1704866947 大众传播与媒介批评（首届两岸三地媒介批评学术研讨会论文集） [:1704863524]

1704866948 Localizing a Global Amusement Park:Hong Kong’s Disneyland

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1704866950 Anthony Fung（冯应谦）[2]

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1704866952 Disney as the American Way of Life

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1704866954 In an age of triumphs of global media,how transnational media corporations through its commodity,cultural products or entertainment parks disseminates and promotes their“global”cultural values beyond national boundaries and how the homogenizing power over ideas,culture and commerce that affects,erases,distorts or allies with local values are intriguing academic concerns（Bagdikian,1989;Gershon,1997）.Among all global corporations,perhaps no company ever in Hong Kong has conveyed more powerfully the image of a conquering cultural army than Walt Disney.Disney’s expansion into Hong Kong is a typical example of a core-based multinational organization entering a“semiperipheral area”（McPhail,2002:62）.

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1704866956 Inherent in Disney are values and meanings roughly embody individualism,optimism,fantasy,magic and imagination in the domain of love,friendship,family and nation.Unlike other popular global brands in Hong Kong,for example McDonald,Coca Cola and Pepsis which usually conveyed a relatively simple core value along with the symbolic American way of life,Disney with its wide range of films,televisions,and its merchandise“usher in”the Chinese societies complicated sets of values,morality and imaginations.The American-based Disney does not impose the value on the rest of the world directly,but through a gradual and natural way to fit with the local culture.With the strategy“Catch them when they are young”,Disney starts such“inoculation”when the target audiences are still in their childhood and adolescence.In Hong Kong,the effect is particularly prevalent in that the circulation and import of“Disney values”are naturalized and internalized in children’s mind.Since their childhood,they are exposed both to the same version of American images and also the Hong Kong-Chinese-artists-dubbed versions of Disney cartoons on television and cinemas.Disney products were also available in Disney retail shops（relocated inside Disneyland after the latter is open）.Non-licensed Disney characters,Winnie the Pool,Mickey Mouse and Incredible Hulk are popular icons on all sorts of daily and child products-including towels,notebooks,kitchen utensils,water bottles,stationeries,to name a few-sold in hawkers,gift stalls and sometimes wet markets.Among all,the classic icon is a co-presence of the pirated images of six princesses of Disney,namely,Jasmine,Cinderella,Sleeping Beauty,Snow White,Ariel and Belle,a popular collage that is not available in authentic Disney stores（authors’own observations）.

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1704866958 Many critics（e.g.Dorfman,and Mattlert,1975;Wasko,2001）pointed that the Disneyfication results in cultural imperialism and cultural homogeneity.In this paper,we do not intend to reinforce this argument,which,is quite likely to be true for the American Disney landing in Hong Kong.Nor do we aim to dispute this argument.Rather,in our analysis,we would describe such homogeneity and explicate the local response to the Disneyification.Should the cultural homogeneity be true,why are the Chinese audiences willing to subject to this cultural homogenization that appears different from their local culture?From the perspective of political economy,if localization is about adapting to the local culture,why doesn’t Walt Disney flatten its global elements to make it more compatible with the local culture?

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1704866960 At this point,we would argue that the term localization might be too simple an argument or concept to capture the complex cultural adaptation of Disneyland in Hong Kong.Based on how the observed promotion and operation of Disneyland,we problematize the concept of localization and its application.What is described here is a real case of a transnational corporation that only exercises minimal modification of its“authentic”American culture.However,it does not mean that Disney refuses to“localize,”otherwise Disney would not have a strong appeal in Hong Kong.The concept of“localization”thus might mean something beyond just modification of cultural forms or values for these transnational corporations.In this paper,we attempt to capture this form of localization by means of analyzing the strategies of Disneyland.

