Chris Newcomb

Crossing the Berm: the Disney Theme Park As Sacralized Space Chris Newcomb

The Disney theme park, at just over fifty years old, has created a commonly held, cross-cultural, communal pattern of activity involving immersion into and interaction with content-filled, created spaces. This work proposes that the Disney theme park be approached as an agent of ritualization in the creation and experience of sacralized space: an ordered, organized space for the thoughtful, selective construction of social meaning and the mutual exercise of symbolic power, initiated in the creation of environment and experienced through ritualized activities and spatial movement, resulting in the recovery of the past and the possibility of a transformed future. Such an examination of Disney theme parks provides a broad ground on which to place in dialogue the other interpretive proposals within contemporary Disney thought, a basis for the thoughtful discussion of these sites within Religious Studies, as well as a more flexible and coherent method of considering the complexity of the parks and their pervading influence, for good or for ill, on the global cultural stage.