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Kirsten Burkard Professor Kathleen Pirrie Adams NPF 567 Exhibition Practices in Contemporary Art December 10, 2012 The Walt Disney Company, Nintendo, and the Third Culture The concept of culture has been defined in many different ways over the course of history: some have interpreted it as the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievements, while others have simply labelled it as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people or other social group. However, perhaps the most inclusive definition was penned by Raymond Williams, a Welsh novelist who believed that culture is . . . a form of criticism where human thought and experience are recorded (Shaw 405). This notion may lead one to believe that culture in general has long been regarded as something conceptual and abstract made up of physical products which place culture within context and give it meaning. Cultural theorist Kevin Kelly asserts through his various writings that culture has predominantly revolved around the arts and science, realms which have become largely integrated as . . . science sat in the cultural backseat, its steady output of wonderful products radio, TV, and computer chips furiously [breeding] a pop culture based on the arts (992). Society has steadily appeared to move from a culture of the arts to one of science; this homogenization has led to the birth of what Kelly deems to be a third culture, a term first coined by science historian C.P. Snow (Kelly 992) to explain the synthesis of the previous cultures . As a country which is constantly creating and exporting trends, products, and ideas which are then adopted or integrated into other countries' popular cultures, the United States may be labelled as the culture factory of the world. With global establishments such as the idea of Hollywood and its influence over multiple entertainment industries (including music and film), America has become the

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unofficial authority on consumption and reception with The Walt Disney Company leading the cultural charge. Esteemed as one of the world's most well known corporations, Disney has been able to permeate nearly every faction of life, using ingenious business strategies and a strong emphasis on creativity and appeal to market their characters and products all over the world. This is not to say that Disney is the only company of its kind, however. Japan's involvement in the development of new technologies and entertainment systems has been extremely influential, as Nintendo and its subsequent gaming consoles have now become the standard by which all others are judged. Implemented in the collective public brain, their scientific advancements have come to define the . . . current generation of Nintendo kids, [where] their technology is their culture (Kelly 992). Unlike previous intellectual pursuits . . . the achievements of the third culture are not the marginal disputes of a quarrelsome mandarin class, wrote literary agent John Brockman (Kelly 993). They will affect that lives of everyone on the planet. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find someone who has never heard of or come into contact with either of the aforementioned companies, as their legacies and influence have crossed national borders to reach internationally. Thus, this breadth of impact and cultural control has resulted in the cultural products of Japan's Nintendo and the United States' Walt Disney Company serving as a means to immerse consumers in a third culture world. Although each company does so in way which uniquely reflect their national culture, both companies promote the accumulation of experiences through continued innovation in the pursuit of novelty. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, American culture has been driven primarily by consumers. This inclination has been noted by many cultural analysts, including Margaret King who describes American culture in the following way: In American culture, the individual is the basic unit, the prime mover in our thinking, the heart, mind, and soul of American values. Our belief that individuals control, or should control, so much of what happens to them explains a great deal about American life, and its differences from other cultural ways (690). In this way, consumers hold the

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ultimate power as they will only continue to purchase products which they feel meets their needs as an individual, and as such any company or product which advertises itself as being the solution to any and all problems or conveys the sense that anything is possible is appealing. By putting the individual first with an emphasis on creativity and the power of potential, the Walt Disney Company has been able to construct a Disney Culture which hopes to redefine the impossible, catering to consumers' every whim throughout their films, merchandise, and theme parks around the world. This continued growing influence has rendered Disney the undisputed leader of multiple veins of culture as they continue to translate artistic and creative innovations into accessible consumer products and market them worldwide. In this way, it appears that those who create and export desirable goods control the flow of culture, as . . . Disney products and images have long been part of a world culture and are virtually impossible to escape anywhere (Van Maanen 9). This continuously growing influence and international visibility defines the United States as a soft power, a term which describes the growing important of culture and values as ways of wielding power. As the Walt Disney Company rose to its filmic and cultural throne throughout the 1900s, it began to shape and redefine what it meant to be brought up in a middle-class American household: . . . by proving to be an 'authentic' Disney fan, you [attempted] to convince others that you [possessed] a particular (valued) type of . . . upbringing; and as a parent of an 'authentic' Disney fan, you [attempt] to convince others that you are providing your child with a similarly privileged upbringing (Carson 233). This publicly-determined power associated with Disney values and way of thinking brings social power and position not only to Americans, but to anyone who may come into contact with their cultural products, further demonstrating America's position as a soft power on the global stage. The concept of soft power lies largely with one country's ability to inspire others to follow its example through the process of co-opting, rather than coercing (Otmazgin 77), and the establishment of Tokyo

