Thursday, December 9, 2010

Disneyization

According to Alan Bryman, Disneyization is the “process by which the principles of the Disney theme parks are coming to dominate more and more sectors of the American society as well of the rest of the world”. This encompasses four main parts, theming, dedifferentiation of consumption, merchandising and emotional labour. To explain this phenomenon in Ireland, I’ll use an example that was talked about in previous posts, St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick’s Day, in its truest form is about celebrating the life of the saint it is named after but due to globalization, other countries started celebrating the day not to celebrate the saint but rather Irish culture. This trickled into the celebrations in Ireland when the government started the parade in Dublin to attract visitors. Now, while it is true that the idea of having a parade to celebrate  St Patrick’s Day did not start in Ireland, considering the parade is linked to their culture, it created a hallmark like status around the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. This now draws in tons of people from all over the world for its 6 day celebration as everyone wants to have experienced the parade in the hallmark country.



In terms of theming, the celebrations revolve around things associated with Irish culture which the international community decided refers to the colour green and leprechauns. Leprechauns, who have little to nothing to do with the saint, play a major part in the festival. Due to the fact that they are unique to Ireland, nearly everyone lining the street has a leprechaun hat. People decked out in green are seen all over the place eating green food, drinking green beer with their faces painted green. For those six days of the festival, everything revolves around this sort of theme.

When it comes to the dedifferentiation of consumption, this festival illustrates it better that anything else I can think off. Just taking a look at the itinerary for next year’s festival, it becomes quite clear that during this festival, it is very hard to draw a distinction from the actual celebrations which happen on the streets and the shops that are celebrating the festival as well.

As you can see in the map, many of the landmarks are at areas like the Temple Bar, Merrion Square and involve buildings like the National Concert Hall and the Light House Cinema Cineworld. This is right in the centre of the city, not far from Grafton Street, the shopping district. These areas are also lined with shops. While the celebrations are going on, there is no doubt that the Oliver St John Gogarty Pub in the Temple Bar area, for example, all decked out in its decorations for the festival, selling its green beer, will attract a large amount of the people in to have a drink. Out on the streets, there will definitely be shops, some even temporarily set up, selling trinkets and souvenirs relating to the parade. Swept up in the atmosphere of the parade, it will be hard for the festival goers to draw the distinction between the sectors leading to the dedifferentiation of consumption.

Moving on to the idea of merchandising, as mentioned above, the souvenirs at the festival reflect the party mood and are available all over the place. The streets along the parade route are littered with street vendors selling souvenirs such as the ones shown below.






Lastly, in terms in emotional labour, considering this festival is not really run by one company but rather is the collective efforts of many smaller companies with the organizing committee, it is hard to set a particular standard level of performance for everyone to go by but everyone involved knows that when the tourists and festival goers go to the festival, they expect to see smiling faces and genuinely cheerful people which they have come to associate with the Irish culture. No matter where you go during the festival, chances are you are bound to face charming Irish people embracing their now Disney-fied festival. 


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