Florida CultureAmerican Studies Institute

Florida Institute of TechnologyDr. PerdigaoJuly 19, 2012

From Mouse to Wizard

Mickey’s Beginnings

Steamboat Willie (1928):Golden Age of Animation

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940)

Museum of Modern Marvels

Modern Inventions (1937)The Riveters (1940)

Disney and American History• “Donald’s character also symbolized a more complex, post-Depression era, in

which economic recovery was still fragile and global pressures more mounting. His bombastic confidence masked a kind of insecurity as he desperately lashed out at impediments to his happiness” (256).

• “age of adjustment psychology” when “individuals traumatized by the Great Depression increasingly perceived success in terms of finding an acceptable social role and fitting into society” (257).

• Self Control (1938): Smiling Uncle Smiley with radio advice show• Cured Duck (1945): course on psychological techniques• Modern Inventions (1937): rage against the machine—robot butler, mechanical

barber chair• Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943)—assembly line; authoritarianism versus liberation

• Donald Duck’s popularity “rooted in the regenerative climate of the post-Depression United States” and also “subtly reflected a gradual rethinking of America’s global situation” (258).

• Mickey Mouse unable to “survive in this hostile environment” (258)

The Mickey Mouse Club circa 1955

The Mickey Mouse Club circa 1992

All Grown Up

Grown Up Gosling

Another Disney product

Miley Now

New Disney Generation

Disney Films in Walt’s lifetime• Pinocchio (1940)• Dumbo (1941)• Bambi (1942)• Song of the South (1946)• Cinderella (1950)• Alice in Wonderland (1951)• Peter Pan (1953)• Sleeping Beauty (1959)• One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)• The Sword in the Stone (1963)• Mary Poppins (1964)

AW (After Walt)• The Jungle Book (1967)

• The Aristocats (1970)

• Robin Hood (1973)

• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

• The Rescuers (1977)

• The Fox and the Hound (1981)

• The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

• Oliver & Company (1988)

• The Little Mermaid (1989)

• Beauty and the Beast (1991)

• Aladdin (1992)

• The Lion King (1994)

• Pocahontas (1995)

• Toy Story (1995)

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

AW (After Walt)• Hercules (1997)• Mulan (1998)• Tarzan (1999)• Toy Story 2 (1999)• The Tigger Movie (2000)• The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)• Monsters, Inc. (2001)• Lilo & Stitch (2002)• Piglet’s Big Movie (2003)• Finding Nemo (2003)• Brother Bear (2003)• The Incredibles (2004)• Cars (2006)• Ratatouille (2007)• Wall-E (2008)• Tinker Bell (2008)• Bolt (2008)• Up (2009)• The Princess and the Frog (2009)• Toy Story 3 (2010)• Cars II (2011)• Brave (2012)

Studying Culture• Florida Studies

• Disney Studies

• Films

• Product lines

• http://www.temptalia.com/mac-venomous-villains-collection-for-disney-information-photos

• http://www.ign.com/games/disney-epic-mickey/wii-786198

• http://disney.go.com/princess/#/home/

• Parks

The Disney Princesses

Disney and Florida

Disney World• EPCOT (Experimental Prototypical Community of Tomorrow)

• Future World and World Showcase

• http://www.wdwinfo.com/maps/epcot.htm

• http://www.wdwinfo.com/maps/mk.htm

• http://www.wdwinfo.com/universal/universal-studios-florida/History-of-universal-orlando.htm

Epcot—where geography is mixed up

Donald Duck in Mexico

And Mickey

When in Rome. . .

Or England. . .

Celebrate You

And, for Mickey’s sake, shop

Creating a legacy

Living Disney

Preserving Walt

• Harmony, Eden, Experiment, and Amity American towns (Ross 2)

• New Urbanism “vowed to reintroduce suburban Americans to the civic virtues of active community involvement” (5).

• Toll on wetland and lake ecosystems, hatching rate of alligators plummeting (7)

• Boca Raton, Tampa, Orlando, Gainesville, West Palm, Jacksonville, all “forged and adopted planning principles that stress mixed land use, compact residential and commercial density, pedestrian or mass-transit orientation, and, where it still exists, greenfield preservation” (8).

• Celebration—Founders Day (November 18, 1995), 350 sites up for lottery (17)

• “Progressive education, high technology, unequaled health facilities, and quality homes, but the fantasy glue that sealed the package was a story about going home again” (19).

Designing utopia

The pillars of the community

Conformity and individuality

Spanish as Florida style?

Celebrate yourself

• “dating” Celebration, providing a “themed backstory”: “the town was built by survivors of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, and the residents had an elaborate monument in the town square by which to remember their heroic ancestors”; “Celebration had been built anew out of the rubble left by General Sherman’s ruinous march through the South” (Ross 22).

• Instead, neotraditonal town, “recreating the past while preserving their modernity” (22).

• “dollar-poor purgatory of Central Florida” (24)

• Modern versus traditional

Heritage

On television (1984-1990)

Miami Vice in film (2006)

In Video Games!

“The PlayStation 2 game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, amongst its many references to Miami Vice, features two gangs dressed as extras from the scene in which Tubbs arrives in Miami (see image above) - the Cubans wear the white-and-red t-shirt of the man on the left, whilst the Haitians wear the purple vest and blue jeans of the man on the right.”

http://miamivice.wikia.com/wiki/Brother's_Keeper

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYsqMEX4Oh8

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6bTvCRhG6k&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sarYH0z948&playnext=1&list=PL4D85924AF67A7140&index=34

Florida on youtube

• “I always prided myself on being an outsider… but now… I feel the need to connect with someone.”

• “There’s something strange and disarming about looking at a homicide scene in the daylight of Miami. It makes the most grotesque killings look staged, like you're in a new and daring section of Disney World: Dahmerland!”

• --Dexter

• “My badge says Miami, but here lately it’s been looking a lot like Disney World!”

• “If Miami hasn’t got it, they haven’t invented it yet.” • --Miami Vice

Back to Disney?

• Miami Vice (1984-1990); film (2006)

• CSI: Miami (2002- present)

• Dexter (2006-present)

• Miami as “encircled by these ‘imaginary stations’ which feed reality, reality-energy, to a town whose mystery is precisely that it is nothing more than a network of endless, unreal circulation: a town of fabulous proportions, but without space or dimensions.” (406)

• Late 1980s-1990s, “emphasis on image and cultural representation” (Salmon 107), globalization, new industries (finance, high technology and information fields) (108)

Every day like mardi gras

• Flipper (1964-1967, Coral Key; 1995-2000)• The Golden Girls (1985-1992, Miami)• Empty Nest (1988-1995, Miami)• Silk Stalkings (1991-1999, Palm Beach)• Nip/Tuck (2003-2010; first four seasons in Miami)• Burn Notice (2007-present; Miami)• Cougar Town (2009- present; Sarasota area)• The Glades (2010-present)

• Reality (??)TV• Jersey Shore? (2010)• Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami (2009-2010)• Bad Girls Club: Miami (2010)• Real World: Miami (1996), Real World: Key West (2006)• Miami Ink (2005-2008)• Police Women of Broward County (2009)• Hogan Knows Best (2005-2008); Brooke Knows Best (2008)

Bringing the heat

Retiree TV?

Singles’ Florida?

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/specials/weirdflorida/blog/2009/09/is_sarasota_cougar_town.html

Family Florida?

Not Family Florida

Criminal Florida