首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Disney World: Cities of Simulation as Postmodern Utopias (乌托邦) What is the essence of Disney World? Much of it revolves arou
Disney World: Cities of Simulation as Postmodern Utopias (乌托邦) What is the essence of Disney World? Much of it revolves arou
admin
2012-07-11
60
问题
Disney World: Cities of Simulation as Postmodern Utopias (乌托邦)
What is the essence of Disney World? Much of it revolves around Disney’s effort to create the illusion for visitors that they have entered a perfect world, which more closely conforms to their desires. Disney creates this "perfect world" in various ways. For example, it encourages visitors to see the park through the eyes of a child and defines itself as a place that "brings dreams to life". But most essentially it creates a fictionalized version of a perfect world by inviting visitors to escape their containment in physical reality so they are no longer limited by time, distance, size and physical laws.
Disney World is centered on Main Street USA; surrounding this small town sentiment are the four worlds:Fantasyland,Frontierland, Adventureland and Tomorrowland. The idea is that even in a small town atmosphere there are no limitations to reality, space, odyssey (冒险征程) or time. This small town construct offers us a vision of an America that never was, and the possibility of tomorrow that may never be. It occurs in a time of the Utopian representations of yesterday and tomorrow. Tourists are suspended, in amid very different times,between worlds that do not exist in real time.
In various attractions,visitors seem to float through the human body and through DNA;they travel to the past and future,and leave the earth. On the thrill rides,they defy gravity,moving at speeds and in ways that seem to violate what common sense tells them that should be possible.
Disney World also invites visitors to escape the fallen state of society and the self. It creates idealized visions of American capitalism and political history, and draws visitors into a world of perpetual celebration,full of parades and fireworks,with costumed performers and endless invitations to fun. The effect is not unlike participating in a 365-day-a-year holiday, in which negative emotions are banished from life.
When you put all this together,it becomes obvious that Disney World offers visitors the fictionalized realization of humanity’s deepest dream: transcendence (超越). In Disney World, we go beyond the mundane (世俗). In place of the world we normally find ourselves in, in which most opportunities are closed to us and most human motives are concealed, we go on a journey through symbolic worlds that are objective and material, but seemingly as weightless, carefree and fantastic as the imagination.
In all this,Disney undoes the dry "scientism" of the world view of contemporary societies. It was the German sociologist Max Weber who said that in the modern age we are witnessing the disappointment of the world with the rise of science and the declining influence of religion. The creations of simulation culture, such as Disney, seem to be attractive again for us with the new promise that art and technology can re-create our surroundings in the form of an updated version of contemporary romance stories, with myths of space flight,aliens,time travel and lost worlds.
But Disney doesn’t only offer objectified fantasies. Through the power of simulation, it also shows us the way technology will give us power over and freedom from, the world. Disney takes the various possibilities of technology—that one day we will go into outer space or travel freely across the globe or evolve a perfect society—and it creates the simulation of these things so we can enjoy in fictional form, now,the powers we hope to enjoy later,in reality.
These qualities make Disney World the ultimate showcase for the way technology will lead to transcendence of the earthly world. In place of the promise of modernism, which told us that we could realistically hope that technology would bring in an age of wealth, power over nature, and rationality, it reveals a "postmodern" promise that has emerged out of modernism,in which we are told that technology will allow us to escape the conditions of society and the physical world.
We can thus see in Disney two trends that define the age: the desire to escape the constraints of life through the new magic wand of technology and the desire to pretend that we have done so in invented worlds of simulation. One might say that if the great myth or "meta-story" of America is the story of progress, then Disney World is a place that masquerades (化妆舞会) as the happy ending,in which progress culminates in a utopia of transcendence that undoes the fallen state of nature, society and ourselves.
These characteristics place Disney World in a long line of utopias invented by Western civilization. But unlike most others, which were rendered in fiction or put into practice in small communities, in Disney, a perfect world is seemingly brought to life with simulation and offered as a vacation paradise. There are excessive signs throughout the park that indicate tourists where to take pictures. These signs are usually located in front of attractions or rides, so that tourists equate their good time with specific places, and the Disney memory will linger with the pictures that tourists treasure and integrate into their real lives. Whenever they crave (渴望)happy times,they automatically envision a specific place or location at Disney.
