A commodified utopia - The Original E.P.C.O.T Project を少し訳し始めた
Walt Disney, E.P.C.O.T, the Creation of a Commodified Utopia
Walt Disney, E.P.C.O.T, 産業化されたユートピアの創造
Introduction
はじめに
From his earliest days in the film industry, Walt Disney was always the innovator, or, as architect Royston Landau has labeled him, a “technological-gimmick-obsessive.”[1] With the 1928 release of “Steamboat Willie,” the short that introduced Mickey Mouse, Disney became the first animator to produce a cartoon with synchronized sound. A few years later, he was the first to release a full-color cartoon. And 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first full-length animated feature in America.[2] Walt’s spirit of innovation carried over into the development of first Disneyland and then Disney World, and has been a hallmark of the Disney Company ever since. As Tom Jones, former director of the Reedy Creek Utilities Company (the Magic Kingdom’s private utility company), said of his former boss, “Walt was a great looker. He used to talk about taking the latest research developments ‘off the drawing boards of industry’ and making them work.”[3]
映画産業の中に身を置いていた若い頃、ウォルトはいつも革新家であった。建築家のロイストン・ランダウに言わせれば「技術的な仕掛けに取り憑かれていた」*1。ミッキーマウスのデビュー作である短編アニメーション「蒸気船ウィリー」を世に送り出した 1928 年、彼は音と同期させた漫画を作った初めのアニメーターになった。数年後には、フルカラーのアニメを初めてリリースした。1937 年の白雪姫はアメリカではじめての長編アニメ作品になった*2。ウォルトの革新魂は一つ目のディスニーランドの造成(1955)*3、続いてディズニーワールド(1971)*4と、以降ディズニー社に脈々と受け継がれていく。Reedy Creek Utilities社*5の前監督トム・ジョーンズは元上司のウォルトについてこう語る：「ウォルトは非常に優れた観察眼を持っていた。彼は最新の研究成果を”産業の製図板”から取り出して実際に動かすことについてあれこれ話していた。」*6
Near the end of his life, Disney turned his attentions to the plight of America’s cities. “I don’t believe there’s a challenge anywhere in the world that’s more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin?”[4] For Walt Disney, the answer was central Florida, on a 27,400-acre parcel purchased largely for that purpose.
晩年、彼の興味はアメリカの都市の窮状へ注がれていく。「私は都市の抱える問題に対する解決策を見つけること以上に、世界中どこを探しても世界中の人々にとってより重要な挑戦は無いと信じている。しかし、私たちはどこでそれを始めることができるだろう？」*7 ウォルトの答えはフロリダの真ん中の27400エーカー(≒111km2)の土地だった。その土地の大半を、都市の問題解決という挑戦に充てた。
（中略）
Conclusion: Commodified Utopia
まとめ: 産業化されたユートピア
The Magic Kingdom is an urban environment, albeit a fantastical one, full of gathering places, points of commerce, and places for repose. It provides basic services, entertainment, and cultural institutions for its (temporary) “residents.” It includes two public municipalities (Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista), and it is coterminous with a public improvement district (Reedy Creek). The Magic Kingdom has the look and feel of a public space, but in actuality is an entirely private enterprise owned and operated by a single corporation, Disney. It charges entrance and rental fees; it sells Disney products, Disney services, and the Disney image. In one interesting twist, Disney even prints its own money – Disney Dollars – for use on its property.[64] Michael Sorkin has termed the Magic Kingdom “the first copyrighted urban environment in history.”[65]
Because of this unique corporate control over largely public functions, Disney has been able to construct and infuse its urban environment with technologies, efficiencies, and philosophies unknown in either the wholly public or wholly private sectors. Disney has combined all of these factors into the type of liberating, comforting, safe, and fun environment of which Americans dream. And it has done so profitably, and therefore achieved those goals which Walter Elias Disney set out in 1966. On a 27,400-acre parcel of Florida swamp and scrub, Disney has created a wholly commodified utopia.
語彙
- plight 窮状。誓いという意味もあるがここでは窮状。
- swamp and scrub 湿地と藪
- toil 骨を折る。苦労する。
- voraciously 貪欲に
- delineat 表示する
- succumb to cancer がんに倒れる
- impetus 勢い、衝動
理解補助のための知識
ワッツみたいな古い街の古い病を治すのではなく、新天地で全く新しいタイプのコミュニティを作り出すのだと言っている。このワッツというのは黒人比率が多く治安が悪いことで有名となっている街の名。
参考:
*1:[1] Royston Landau, “Mickey Mouse the Great Dictator: The Disney Game as a Control System,” Architectural Design 43.9 (1973): 591.
*2:[2] See Ron Grover, The Disney Touch: How a Daring Management Team Revived an Entertainment Empire (Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1991) 7.
*4:ウォルト・ディズニー・ワールド・リゾート - Wikipedia
*5:原文曰く「the Magic Kingdom’s private utility company」とのことだが要はディズニー関連会社だと分かっていれば良い
*6:[3] Tom Jones as quoted in Ruth Eckdish Knack, “The Mouse that Ate Orlando,” Planning 45.2 (1979) 22.
*7:[4] Walt Disney, as quoted in Stephen M. Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America (San Francisco: Westview P, 1992) 114.
