FloRida, Dorfman

“There are Disney strips in five thousand newspapers, translated into more than thirty languages, spread over a hundred countries. According to the magazine’s own publicity puffs, in Chile alone, Disney comics reach and delight each week over a million readers.” And after reading this statement, how can we as a society wonder why we are confused with reality. It all seems pretty clear this point why we can confuse what is actually real with what we think is real. I really enjoyed Dorfman’s article, “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club.” It makes a huge connection to Baudrillards article that we read a few classes ago. Baudrillard asks, “How do things stand with the real event, then if reality is everywhere infiltrated by images, virtuality and fictions?” We are bombarded with images that make us think about what our “reality” should look like when in actuality that goal or aspiration is unreachable and not even really a good idea. We believe because it gives us something to identify with. Disneyland and everything thing it stands for and everything that backs it, is universal. We all think we want that Utopia, that ideal world, where signs don’t create our thoughts and beliefs. The problem with that is signs are what help make us who we are as a people. Disney is also a sign. What struck me most was how we constantly have been learning and relearning how language is part of the notion of signs and this is exactly what the article points out. Dorfman makes is extremely clear that Disney “extends beyond all frontiers and ideologies, transcends differences between people and nations, and particularities of custom and language… Disney is the great supranational bridge across which all human beings may communicate with each other.”