I think a really great way to understand how the general public views museums as nation-building tools is to look at how fake museums are used in theme parks.
The clearest example to me is the Yeti Museum built into the queue of Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom, where the museum offers 'evidence' that primes you to be scared of the Yeti you're about to encounter. (Photos: wdwnt.com/2020/07/photos… & waltdisneyworldblog.com/tag/yeti/)
#EPCOT is based on the old World's Fair model, so nearly every pavilion has a mini-museum. In Future World, little science centers help you explore concepts like communication with games and interactives. Living with the Land is a ride-through agriculture exhibit.
Future World sells you the idea that corporations and innovation are solving all of humanity's problems, and World Showcase celebrates the cultures those corporations are saving by packaging countries' food, history, art for consumption.
EPCOT is visited by >12 million annually. Pre-pandemic, WS pavilions were staffed by people from each country. Most of the pavilions have a gallery with a history and/or art exhibit, often without an explicit connection to Disney itself.
Morocco has an exhibit about desert racing and Berber culture: disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2019/11/n…
China has had an exhibit of Terra Cotta Warriors (pic).
The Stave Church in Norway has an exhibit about Vikings: wdwnt.com/2018/05/photos…
People quip that it's "just like visiting x country" to go to Epcot because we have learned that experiencing a culture = learning some history, eating a snack, shopping for knickknacks, talking to a local. People understand culture as something that can be put in exhibit cases.
*EPCOT sorry even my little nerd heart hasn't readjusted to the capitalization convention reversion!!!!!
OKAY SO LET'S TALK ABOUT DOLLYWOOD.
Where Disney parks are telling stories about people and corporations in general, Dollywood is affirming some pretty specific myths about one person: the inimitable Dolly Parton.
(Here I would be remiss not to link to @tressiemcphd's essay on DP's cultural moment which got me thinking about Dollywood this morning and started this thread: tressie.substack.com/p/the-dolly-mo…)
Dollywood -- built near where DP grew up -- includes a reproduction of the log cabin she was raised in. Right in the middle of the theme park. Note the moment at the beginning when the kid says, "we're at the..... museum?" It's confusing!
You can also visit Dolly's tour bus, and the whole experience is capped off by a truly incredible museum that features tons of Dolly's costumes (on custom built mannequins, of course), her music and performances, and her narrative.
The museum experience starts with a hologram of Dolly telling you she will always love you, which is something I didn't know I needed until it happened.
Shops in Dollywood showcase news articles about the park's economic impact locally. Dollywood also houses an aviary for birds that are cared for and presented in daily shows.
Together, this gives us the story of DP: someone of humble origins who reinvested in her community when she got rich & famous, who cares about nature, who is wildly talented AND well-dressed. Maps onto why she's having a moment. Theme park museums are part of that mythbuilding.
There are GREAT examples of museums as world-building in video games. ACNH is a huge one!
I have not played Bioshock Infinite but the way they use the museum there sounds incredible!
We have so many other examples of museums in pop culture: Indiana Jones, Marvel movies, honestly the flair-covered restaurants of the 90s????, airports. Museums are everywhere and people know what they're supposed to take away from them even if they aren't regular museumgoers.
Twitter isn't a great place to explore this because there is just! so! much! to say but give a shout if you have a favorite non-museum museum!
Thinking about this aspect of museums' place in the public imagination helps us understand why building transparency into museum practice is absolutely VITAL. We have to break down our weaknesses and how we work through them, because many people don't realize they're there.
The use of 'archaeological sites' could be a whole conversation on its own! There's a lot to be unpacked about Orientalism and Othering when using archaeology to create an air of mystery.
.@AllisonPortnow reminded me that the Revenge of the Mummy attraction at Universal is set within a museum + archaeological site + movie set??? Talk about a lot going on, all of it in shorthand...
@AllisonPortnow Museum people are still out here thinking museums are so pure and meanwhile theme park and movie designers are like, "you know how we should tell these people that they should just believe whatever we tell them?"
@AllisonPortnow THIS! We could learn so much.
Love these examples!!
Almost seems like having a position in a formal museum can be a virtue signal and having your own museum-y display space might be sinister signal? Thinking more about this!
I think because themed environments are linked to "edutainment" which is a dirty word for museum people, we discount those complex layers of meaning making from built environments outside specific contexts.
HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS ONE?!!? So meta to have a 'museum' about human culture in a theme park!
👇🏼👇🏼
Corporate museums also relevant to the conversation around EPCOT.
Really like this way of thinking
Oh, hey, this is super relevant to our conversation yesterday! Shout out to @ingtron for mentioning this, too.
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