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Disneyland in 1983 serves as the perfect example of this. Modelled after the original Disneyland which opened in California in 1955, the theme park allows . . . Japanese customers [to] experience . . . pure, undiluted Americana (Van Maanen 10) as many of the same attractions and architectural features (such as the iconic Sleeping Beauty castle situated at the center of the park) were introduced to the Japanese landscape. Japan eagerly and easily accepted this cultural import, as their culture values high quality service, technological wizardry, harmony, hospitality, and cleanliness in much the same ways as the United States. Part of the Walt Disney Company's national and international appeals are its exploration of history and entertainment, concepts which have been fused to create the overarching idea of edutainment. In 1955, Disney recreated an idealized small town landscape in Disneyland . . . by incorporating selected aspects of historic American townscape design . . . (Francaviglia 70), and this replication of essences of history and presentation of the familiar placed reminded audiences of a time treasured in the collective memory. Films such as Davy Crockett and Song of the South encouraged audiences to freely build associations to earlier times and places within their own imagined experiences, and through this . . . [reinterpretation of] iconic and folkloric aspects of history, Disney gained tremendous power and authority as a spokesman for American culture (Francaviglia 72). Although each of the previously noted elements of the Walt Disney Company's cultural exports are illustrative of their prowess as a cultural informant, Disney's real appeal still does and will almost certainly always reside with its characters and films. Walt Disney's passion was, first and foremost, storytelling and animation's ability to do so, and this is evident not only through the films and features the Company created prior to his death, but all those which have come after as well. . . . Walt Disney's intellect operated from a belief system that was clearly congruent with high modernism: exultant, expansive, sincere, [and] filled with master narratives [and imagination] (Van Wert 208), and each of these qualities are evident within Disney's visual language. Developed largely around circles and

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rounded edges, Disney heroes are designed to be child-friendly as their shapes are approachable, safe, and inviting, bathed in warm colours and soft clothes. Villains, on the other hand, are typically more angular, sharp, and pointed, projecting a sense of being off-limits, unapproachable, and unseemly. This direct contrast works to emphasize the Company's continued attention to creative detail, its primary focus remaining on visual representation and storytelling, not necessarily the mechanics of animation or realism. Japanese animation in relation to films and print differs greatly from that of the Walt Disney Company and North America as a whole, with a visual language which is typically angular and exaggerated. With little attempt at realism, the emphasis is placed on the process of creating animation which results in story lines which are largely more simplistic and formulaic with minimal to no character development. These traits are evident within franchises such as Pokemon or Hello Kitty, in which its characters are largely static and used as marketing tools as opposed to sympathetic, emotional characters which appeal to particular demographics of society. Society has long had a fascination with the other, or the unknown, particularly in regards to culture. The United States has long viewed imported cultures as exotic, placing them upon pedestals in order to better understand them and integrate them into its own worldview; Walt Disney World's World Showcase exhibition at EPCOT Centre is perhaps one of the best examples of this, as it consists of pavilions which each hope to showcase the food, performance, dress, and dialect of multiple cultures from around the world, inviting guests to partake in and explore them within the comfort of a familiar, orchestrated space. The Japanese seem to value American culture as a way of further highlighting their own global contributions and power, for . . . Japan [imports] much foreign culture, but always on its own terms . . . [demonstrating] not that the Japanese are being dominated by Western ideologies but that they differentiate their identity from the West in a way that reinforces their sense of their own cultural uniqueness and superiority (Cross and Smits 873).