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1704866962 A Methodological Note for the Study of Multiple Audiences

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1704866964 On September 12,2005,the Hong Kong Disneyland was officially open.In 2006,we started to conduct our study Hong Kong’s Disneyland with multiple creative strategies.While we did regular observations in the Disneyland once a year with our annual year pass purchased,we visited the Disneyland during special festivals,including Christmas,New Year,and Chinese Lunar Year Holidays.We observed how the Disneyland and its games were arranged,designed and promoted,and how the characters were dressed and interacted with visitors.One researcher also lived and dined in Hong Kong Disney Hotel and visited and dinned in another Disney hotel,namely,Disney’s Hollywood Hotel.The researcher also had chance to attend a“fairy tale”wedding organized in Hollywood Hotel.Through such“participations,”the researcher examined how the images of Disney and values associated with Disney have been imposed on the daily life of the customers.In these visits,we“felt”and“tried”the localization strategies of the Disneyland,and assessed the“fit”or“misfit”of such localization in the eyes of a consumer.Besides observations,though admittedly lacking in systematic interviews,we informally talked to visitors from all walls of life,collecting audiences’feedback and documenting interactions between Disneyland staff and customers.Given the historical overview of the Walt Disney Company and the development of HK Disneyland have been widely reported,I would not describe in this paper.Instead,we will largely focus on the analysis of the adaptation process of Disneyland in Hong Kong.However,practically,in the light of the wide ranges of games and rides in the Hong Kong’s Disneyland,we can’t possibly give an all-inclusive analysis on all these variations.In this paper,we focus on a few rides that language itself as departure is the more crucial element of localization,though strategies of such localization goes beyond just language in the process of such diversion.

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1704866966 The“localization”process of Disney is complicated by the multiple groups of visitors in the Hong Kong Disneyland.Roughly we can classified them into three groups,namely,local Hong Kong Chinese,English speaking visitors,and Putonghua-speaking mainland Chinese tourists.The local residents are regular visitors who speak the local Chinese dialect Cantonese.Like me,many of them,in particular those families who stop at the Park regularly have purchased the annual pass,and there are those who visit the park to celebrate special occasions and festivals.Besides,in the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong,there are a lot of international visitors with whom Disneyland could only communicate in English.However,the largest cluster of visitors is from mainland speaking Putonghua.Comparing to those international and Hong Kong visitors,they know comparatively little about Disney,and if they do,they may only coin a few icons without a strong affinity and familiarity with the values and fantasy of Disneyland characters.In theoretical terms,the former two groups to certain extent are global audience often exposed to the homogeneous American culture circulated through multifarious channels,and are sometimes surfeited with pleasure and entertainment in the throes of globalization.The latter are audience alienated from the global culture,on that is hidebound by convention,ideology and the closed political system of the PRC.Unfamiliar with the global culture as they are,precisely in their pilgrimage of Hong Kong and Hong Kong’s Disneyland,they aspire,if not to embrace global culture,to have a taste of it in the short visit.As suggested in many studies（e.g.Liebes and Katz’s study of Dallas,1990）,different ethnic groups and groups of different background are deemed to interpret the same message in a very different ways.

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1704866968 Different from the global audience profiles uncovered in Disneyland studies in the U.S.and Paris（Wasko,Phillips and Meehan,2001）,audience in Hong Kong exhibits a mixed mode of globality and non-globality.This poses a fundamental challenge to our research of“localization.”In this particular Disney project,should the adaptation process of Disney is devised to attract the non-local Hong Kong residents,could it be regarded as a form of localization?With what reference to the“local”do we mean in the process of“cultural localization”?To problematize the concept,in our research,we did implicitly compare how the Disneyland adapts to Hong Kong by appealing to these the global audience and the global-aspiring audience.Although the number of visitors to Disneyland is far from expected（5.2 million in 2006 and 4 million in 2007）（China Review.com,2007,August 21）,with a steady growth of audience to the Disneyland,it seems that the Hong Kong Disneyland has arrived at a wise solution to simultaneously satisfy both the global and non-global audience.One could imagine,in the view of tailoring for the non-global audience,it might request a new approach of language to inculcate them with the global modernity.The strategy,whatever it may be called,not only represents a significant twist in the concept of localization,but also provokes us to consider the simple processes,hybridization,glocalization and localization,to name a few.

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1704866970 Strategies of TNCs/ MNCs

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1704866972 In the era of globalization,transnational media corporations have played an important role to accelerate the distribution and circulation of global mass culture（Gerhson,1997）.Today,such globalization is not so simply as to iron out the local cultures and national boundaries with the global cultures.Nor is it a matter of cultural imperialism that stresses the uneven relationships among different cultures in the global cultural flow,and the domination of the Western（Tomlinson,1991）.Instead of viewing globalization as one way flow from West to the rest of the world,Chan and Ma（2002:228）viewed globalization as a two-way process of transculturation in which one culture is transformed by another and vice versa..It eventually leads to hybridization of two cultures that in turn transforms the local culture into global,and indigenize the global culture as well.Such a view also assumes that audiences are active consumers as opposed to cultural dupes asdescribed under cultural imperialism.In the study on Disney’s cartoon Mulan,under the framework of transculturation,Chan（2002）focuses on how the Chinese legend is transformed by the transnational media corporation into a cultural hybrid.

