeteer every aspect of the guests experience. Contrary to this assumption, Disney park guests find a range of possible reading strategies when they enter the space. Certainly Disney presents a primary reading, but generations of critical theory have established the variety of reading strategies that interpreters can employ to read against the text. This volume of twelve essays re-centers the park experience around its protagonist: the tourist.