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In 2003, Japan was deemed to be the world's second biggest producer of culture, second only to the United States while occupying 9.5% of the world's global content market (Otmazgin 79). For many years, Japan was . . . symbolized by its countless salary men, robotized machinery, and efficient manufacturing systems . . . (Otmazgin 74). While the United States was largely a producer of ephemeral products such as the notion of celebrity and consumption, Japan's exports were rather technical and physical, such as vehicles and appliances. Many Japanese popular culture products, such as music and fashion, were not easily implemented overseas as their themes did not speak an international language, being too specifically catered and entrenched with national identity to be applied elsewhere. However . . . the export of Japan's consumer goods has been swiftly changing the country's image overseas in the last two decades, manifesting the country's economic might and extensively paving inroads to a variety of audiences . . . (Otmazgin 78). In 2001, multimedia global exports exceeded the import of multimedia to Japan by more than a third (Otmazgin 88). While this may be due in part to the development and production of video games and their systems as one of Japan's most successful exports, the Japanese government also influenced these patterns as it condemns American decadence and view it as cultural imperialism. Through the promotion of a return to Asian values, East Asian countries seek to protect local cultural identities and have attempted to enforce censorship and restrictions on the importation of culture. As such, piracy has been used as means of receiving and distributing culture throughout Japan, . . . demonstrating the incapability of governments in East Asia to control their people's cultural preferences, and eventually endorsing the opening of the markets (Otmazgin 84). Technology and its processes have allowed the public to create devices which enable them to access cultural products that they desire, once again illustrating that consumers dictate both markets and products. Kevin Kelly described the second culture as being one of science, a . . . lofty term. The word suggests a process of uncommon rationality, inspired observation, and near-saintly tolerance for

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failure (992). The Japanese have long been viewed by man as a culture built around the idea of perfection a culture which strives to make everything better. In this way, they have utilized the relations between science, technology, and products as a means of improving their quality of life and enabling others to also experience that quality of life which is then inherently linked back to Japan. The consumption of foreign goods in Japan seems less an act of homage than a way of establishing a national identity by making such imports their own through combining them in a composite of all that the Japanese see as the 'best' in the world (Van Maanen 16); the installation of Tokyo Disneyland seemed to challenge Japanese adopters to make it even better than the original. Seen by several critics as surpassing its model in terms of courtesy, size, efficiency, cleanliness, and performance, Tokyo Disneyland laid the groundwork for furthering a national pride and identity, as the assimilation allowed them to make the theme park their own and to thus produce their own products and experiences based on business models which had previously worked effectively overseas. Each of Kelly's three described cultures are built around a fundamental element which separates it from the others. The first culture is one of the arts, emphasizing the merits of literature, history, and fine art practices as lenses through which to both view and create cultural products. The second culture is one of science, working to examine the past as a means of improving the future through production and . . . [the] machinery of innovating, manufacturing (Otmazgin 80). The third culture, then, is a combination of the two, heavily reliant on technology and similar innovations but with continued focus on creativity and craft. Over the past several decades, Japanese cultural products have begun to move past being purely functional and practical and into the realm of mainstream entertainment, their innovations viewed as novelties as . . . video games are beginning to venture beyond geekdom into a region approaching the mainstream (Shaw 408). Nintendo was first established in 1889 as a manufacturer of Japanese and Western-style playing cards, and continued to evolve until they released the first hand-sized console for

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simple video games called Game Watch in 1980. With the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System three years later, Japan solidified its status as a contributor to the maintenance of both a scientific second culture and a novel third, as . . . it was especially Japanese innovation from the 1980s in the design and marketing of high-tech, computerized toys that had the greatest impact on global youth culture (Cross and Smits 879). As Nintendo and its systems continued to climb in popularity, a video game style or aesthetic of pixellation and digital music began to pervade the rest of popular culture a combination of the creative and the scientific (Shaw 410). Nintendo games began to be marketed as products which were accessible to anyone who desired that type of experience, appealing to all demographics in much the same way as the Walt Disney Company through their development of both narratives and characters which began to reach and impact a wide variety of people. The Pokemon franchise is one example of this, as it sells based on the emotional attachments people create between themselves and the characters as well as the cultural element, since the animation style is still evidently Japanese. [The Japanese] tended to think very little about foreign audiences. What they talked about instead was foreign inspiration (McGray 48), and it is this inspiration which has fuelled their development of multidimensional franchises with the ability to permeate world markets. Through the combination of creative, scientific, and technological products, the Walt Disney Company and Nintendo have been able to create products which act as cultural lenses, reflecting the values and ideals of each respective country (the United States and Japan) to the rest of the world. Audiences are intuitively aware when a product was produced in Japan and respect and revere this information, just as Disney films and products are instantly recognizable via visual trends, thematic elements, and distribution methods such as theme parks, consumable products and the like. Similar to how Japan's contributions to the animation and technological markets have . . . constantly [disseminated] new images of Japan (Otmazgin 75), Disney uses the past as a means of glorifying the