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1704866974 Suffice it to say that,with its subsidiaries branching into different locales,transnational corporations could make use of the local cultural resources to double their influence and maximize their profits.Daya Thussu（2000）had pointed out that global media had developed in the local a new lifestyle or concept of consumerism and social relationships,further precipitating the globalization by molding the local to be more receptive and passive to the global cultural flow.Under this notion of globalization,the interaction of the global and different local cultures may ultimately produce a cultural hybrid that are quite standardized and homogenous global cultures and their values that not only blur the boundary between nations but also weaken regional or national identities.

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1704866976 Morley and Robins（1995:108）also argued that globalization implicated an“international reconstruction”of a global-local nexus,which signifies a new relation between global and local spaces under the export of western values through the dissemination of global capitalism.The local cultures are increasingly utilized and reproduced according to the demand of the world market,which eventually has led to the formation of some“shared culture”and cultural products such as“Dallas”“Batman”and Disney are manufactured and distributed universally（Morley and Robins,1995:111）.Under the thesis of global-local nexus,while seeing the local cultures as having their own vitality,the local cultures in the last analysis are still“overshadowed”by the global cultures.

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1704866978 Yet,some comparative studies of international receptions（e.g.Lull,1995）tend to argue against the“powerful thesis”of globalization,espousing that multiple and diversified interpretations of cultural texts,and these polysemic texts are also interpreted according to the interests of the audiences.As proven in Janet Wasko and her team’s Global Disney Audience Project（2006）,not all audiences decode Disney’s messages as they were originally intended with different approaches,resulting in six Disney audience archetypes,from fanatic fan,consumer,cynic,the uninterested,resister and antagonist.Given a wide possibility of interpretation,to what extent has the global or America culture“imperalized”the local culture and how the latter has responded to the global imperialism is still under debate（Winseck and Pike,1997）.

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1704866980 In this paper,without arriving at an ideal empowered version of the local-to resist the global-we do suggest that when global cultures are in contact with the local,under the very circumstances in which state dictates the local audiences,global culture might create tensions in the society.While admitting the formation of consumerism and state capitalism in the local,the interactions between cultural markers of consumption fostered by the global culture and the harsh realities of the people would evoke an“implacable contradictions existing in the popular consciousness”（Lull,1997:260）.The result of the latter would be a public imbued with the aspiration for more personal freedom,rights and equalities under the doom of a controlling state.In other words,while the global flow of culture is prevalent,it may undermine the legitimacy of the regime.

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1704866982 Rejection to Localization:a Strategy or a Disaster

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1704866984 Disney opened its amusement park opened on July 17,1955 in Anaheim,California.In the 1980s,Disney as one of the transnational media giants desired to aggressively expand overseas.In 1983,Tokyo Disneyland was open in Japan and Disneyland Paris（which is formerly known as Euro Disney）was open in 1992.Nevertheless,different from the successful experience in Japan,Disney in Europe which replicated the American culture provoked a series of controversies over cultural domination or Americanization of their societies.In Hong Kong,despite local critics（Ip and Sze,1999）against its cultural imperialism（and other issues such as capitalism）and the initial media’s negative portrayal,the focus is not so much about cultural domination,but mainly as an economic discourse,which is not too surprising for this capitalist city（Lee and Fung,2007）.

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1704866986 Thus,what we observed apparently in the park is very much a reduced version of the American Disney,a mini Castle,a short Mainstreet USA,a downsized Fantasyland,the same fast food and cola,and more or less the same Disney merchandise such as plush toys,clothing and souvenirs.It appears that there are very minimal modifications of the global Disney in Hong Kong.Certainly,compared to the American Disneyland,inevitably there are new Chinese cultural elements added to the theme park in Hong Kong.Mickey Mouse does dress in Chinese long robe during the Chinese New Year.Varieties of dim sum,with many made in the shape of Mickey’s head,are available in a Chinese restaurant in Disneyland.On sign posts and instructions to visitors,apart from English,Chinese characters are available.Jewelry shops and café run in the name of the local sponsors or operators.Staffs of customer services,dancers,performers and acrobats are largely local residents speaking local dialect.These kinds of changes might be the some of the necessary operations to found Disney in Hong Kong,but in general,reducing the global overtone is not the direction of the adaptation.

