Disneyland

Back to September I did a study trip to Disneyland, Paris. I did not manage to write my experience here, so now few hours before I submit my diploma comes a short post on Disneyland ( they will be couple of late posts today)

In September my supervisor advised me to visit Disneyland, Paris as a part of my thesis. I was lucky because that was coincide with a visit to Paris for a friends' wedding. In the begin I could not see any connections why this visit to Disneyland would be relevant with my thesis, and this thought was in my mind until the moment I entered the park. I was there early in the morning, the moment the park opened its doors and the moment the party began, a party that no one had ever prepared me for. People were hoping, running and screaming, a constant loud music with childish reedy voices, colors sprang up from everywhere , and a scenography that was immediately transferring you in an old American road with view to the pink castle of Sleeping Beauty. The only way to escape one from this hullabaloo was to let himself be part of it. And so I did.

One of the most interesting parts of the park is Fantasyland. The place is distinguished from the rest of the park by the use of colors and signs. The color palette varies from primary bright tones to more festive tones. The signs have used a handmade font referring to childlike writing. The elements of granting roofs, balconies, doors and windows are all designed with a fairy-tale patina. The materials in most of the attractions are original ones and only in places where it demands better durability and efficiency they have fake the original materials.

What I realized in Fantasyland and general in Disneyland, is that there one can find the inner child of himself. I really can argue that place is not direct for children but for adults who are or want to be children themselves. On the other hand I do not forget that this was a personal utopia of Walt Disney. I think that what Walt Disney was apart of a charismatic storyteller (from the 2D with cartoons to 3D with his theme park) was a growing young man. It seems that his capacities of imagination, creativity, playfulness, wonder, explorativeness. sense of humor, enthusiasm, joyfulness, and optimism were high developed. In that sense there are few connections with pedomorphosis in general: one is the theme parks both designed as childlike and designed for the ultimate regression to childhood for the audience, and the second Walt Disney himself as an example of growing young adult.

I finish the post with the most annoying, lovely, fun and famous rides of the park. "It's a small world"