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future, projecting a commitment to progress and a desire for change. This is most evident at EPCOT (also known as The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) which was originally intended to be a thriving community in which experimental technologies and processes would be assessed on a population of permanent residents. Since this never came to pass, EPCOT has become one of four smaller theme parks at the Walt Disney World Resort, and through the use of automata, holography, video projections, and immersive environments exemplifies where the United States were and where they are now, illustrating their ability to innovate and move forward. The sheer amount of technology and the looming concept of the future may be intimidating to some visitors, yet . . . Disney encloses technology in a spic and span package that humanizes the scale and power of devices and processes that might otherwise be too intimidating to be either informative or fun (Nelson 131). Each exhibit is surrounded by characters and narratives which are familiar to audiences through their previous exposure to Disney culture, and this allows them to move from an arts-oriented and traditional media frame of mind to one which views technology and creative storytelling as one in the same, integrating technology into everyday life and experience. In this way, the spectacles of traditional animation and technology are blended, complementing each other and Making the familiar seem novel and the novel seem familiar (Nelson 145), a key component of the third culture. Currently within popular culture both nationally and abroad, there is significant momentum behind both Nintendo and the Walt Disney Company as their brands are almost always on display. The sheer volume of advertisements, particularly in the United States, ensures that both companies' products come into close contact with consumers a trait reminiscent of Japanese idol-culture in which the similarities between celebrities and their audiences are magnified to represent the notion that anyone can become a star and that fame may be achieved through frequent appearances in the media. Disney's Mickey Mouse and Nintendo's Super Mario fit this mould, as they have become household

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names through the combination of creative design and filmic and technological implementation. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , Walt Disney's first full-length animated feature film, began the marketing trend of licensing and promoting characters to coincide with the release of the film, . . . the first signs of fully orchestrated commercial fads . . . it was only with Disney's cartoon characters that the linkage between the media and plaything created major commercially-driven fads (Cross and Smits 881). Nintendo has emulated this, marketing licensed products which, although not the video game or system itself, create a synergistic interaction of game and product which immerses all demographics of the world in the consumption of popular culture products. Society's consumption of the third culture and its products creates bonds between the products' creators and the consumer, thus part of the novelty of third culture products becomes where it was created. . . . the Japanese popular culture products have become representative of high quality and innovation, which create some sort of emotional bond or personal relationship between the product or service and 'Japan' (Otmazgin 95), while Disney has been able to construct an experience which evolves around the building of nostalgic fantasies and shared childhood experiences (Carson 229). It can be argued that these nostalgic fantasies are ultimately what the third culture is all about that is, combining the new, improved, and novel as a means of removing consumers from their everyday lives to experience something entirely different from the norm. Both Nintendo and Disney have constructed a plethora of new worlds for audiences which are both interactive and completely immersive, so that . . . there's something more going on here than passive, mindless escapism: it's active, complex, multilayered escapism (Shaw 412). In regards to the Walt Disney Company, its theme parks are the most obvious arena to discuss; Walt Disney himself, when speaking about his plans for Disneyland, stated I don't want people to see the real world they live in while they're in the park . . . I want them to feel they are in another world (Mintz 49). As was mentioned previously, many elements of the parks are based on reality, with locations, events, and characters being referenced

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to provide some sense of normalcy while continuing to promote the idea of endless possibilities throughout its vibrant, detailed, and expansive landscape. Through the promotion of the utmost state of cleanliness, order, and safety, Disneyland and its peers become . . . an island of calm sanity and safety in troubled times (Van Maanen 12). The park becomes everything real life can never be, erasing all traces of decay, crime, pain, and struggle while promoting fun, optimism, friendliness, the victory of good over evil, progress, and efficiency, and in this way becomes the optimum form of wishfulfillment. The worlds Nintendo has devised are not entirely the same, largely because they are not physical but rather visual, however their contribution to the third culture as a form of wish fulfillment remains in tact. The constructed worlds of Pokemon, the Super Mario Brothers, and the Legend of Zelda are not at all steeped in anything realistic as they do all that they can to remove users from everyday experiences in order to empower them and instill within them a God complex of sorts. With the power to choose their own adventure, explore new worlds, and create new characters, users are given supreme control in candy-coloured, highly stylized arenas of play and experience which are often set in space or similar realms that one can only ever dream of visiting. With this in mind, then, To be relevant, . . . video games must mean something outside of their entertainment medium niche (Shaw 416). Both Nintendo's video games and the Disney Experience have created their own lifestyles which allow the audience or user to take control of the way they access and apply cultural products to their own experiences. By providing enough structure that experiences may continue to exist but ultimately allowing users to make their own choices and customize their interactions, Nintendo and Disney are marketing not only products and experiences but a sense of power and control as well. This sense of authority which inherently exists throughout both companies' products appeals largely to children, as they are constantly searching for outlets in which they are able to make their own