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1704866988 However,largely,Disneyland and the two hotels are designed to appeal to the local audiences with the genuine American Disney culture.Not to mention the Disneyland,the rooms of the Hong Kong Disney Hotel,the bed,balcony,slipper,soap,towel set,to name a few all display the logos of Disney as if the tourists have entered the Disney kingdom.Early in the morning in Hong Kong Disney Hotel,these princesses and other figures would visit the lobby and take photos with children.Speaking to even to the youngest Chinese kids I saw,the princesses could only speak English.Princesses such as Sleeping Beauty,Belle and Cinderella are also white skin westerners conversing fluent English.No Mickey Mouse,Buzz Lightyear or other characters would speak any local dialect.Quite obvious,their gesture and way of waving and walking are standardized without any human personality seen.

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1704866990 The official Disney website also subtly represents Disney’s view to present its authentic American culture to Hong Kong.As shown on the pictures highlighted,it is still westerners with white skin and blue eyes dressing up as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty,and those admirers who surrounded them are local Chinese visitors.It can tell that Disneyland well recognizes that what the Chinese audience needs is a western,global experience and imagination,not something traditional or local.The deep-seated binary western culture vs Chinese culture is well-reflected in Hong Kong’s Disneyland.Thus,we can see the adaptation strategy of Disneyland is not to flatten the global culture into something acceptable for the local.Quite the contrary,Disneyland tend to cast the Disney culture into a global one that is in stark contrast with the local Chinese.

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1704866992 Stitch Encounter:Highlighting the Global Discrepancy

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1704866994 Stitch Encounter is one of the few experiences of the tourists that require full interactions between the audience and the fictional character Stitch who is a blue protagonist“Experiment 626”created by an“evil genius”from the Lilo and Stitch film and television.The original Stitch was of course English speaking but in Disneyland,Stitch Encounter was divided into three sessions,Cantonese,English and Putonghua.In the“Encounter,”audiences were asked to sit in front of the screen which displays the controlling panel of a spaceship in which Stitch is the Captain.Kids were asked to sit on the first row to chat with Stitch closely.Same as other games,there was no explanation of the story of Stitch.The immediate scene is Stitch,as in the series,committed a mischievous behavior by driving a stolen spaceship in the galaxy.In the Putonghua session,Stitch appeared friendly but he liked to tease and play jokes on the audience,spoke fast in a short temper,and even ragged the participants about their Chinese accents.In one of the sessions I attended,his way of expression did scare young kids as one of them cried.In another session,Stitch’s vocabularies about space and computers,and futuristic and scientific wordings were simply incompressible to audience coming from second and third tier cities in China.

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1704866996 Neither did Stitch repeat what he said in case of miscomprehension.Nor did Disney want to clarify the confusion.In the introductory speech of Stitch,he physically pointed to a mainland participant,asking his or her name and the place of origin.In front of the mass audience,the participant audience naturally growled out a Chinese answer.Stitch then taunted the audience by repeating the words with a funny“space”brogue and broken Putongua,and mentioned that he had never heard of this name or place.The conscious attempt to jest about the background of the audience aims at distancing the imaginations of Disney from the realities of the Chinese audiences.Besides,Stitch also picked up a teen on the floor begging her to be his girlfriend.Such a bold act many a time created a cultural shock for the kid who once denied being his companion.In sum,the interaction itself simply was intent on preserving the misunderstanding,one that emerged because of the discrepancy between the background of the audience and that of the fictional Stitch and between the realistic world and the imaginations manufactured by the American version of Disney.It was also that incongruity that indexed the subordinated status of the Chinese audiences who resided in a closed environment.Preening himself in front of the audience,Stitch managed to normalize his own imaginative behavior and language while marginalizing the earthly,Chinese ones.The Chinese audiences were also reminded of their“inferior status”-being not able to comprehend the world outside-and hence reinforcing their yearn for something global.As we observed,such act of ridicule was somewhat effectively applied to Hong Kong audience as well.

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