You misunderstand me. I love Disney and I love theme parks. I think Disney is a (desecrated) artistic masterpiece. I’d much rather go to Orlando then Fashion Week.
But by the standards of the kind of trend setters you’d find at Fashion Week, the overlords of haute couture, the kind of people very concerned with what colors are in or out, Disney is tacky. Or the European Postmodernists like Eco, who look at the worlds fair reproductions of old world architecture and high art in World Showcase and see in it the epitome of the tackiness at the heart of American culture. Or turn to almost any arbiter of the traditional cultural hierarchy, like the ones who told Eisner that no matter how great the newly-opened GF was, no theme park hotel would ever get five stars.
And you can see their point. Disney features a lot of artistry directed at something rather silly. Minutely detailed reproductions of filmic landscapes that never were. Idealized depictions of a turn-of-the-century middle-American small town populated by talking mice and goofy dogs. A worlds fair 60 years after the worlds fair had any cultural relevance.
And it’s glorious. Wonderful. Tacky isn’t bad. It’s fun, freeing, relaxing, exhilarating! So yeah, if you want to say some element of WDW is tacky - great! That’s the point! And done well, it’s as great as the greatest of high art!
