Tilt-A-Carribean

By Emma Sartwell


"I was on vacation," I say. And sometimes, when I'm lucky, I can leave it at that. But, more often than not, I am prevailed upon to go into more detail. "...in the Caribbean," I add cryptically, channeling all my mental energy into precluding the inevitable bombardment of questions that follow: "How was the food? the culture? the art?"

It is at this point I reluctantly explain that my voyage was filled not with fried plantains, Reggae music, and emaciated children pawning handmade instruments shaped like tortoises, but rather Mickey, Minnie, and 'When You Wish Upon A Star' blasting in my head for four fun-filled, non-stop days.
On the Disney Cruise, time can be measured by the number of Caucasians storming the food stands for their free Mickey-head shaped pancakes, Mickey-head shaped Chocolate Chunk Cookies, or, (believe it or not) Mickey-head shaped macaroni salad.
On the Disney Cruise, broadening, reddening Americans walk around in Sweet-N-Low-induced dazes, rushing from one highly organized, repressed event to another, smiling and stuffing their faces.
On the Disney Cruise, circles come in sets of three. For what is the point of the oh-so-conventional single circle when it can be so easily modified into the cranium of our beloved rodential buddy, signer of $15 Disney autograph books, lover of Americans in any hemisphere? Why should this huggable creature not greet us at breakfast; why should his face not grace our bath towels, our crackers, our tampon boxes?
But inside the hallowed costumes of these favorite childhood deities, there is a not-so-utopian reality. The dynamics are almost colonial: 2700 cruise passengers in positions of unrivaled superiority, 900 employees with plastered-on smiles and exaggerated accents cleaning and serving, and 8 treadmills that might as well be a couple centuries away from conception.
On the Disney Cruise, one cannot walk the four steps from the cookie stand to the poolside bar without a beaming smile of Disney beatitude bombarding you like water on Splash Mountain. Hypnotized, you turn around, read this employee's Mickey-head shaped identity-pin and ask about his native country, conveniently printed in neat little letters under his stereotypically foreign name. "Pierre," you inquire, "which part of France are you from?"
Behind his larger-than-life smile, you can only imagine how much hatred is being aimed at you, Little Rich Jewish Girl From Suburban Baltimore, paying extravagantly for your new friend Pierre to not only wash your dishes and pick up the drippings of your Mickey Macaroni, but to wear that grin and call you his 'amour'.
Being called 'mon amour' was probably the most foreign aspect of my cruise, because honestly, I did not witness anything I would consider authentic on my Disney vacation.
But how predictable would that be? I experienced a new, profoundly alien world filled with colossal Mickey Mice and carbohydrates. These days, Carribean cultures are nothing more than rides in Disney Land anyhow (think 'Pirates of the Caribbean' or 'The Enchanted Tiki Room').
Disney, at least, is not ashamed to be completely supervised, super-sized, sanitized, and standardized, and perhaps there is something revolutionary in creating a culture so unabashedly culturally-devoid. Disney has not succumbed to becoming a caricature of itself, like so many other cultures overcharging for 'Jamaican Me Crazy' t-shirts or plastic palm-tree snow domes. Perhaps this is because Disney cannot become any more exploitative or hokey; perhaps it is because every visitor to Disney is a tourist, but at least Disney embraces this aspect of its culture and doesn't try to mask its spurious escapism as exotic. Authenticity is parodied to a point where the synthetic Hawaiian outfits and waterproof imitation huts on the private Disney Island ("An island so remarkable," boasts Disney.com, "it even has parallel parking") are distinct and authentic in their own right.
At some point along your Disney voyage, you realize that the nauseating feeling in your gut induced by an environment of white-bred, upper-middle-class Americans "broadening their horizons" through Pierre and Chaka, searching desperately for happiness in flamingo-pink cocktails, should be embraced, for it is in this reaction that the unique magic of Disney is truly felt.
So go ahead and ask about my vacation. When confronted with inquiries concerning those tortoise-instruments and Peter Tosh, I will describe my Caribbean vacation, replete with blinding pre-packaged primary colors and brazen exploitations of the circle, without the blink of an eye. "Authenticity?" I'll snort, "How passe."