Captain PMS, Dorfman, Mattelart

Captain’s Blog Stardate 09/25

I wrote my previous blog only to turn around and read Zizek and discover that he is talking about the same thing only he’s about five-thousand times smarter than me. I feel like a child trying to grasp Lincoln logs while the dude instructing me is building a cathedral.

“So the comics show the child as a miniature adult, enjoying an idealized, gilded infancy which is really nothing but the adult projection of some magic era beyond the reach of the discord of daily life.” - Dorfman, Mattelart

I’ll get back to the quote in a minute. Many years ago, when I was quite little, my parents belonged to a cult. I’m not going to reveal its name here because I don’t want to risk offending anyone’s beliefs. Also the word “cult” is controversial when applied to certain groups, but trust me like simulacra you know one when you see it. If you have actually been in one and aren’t anymore, than you know the only way to recover yourself is to call a spade a spade and acknowledge the truth of what you were a part of. My parents unplugged themselves so to speak. They swallowed the pill, and I have been forever grateful.

That said, people in the cult my parents were once a part of, love Disney World. They go a lot. Almost every family vacation I can remember as a child was spent in a theme park. They love the idea of it, I believe because it represents the ideal of what they want life to be. They drag the kids around and take pictures of them all happy and sticky-faced and then they send those pictures to other family members so they can see how happy everyone is. Then they sit down and plan their next trip to Disney World because it is the only place where everything is what they want it to be. They don’t complain about the prices, to them it’s worth every penny.

So now for the quote above. The biggest misconception about Disney World, in my experience, is that it exists for the children. It is the opposite. The Magic Kingdom reminds adults of what they once imagined the grown up world to be like, all clean, neat, and fun. For the ultra-religious members of my family, those who consume God until he is all they know, the Magic Kingdom is a heaven they can already see. It gives them a goal. Work hard, obey, and fear and you too shall have all this. A Main Street of your own filled with shiny idols and five-dollar penny candy.