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Riding the Black Ship

Name: Riding the Black Ship
Author: Aviad Raz
ISBN: 9780674768932

by Aviad Raz

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Overview

Since it opened in 1983, Tokyo Disneyland has been analyzed mainly as an example of the globalization of the American leisure industry and its organizational culture, particularly the "company manual." By looking at how Tokyo Disneyland is experienced by employees, management, and visitors, Aviad Raz produces not only a cultural reading of the onstage show but also an ethnographic analysis of its production by those who work there and its reception by its customers. Previous studies have seen Disneyland as a "black ship" - an exported, hegemonic model of American leisure and pop culture - that "conquered" Japan. By concentrating on the Japanese point of view, Raz shows that it is much more an example of successful domestication and that it has succeeded precisely because it has become Japanese even while marketing itself as foreign. Rather than being an agent of Americanization. Tokyo Disneyland is a simulated "America" showcased by and for the Japanese.

About the Author, Aviad Raz

Aviad E. Raz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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Editorials

Choice

Raz's socio-anthropological study describes how a significant piece of American business, ideology, and fantasy has been remade in Japan. Raz challenges the popular idea of Tokyo Disneyland as being a cultural imperialism. Rather, he found that it has succeeded precisely because it has become Japanese while marketing itself as American...[A] fine ethnography.
— M. Y. Rynn

Journal of Communication

Raz's study of Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) is a well-grounded case of domestication. The central question of the study is to examine how Walt Disney World, as a globalizing and imperialistic operation, has been reworked into the localized cultural networks of JapanThis book is a strong case of glocalization, collapsing the global and local.

— Eric K. W. Ma