/ Blog / / Blog /So there’s this guy in earshot of me right now who was explaining to someone that Disneyland desensitizes us to reality. And I want to challenge that.
Disneyland exists in our reality. It is very much real. It is a real place, you can visit it. It doesn’t just exist in our reality, it is part of our reality. I mean to say that it has been influenced by and has influenced our reality.
Disneyland is fabricated no more than every other human-made thing in the world. If your definition on what is real and what is fake is human-involvement, that is. It does project a different worldview, as many kinds of media and people do. It expresses an opinion.
And while Disneyland is manufacturing its own reality in which to exist in for a short while, in that short while people are presented with things that can (if they let it) challenge their expectations of their reality outside of Disneyland.
Of course Disneyland is capitalistic and it does very little to project a world where currency is irrelevant. But many of its attractions, its design, and its approach to humanity can be lessons people learn and take home with them.
Disneyland does not intend to be a utopia. It inherently exists both with flaws and in contrast to the world’s flaws. It exists as social commentary. Nothing inside of it is merely a replica, nor is everything in it without inspiration from the human experience.
Everything you can see inside of Disneyland is the perspective of how artists and engineers see the world. Art, music, film, and photography all do this same thing. Humans create to express how they see the world.
And when you see the world through an artist’s eyes, or through a musician’s voice, or a filmmaker’s or photographer’s lens, you can interpret that in your own way. One of those ways can be to dismiss it as “not real.”
If you make the choice to dismiss any kind of human creation as “fake,” you do yourself a disservice by failing to take the opportunity to see the world differently from the way you currently view it. It can inspire you if you let it. It can change you if you let it.
Things inside Disneyland may make it seem that it’s “all for show” and not at all for function. But if you choose to examine how Disneyland functions differently to the world outside of it, we can learn a lot about how things could be, even if we ultimately choose not to.
To come to the conclusion that Disneyland desensitizes us to reality rather than exists to critique reality only demonstrates a lack of interest in understanding what it does and can do before coming to that conclusion.
When he said, “Disneyland desensitizes us to reality,” he could’ve meant one of two things:
If he meant the that while inside you are desensitized to the world, that may be true to some degree. When inside the park, there are many aspects of life that are easy to forget about when in an environment with that many sensory interactions.
If he meant that upon leaving Disneyland, you are desensitized to the rest of the world, I don’t think I could possibly understand that. In many ways, the “real world” hits very hard when you leave the park. You can become incredibly aware of every way it is different.
In general though, I don’t think going to a place, viewing art, reading a book, or watching a movie makes you desensitized to the reality we live in. These experiences often highlight particular parts of our individual and shared experiences. If they’re good, they critique it.
But if you visit Disneyland to escape the world rather than enter a new one, or if you visit to be entertained while forgoing a commitment to learn, then you might have decided to be desensitized. That isn’t the fault of the place.
It’s all to do with your intention and what you hope to get out of it. A lot of people take a vacation to relax. And I think that’s very important. But time away from your normal life also has potential to show you other ways of existing, and sometimes that can be enlightening.
If you make any location (a new city, a new country, a theme park) into merely a novel venue for your life instead of visiting to understand life unlike your own, you may not learn much from those experiences.
The truth is that any place or experience can desensitize you to reality if you go without the intention to learn.
Put another way, we don’t consider those who get lost in a book to be desensitized to reality. Nor would we say that being immersed in a film desensitizes you to reality. Because there’s a general understanding that these experiences don’t exist merely for entertainment. They intend to leave you with something more.
And so too is it with Disneyland. Disneyland doesn’t exist only for your entertainment. It is not simply an amusement park.
It is a place—an occasionally flawed place—where artists and engineers created a different world with the hope that it inspires people.