One of the ironies in all this is that Disney World misrepresents our desire for a better world, even as it expresses it. On the one hand,it expresses our desire for an idealized existence that is innocent of evil and imperfection. But it does so by inviting us to degenerate to a state of happiness before the fall from childhood, with simplified visions of life that filter out the difficult truths of the self and society. The contradictions inherent in Disney World are deepened by the fact that it is only able to show us its vision of Utopia by turning us into passive consumers who are taken for rides. Thus, we can see a danger that is at the essence of our relationship to technology. In the way it does everything for us and encourages us to both think of ourselves as children and lose ourselves in images and fantasy;Disney reveals the way technology can promote narcissistic (自我陶醉的) personality traits in those who use it.
In Disney,there is the ultimate attempt to rely on technology,in which even experiences are manufactured for us by machines. Disney World is a cautionary tale that shows us, not only the wonders of the future, but the danger that progress might cause humanity to degenerate, allowing it to lose itself in an environment of automation, simulation and reassuring intellectual illusions.
Disney World is a cautionary tale that shows us that progress may lead to man’s degradation by automation , simulation and______.
选项
答案
reassuring intellectual illusions
解析
由定位句可知,迪斯尼是一则警醒世人的寓言,它不仅向我们展示了未来的奇迹,更预示着发展进步有可能会导致人类退化,最终迷失在自动化、虚拟仿真和逼真的幻想中。故reassuring intellectual illusions为本题答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/4aE7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Theywilldefinitelybuyanewcar.B、Theywillnotbuyanewearbecausetheydon’thaveenoughmoney.C、Theywillbuyanew
Althoughtherearebodylanguagesthatcancrossculturalboundaries,cultureisstillasignificantfactorinallbodylanguage
Theyoungscientistsgotthefirst-handinformationtheyneededinthescientificresearch____________(通过实地考察).
Aresearchersaysleadintheenvironmentcouldbeamajorcauseofviolencebyyoungpeople.DoctorHerbertNeedlemanisaprof
A、Fliesneedlesssleepthanhumans.B、Humansneedasimilaramountofsleepwithflies.C、Theamountofhumansleepisdetermin
Itisallverywelltoblametrafficjams,thecostofpetrolandthequickpaceofmodernlife,butmannersontheroadsar
TheObesityisanationalhealthcrisis,onethat—quiteliterally—weighsonusall.Itcostslives.Itcostsdollars.Andinthe
Wemust______theamountandqualityoftheproductswemaketothelevelofpublicdemand.
Smallchildrenusuallyliketo________theirmothersandtheywillcryloudlyiftheirmothersdonotpayenoughattentiontoth
随机试题
承担工程施工阶段的监理、监理机构应进驻施工现场。()
ISO提出的基于______的管理框架是现代网络管理体系结构的核心。
结肠小袋纤毛虫主要寄生部位为
男性,50岁,患肝硬化3年,出现腹水2个月,间断服用螺内酯。2天来无诱因全腹痛,腹围增大,发热38.5℃,继而出现嗜睡。血常规示WBC4.2×109/L,分类杆状核粒细胞占9%,分叶核粒细胞占80%,该患者病情变化最可能的原因是
A.3~4个月B.3~6个月C.8~9个月D.1岁左右E.3岁以后佝偻病患儿出现方颅的时间是
正中神经的运动传导刺激为
男,6岁。右侧阴囊包块,平卧后不消失,透光试验阳性。应考虑的诊断是
下列关于投资性房地产的后续计量的表述中,正确的有()。
运动会上100名运动员排成一列,从左向右依次编号为1一100,选出编号为3的倍数的运动员参加开幕式队列,而编号为5的倍数的运动员参加闭幕式队列。问既不参加开幕式又不参加闭幕式队列的运动员有多少人?()
Directions:Forthispart,youareallowed35minutestowriteacompositiononthetopic"StudyingOverseas".Youshouldbas
最新回复
(
0
)