It was about 15 years ago when I first heard about Disney Land. The Land of Dreams and Magic where I can meet my favorite characters from Duckburg and play with them. I wanted to be a part of that beautiful Kingdom of happiness. But that never happened. Disney was too far away and so I had to wait patiently. 15 years later the waiting had ended. I went to Japan as an exchange student and finally one of my childhood dreams was going to become true: spending one day in magic dreamland where everything was possible. I walked trough the Gates of Disney Sea into a parallel Dimension where vomit is being called Protein Spill, and happiness is being fixed in the contract of employment (that was the impression I got when I looked at the faces of the entertainer). It was possible to travel trough Arabia, Italy, Atlantis and South America within 12 hours. But I also climbed up some magic rope, flied into an Tornado and survived an elevator crash in the Tower of Terror. I met my favorite character Goofy and took a picture with Indiana Jones, though he would not let me took his hat. There had been popcorn in 1000 different flavors and Ice with the shape of Mickey Mouse, the first and most important character in the world of Walt Disney. I had a lot of fun and and behaved almost like a child. But it was different than the image inside my head. The reason for that is simple. I, to some extent, overgrew my own naive imagination. I knew that Disney is a hardcore multibillion Entertainment Company and the the Boss of the Company is not a cute talking Mouse, but rather a big fat Rat in a (chief executive) chair. Ok that is maybe a little exaggerated, but after waching the Southpark Episode(The Ring, S13E01) where Mickey Mouse made an appearance the Wonderland Image of Disney got another huge crack. And the Episode of Family Guy called "Road to the Multiverse"(S08E01, Timeline 9:30-11:36) didn't help, to restore it either. Nevertheless some interesting thoughts came to my mind while fooling around in the Dimension of Brute Happiness. One of this idea was that Disney Land theme parks are a new form of Gated Communities.
At this time I had been tired from walking around and had several adrenalin rushes from the roller coaster, so there is the possibility my brain had an fallout. That’s the reason why I want to examine this topic a little bit further. Starting point will be an citation of McMullen. After this base had been set I will give a short definition of the term communities and describe how it can be altered to fit this particularly situation. On top of that the term of Gated Communities will be discussed within the context of Disney’s theme parks.
"A gated community is any residential area which physically restricts the entrance of nonresidents. Every hotel or apartment building with a doorman or a fence controls the flow of residents and nonresidents alike. Homeowners associations, meant to influence the appearance, population, and social character of the community, also have been used to restrict access. Although each gated community and each neighborhood charter differs, most share a few common characteristics: physical barriers to entry and movement, the privatization and communal control of public spaces, and privatization of public services such as trash removal and police forces." (McMullan) This citation describes both the word Gated Community and the parties involved with the term. Above that it gives an general idea of the size of those GCs. It could be a huge residential area or just one building. So generally the term does describe a physical space but the characteristics of it are more important.
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