Frontierland Case Study

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Frontierland. The underlying hints of American culture and history do not stop with Main Street, USA, these hints can be seen in Frontierland as well. According to Designing Disney’s Theme Parks, Frontierland represents the American west around the 1840’s with small towns equipped with everything from a saloon to a general store (Marling, 1997, p.96). This land presents the American dream of the time period, braving the “rough terrain” of the unknown frontier in the hopes of finding gold and becoming rich (Brannen, 1992, p. 219). The theme of this land becomes a problem when Frontierland is copied in the parks in Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong because the Walt Disney Company is standardizing their theme parks using a universalistic mindset. There is no frontier in Japan, France, or China. People from those countries never had the dream to move west, explore the great unknown, and maybe if one is lucky strike big and become rich. The whole theme of this land gets lost in translation in Disney parks outside of the United States. The…show more content…
This should mean that an entire land dedicated and themed around the idea of the unknown and uncertainty should not do well. Tokyo Disneyland is the abnormality of Disney international theme parks, so even though Frontierland is all about the unknown and the Japanese do not like the unknown, Tokyo Disneyland still does well (in terms of park attendance and park revenues). Frontierland does not deter guests because the Japanese equate it with cowboys and Indians which is something seen as inherently “American”. Since the Japanese are obsessed with all things American, they are okay with the idea of Frontierland and just accept it as a part of American culture, instead of being deterred by land because of its underlying themes of conquering the

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