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decisions and fabricate experiences in which they are master and commander. . . . Nintendo [is one of many] indispensable parts of our children's daily lives (Seel 19) as children have grown up entrenched in a world of novelty and technology. Therefore children are essentially the quintessential controllers of the third culture as they have grown up instilled with the desire for evolving technologies and the ability to master them, and are constantly bombarded with the benefits of the new and improved. Nintendo and Disney's creation of characters which appeal to children's senses (such as round shapes and bright colours) and narratives with simplistic plots (such as good versus evil) are largely catered to younger tastes and interests. The incorporation of adult humour and complex systems keeps interest alive for adults as well, providing the balance between immaturity and sophistication while still upholding the novel experience as the utmost goal. In conclusion, the third culture is one which brings together the worlds of art and science as a means fo pursuing innovation and novelty, qualities exemplified by both Japan and the United States through the Nintendo gaming company and the Walt Disney Company, respectively . Identified primarily by technological revolutions, the third culture acts as the ultimate form of wish fulfillment through the designing of new worlds and a sense of escapism which gives participants complete control over their own destinies, a fact which appeals largely to children seeking dominion within their own lives. In these ways and others, the third culture may be identified by its creation of novelties as a means to truth and experience, for Where science and art generate truth and beauty, technology generates opportunities and new things to explain; new ways of expression; new media of communications . . . [it brings] us . . . new possibilities (Kelly 993) possibilities which have been plumbed by Disney and Nintendo but have by no means yet been depleted.

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Works Cited Carson, Charles. 'Whole New Worlds': Music and the Disney Theme Park Experience. Ethnomusicology Forum 13.2 (2004): 228-235. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. Cross, Gary, and Gregory Smits. "Japan, the U.S. and the Globalization of Children's Consumer Culture." Journal of Social History 38.4 (2005): 873-90. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. Francaviglia, Richard. History After Disney: The Significance of 'Imagineered' Historical Places. The Public Historian 17.4 (1995): 69-74. JSTOR. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. Kelly, K. "The Third Culture." Science 279.5353 (1998): 992-3. Academic Search Premiere . Web. 22 Nov. 2012. King, Margaret J. Deep Culture. The Journal of Popular Culture 45.4 (2012): 687-694. Scholars Portal Journals . Web. 4 Nov. 2012. McGray, Douglas. "Japan's Gross National Cool." Foreign Policy.130 (2002): 44-54. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. Mintz, Lawrence. Simulated Tourism at Busch Gardens: The Old Country and Disney's World Showcase, EPCOT Center. Journal of Popular Culture 32.3 (1998): 47-58. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. Nelson, Steve. Walt Disney's EPCOT and the World's Fair Performance Tradition. The Drama Review: TDR 30.4 (1986): 106-146. JSTOR. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. Otmazgin, Nissim Kadosh. "Contesting Soft Power: Japanese Popular Culture in East and Southeast Asia." International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 8.1 (2008): 73-101. Scholars Portal. Web. 22 Nov. 2012.

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Seel, John. "Plugged in, Spaced Out, and Turned on: Electronic Entertainment and Moral Mindfields." Journal of Education 179.3 (1997): 17. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. Shaw, Adrienne. "What is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies." Games and Culture 5.4 (2010): 403-24. Scholars Portal. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. Van Maanen, John. Displacing Disney: Some Notes on the Flow of Culture. Qualitative Sociology 15.1 (1992): 5-35. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. Van Wert, William F. Disney World and Posthistory. Cultural Critique 32.1 (1995): 187-214. JSTOR. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.