Susan Aronstein

Discipline and Pleasure: The Pedagogical Work of Disneyland.

Abstract Disneyland is work disguised as play; school disguised as vacation. While Walt Disney’s curriculum deploys across all of its products, it literally engulfs the approximately 50 million ‘guests’ who visit the Disney Parks each year. Drawing on Sarah Ahmed’s phenomenological reading of orientation in Queer phenomenology, this article investigates the ways in which Disney’s didacticism is made material through practices and procedures designed to orient the park’s visitors, to ensure that those visitors always know where they are and who they are, as a means of educating ‘good’ citizens. The argument focuses not on Disneyland’s narrative curriculum but on its corporeal one: visitors are enticed to make affective investments, to construct or reconstruct their identities to comply with the Disney version of the ideal American worker and consumer, as the park attempts to reorient those who resist those roles.

The return of the king: Medievalism and the politics of nostalgia in the mythopoetic men's movement

Often, when a new era begins in history, a myth for that era springs up. The myth is a preview of what is to come... In the myth of Parsifals search for the Holy Grail we have such a prescription for our modern day. The Grail myth arose in the twelfth century, a time when many people feel our modern age began; ideas, attitudes and concepts we are living with today had their beginnings in the days when the Grail myth took form... The Grail myth speaks of masculine psychology.

“My Entire Body Was Shaking”: Consumers Respond to Wicked

This chapter turns to the consumers, analyzing depth interviews with 75 interviewees who had seen a live performance of Wicked. We enabled them to talk extensively about their experience of the show. Their responses were both broad-ranging and surprisingly consistent. From this data, we were able to draw several significant findings about why Wicked has been such a success, from consumers’ intensely personal connection with Elphaba to their emotional response to the show’s music. These findings show that Wicked provided many consumers with a soul-stirring, life-changing experience.

Of Living Rooms and Libraries: Oz’s Journey from Fairy Tale to Myth

This chapter introduces the annual broadcast of MGM’s Wizard of Oz in the context of Cold War America, the rise of television culture, and corporate program sponsorship. We then examine how the ritualized viewing of The Wizard of Oz both shaped the baby-boom generation and embedded Oz in the cultural imaginary. We analyze the conflict between librarians, educators, and fans over L. Frank Baum’s legacy and Oz’s literary heritage. On the one hand, librarians sought to pull books from the shelves; on the other, educators and Oz fans researched, preserved, and defended Baum and his works. As a result of their efforts, we conclude, Baum became an American mythic figure in print and on screen.

The Wonderful Wizard of Marketing: L. Frank Baum as Producer and Promoter

This chapter examines L. Frank Baum’s transformation of Oz from story to brand in the context of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century shifts in markets and consumption patterns. We discuss Baum’s long career in sales, his contributions to the fledgling marketing profession, and his use of state-of-the-art marketing strategies and technologies to sustain Oz. For 20 years, Baum was the brand manager of Oz, until his death in 1919. We conclude with an analysis of what Oz offered its original consumers, speculating how—given the historical and cultural circumstances in which it was first produced and consumed—Oz achieved such unprecedented success during Baum’s lifetime.

Pulling Back the Curtain: Wicked Experiences

This chapter discusses the experiential marketing techniques that have helped to sustain Wicked for so many years. We analyze six key data points: New York’s “Behind the Emerald Curtain Tour,” the traveling mall-show “The World of Wicked,” “A Special Performance of Wicked Songs,” “Witches’ Night Out,” the Broadway Green Alliance, and the “BullyBust” initiative. Taken together, these Wicked events keep the show in the public eye, reinforce its brand, and provide consumers with multisensory embodied experiences. They attract new consumers to the show while fostering an emotional connection with established consumers.

Expanding the Map: Oz in the Public Domain

This chapter discusses several Oz productions—including “The Land of Oz,” from Shirley Temple’s Story Book Hour, and Journey Back to Oz, starring Liza Minnelli—that sought to capitalize on The Wizard of Oz once the Oz books started to come into the public domain during the television broadcast years (1956–1998). We then examine how marketing and promotion set the The Wiz on its unlikely journey from flop to hit, and conclude with an analysis of the revisionist Ozes produced at the end of this era: Walter Murch’s Return to Oz (1985), Phillip Jose Farmer’s A Barnstormer in Oz, Geoff Ryman’s Was, and Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Telling and Selling: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz

This chapter chronicles how Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman adapted Gregory Maguire’s dark political novel to the Broadway stage. We discuss their initial attraction to the tale, their discovery that the show “was about two Witches instead of one,” and the initial critical reception of Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz in the context of Oz’s profound place in American culture. We then turn our focus to Nancy Coyne’s and Marc Platt’s marketing strategies, analyzing the crucial role they played in Wicked’s unprecedented success.

Whither Oz?: Stepping into the Twenty-First Century

This chapter begins with an overview of Oz’s post-Wicked life, examining the flurry of new Ozes that seek to capitalize on the musical’s success. Ranging from the dark Ozes of Tin Man and Emerald City, through girl-power young adult novels, to Disney’s Technicolor return in Oz the Great and Powerful, these Ozes occasion an explicit discussion of ownership and cultural sustainability. As producers, gatekeepers, and consumers clash over what is and isn’t Oz, fans often take matters into their own hands. We end with an analysis of fan-engagement and fan communities, as well as a discussion of Oz conventions, festivals museums, and merchandise. The work fans do, we conclude, sustains Oz for both themselves and more casual consumers.

Extending the Yellow Brick Road: More Books and a Technicolor Rainbow

This chapter begins by examining the ways in which Baum’s publishers and heirs sought to continue Oz after his death. By hiring Ruth Plumly Thompson to continue the series, they provided consumers with new Oz products and then assiduously marketed Oz through contests, clubs, and promotional plays and radio productions. We then move to discuss the legal battle between Baum’s oldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum, and his publishers, Reilly & Lee, over the ownership (and the future) of Oz. Finally, we offer an in-depth examination of the production, promotion, and consumption of MGM’s 1939 technicolor musical spectacle, The Wizard of Oz.