Nostalgia unfulfilled

It's surprising really how the world changes as we do. We grow up, we get older, and eventually childhood becomes merely a thing of the past. I don't know exactly when (or whether) that happened for me, but now it seems that I have grown up, and it's about time that I say goodbye to childhood.

It happens to everyone around this age--I mean, why do you think Disney songs are so popular among college students? Maybe something is going on in our brains, preparing us to face the big-bad adult world. Maybe not. Maybe we're just collectively reacting to our independence away from home and the protected environment of our parents' residence and, as a result, clinging to those vague reminders of what it meant to be a child. It's tempting, after all, to just curl back up into that ball and believe someone else will take care of you again.

Unfortunately, that's not the way things were meant to be.

So let me get to the point: I went to Disneyland today. I've been conducting research (and I know, it sounds b.s., but believe me when I say it's been quite in depth) on Disneyland this summer, and today was the first time I went to the park this summer. Or, for two years, in all truth. I've been researching this park, trying to grasp what it is that makes it special, trying to put a name to what Disney does to Anaheim and to Orange County, and why so many tourists flock here. Trying to understand whether Anaheim is truly the city of Disneyland, or whether Disneyland is just some tourist trap in the middle of the budding metropolis known as Anaheim. Needless to say, it was difficult--I was dealing largely in vagueness and uncertainties because I was relying largely on a Disneyland I had known in my memory. Suffice it to say, that Disneyland is drastically different from the one I saw today.

I think most disappointing is that everything--and, yes, I mean everything--has been updated to reflect the newest Disney blockbusters and such. Pirates of the Caribbean has become, well, Pirates of the Caribbean--ironically, much as Eco would see it, a copy of a copy of something that never existed. I mean, does it not seem absurd to the Imagineers that they are, in essence, turning a ride that inspired a movie into a ride based on that very movie? And then of course the submarines have recently reopened to reflect Finding Nemo, which, while a great movie, does not exactly fit well to the concept of the Submarine Voyage without a little smoothing over of details. Similarly, High School Musical, the bane of all things kitsch, Disney, and pop culture has come to invade the park and turn a generation of 'tweens into, well, I'm not quite sure what they are. Singing zombies? Close, perhaps.

Ok, I'm being a little harsh. But the point is not that the park has been redone. That happened quite frequently while I was young as well--one year it was the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, the next it was Tarzan. Or, perhaps more aptly, one year it was empty space, the next it was the Indiana Jones Adventure (also known as the greatest amusement park attraction of its era). But, you know, I didn't seem to mind those changes. Perhaps because the marketing and the product pushing weren't so widespread back then. Aladdin could just hang out in Adventureland and you didn't have to be bombarded with 10,000 plastic-bottle genies or Aladdin-red vests. But now you wait in line for Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and all you see are Nemo hats and Dorie t-shirts. I mean, give it up already, just let kids have fun without turning them into mindless consumers, gosh.

But, you know, I don't really care that they want to do all of that. I mean, Disney is a business, they have to make money. And they're doing it quite well right now and, well, go figure they've found a cash cow in High School Musical. Good for them. What is most upsetting to me, personally, is seeing this park that I remembered one way overrun with a completely different generation of children. The Disneyland of my childhood is officially gone. In its place is a castle that seems a fraction of its former height, a Space Mountain that--despite its smoother, faster, darker upgrade--seems slower than I remember it, and a trip down Splash Mountain's final plunge that seems, well, anything but the long and scary drop it once was. It seems that, somehow, I have outgrown Disney. Or Disney has outgrown me. In either case, walking around the park today was fun, yes, it was entertaining and all of that, but it was an experience in analysis and in letting go. Rather than take things at their surface value, I couldn't help but question every sign and decoration and trick in the park's details. Rather than experience a return to my childhood, I had to face the fact that I am no longer a child.

That is the most upsetting realization there is. I don't know why it is so hard to transition out of childhood, why it is such a challenge to face the fact that you are an adult. After all, when we're children adulthood can't come fast enough. But sooner or later childhood is gone, and all it can be is a memory, a glimmer in your eye when you hear the first chords of "A Whole New World," or a belief, just for a minute, that through your imagination all your dreams really will come true. Eventually, though, you have to leave the park gates and return to a world that doesn't give a shit about your imagination...