Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2002 - 71

continue to successfully market this comforting brand of revisionism, but many critics
(one of whom referred to the French park as
"a cultural Chernobyl") apparently find escapism to be inherently offensive, and believe
those who enjoy it clearly lack intellectual fiber. While the parks are admired for their logistical and technical accomplishments, their
inherent artificiality seems to limit how much
respect may be accorded them. (Of course,
such criticism could just as easily be leveled at
other forms of entertainment and relaxation,
including many stage productions.) But while a
certain degree of casual condescension permeates the book (typical of scholarly writing about
all things Disney), the articles remain refreshingly free of academic polemic, although they
certainly establish clear, thoroughly reasoned
positions, both positive and negative.
Neil Harris provides a valuable historical
perspective, showing the development of
world's fairs from the end of the nineteenth
century until the opening of Disneyland. Karal
Ann Marling's fascinating cornerstone essay,
"Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks,"
documents the influence of film design and Los
Angeles architecture upon early conceptions
of the flagship park. She also shows how
Disney's vaunted narrative techniques evolved
over time, as the parks incorporated freer
montage techniques over strictly linear narrative, emphasizing mood over immersion within
a particular storyline (often film derived). We
see how as each new park was built, with new
attractions added and old attractions renovated, the Disney view of the world shifted in
response to the desires of new audiences.
Marling provides each "land" in the Disney
parks with its own section, showing how designs were shaped by both corporate desires
and the personal tastes of key personnel (in the
early days, primarily Walt Disney himself). Particularly interesting was the relative "struggle" for
domination between designers from backgrounds in film art direction and animation
(when the park was first being planned, in the
1950s) and those who trained primarily as architects and dominated much construction
during the EPCOT era and beyond. At this time,
many structures were conceived along fundamentally architectural rather than dramatic
lines, and they consequently differ in their
emotional effect upon contemporary visitors.
The contrast between monumental architectural design and the park equivalent of scenic
design should be especially interesting to edu70

S P R I N G

2 0 0 2

TD & T

cators attempting to help their students understand the differences between research, interpretation and dramatic expression.
Another essay focuses upon the cultural
roles that Disneyland played in the context of
the 1950s , while Yi-Fu Tuan's "Disneyland: Its
Place in World Culture" draws parallels between perceptions of Disney parks as places of
extreme social engineering and even mythological concepts of paradise, examining its
role as a "promised land" not unlike America
itself. Greil Marcus' "Forty Years of Overstatement: Criticism and the Disney Theme Parks"
provides a critical survey of previous writings,
offering valuable counterpoint perspectives for
some of the more negative views. As a finale, in
a short interview, architect Frank Gehry (designer of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,
Spain) discusses his experiences working with
Disney, providing a kind of rolicking outsiderinsider's perspective. As a result, the book
contains a variety of fundamentally balanced
articles which examine the parks from a variety of viewpoints.
Designing Disney's Theme Parks, while
a handsomely produced catalog with many illustrations not contained within Imagineering, occasionally exhibits a shortfall in
contemporary book design. The elegant grid
used to lay out the book allows for plenty of
white space upon which to rest the eye, but
many of the illustrations are scaled down to
the point where their details are lost. And for
some reason, illustrations cited in the text are
rarely placed on the same page as their references, so one must constantly flip back and
forth while reading-a small complaint, but
irritating, nonetheless.
Love them or hate them, dramatically
themed environments surround us, whether in
the form of amusement parks, video arcades
or shopping malls. Growing like architectural
kudzu, they evolved from their origins in the
pleasure gardens of Europe into the amusement parks and world's fairs of the United
States, then were radically reinvented by Walt
Disney in the 1950s. Providing both entertainment and employment, theme parks are as
worthy of comment as any other aspect of design in the performing arts. Designing
Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of
Reassurance makes a worthy contribution to a
new and growing field of study.
Reviewed by Bradford Clark,
Bowling Green State University

Fifty Years of Fashion
New Look to Now
By Valerie Steele
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
ISBN: 0300071329, 167 pages, illustrations,
$45.00 (hardcover).
Fifty Years of Fashion is a survey of fashion from
the New Look (1947) through the 1990s. The author is the chief curator of the museum at the
Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.). She has
written several other books on fashion history
and edited Fashion Theory: The Journal of
Dress, Body and Culture.
Fifty Years of Fashion seems to target fashion designers and serious browsers of fashion
history and although this book is a survey it is
very thorough, and would be a good reference
for the theatrical costume designer. This book
explores the six decades involved succinctly
and has many beautiful illustrations from the
F.I.T. collection. The photographs are very
clear and focus largely on high fashion. Information concerning middle class clothing during
this time period is covered in the text but photographs of middle class clothing are sparse.
Ms. Steele's opening chapter focuses on the
late 1940s when the New Look, championed by
Christian Dior, was ushered in. World War II had
a high impact on clothing during this period and
the shortage of fabrics and notions resulted in the
use of utility suits and the practice of recutting
men's clothes to fit women
The 1950s brought conformity for everyday wear. The author draws a parallel between
the uniformity of dress and the uniformity of
politics at this time. Ms. Steele defines the term
"wife dressing" and draws an interesting connection between the styles of automobiles and
brassieres. She reminds us that the invention
of the modern fashion doll (e.g. Barbie) hap-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2002