We are Moving from McDonaldization, through
Disneyfication and Las Vegasization in our Society of the Spectacle
David M. Boje http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/
McDonald's,
McDonaldland & McDonaldization main web site; Also see: What is McDonaldization?
(1, 2,
3, 4,
5, 6,
7); in the postmodern
condition of late capitalism? How
Hasbro, McDonald's, Mattel and Disney Manufacture Their Toys
 |
 |
| Edvard
Munch's 1893 The Scream |
Andy
Warhol's Marilyn Monroe 1964 |
| Jameson
contrasts Munch's "The Scream" with Warhol's
"Marilyn Monroe" to illustrate the
"waning of emotion or affect" in the
Postmodern Cultural Condition of Late Modern
Capitalism. The Scream is alienation depth of
despair) while Monroe has no genuine emotion. We are
moving from Alienation (The Scream) to Fragmentation
(Monroe). Monroe represents fragmentation that
has replaced alienation of The Scream |
| Guess
What? McDonaldization of Society, the great Spectacle,
has less and less emotional bond, as they strive to
eliminate genuine emotions. McDonalds is a
free-floating piece of Americana that has gone global. |
George Ritzer contends that in
McDonaldization, Modern and Postmodern co-exist. The modern Fordist
assembly line, the Post-Fordist global supply and distribution chain,
and the Postmodern Culture co-exist in McDonaldization.
This gets to the heart of two
competing theories of postmodern.
First, is the Era-postmodern, we have
entered a new postmodern society that is a radical break from the
modern one. This would oppose the basic McDonaldization thesis,
since we are only modern.
Second, is an equally radical
position, that we have not entered a postmodern society, and we are
essentially modern.
Third, is a less radical thesis,
McDonaldization is a hybrid of Fordism (assembly line), Post-Fordist
(global market), and Postmodern Culture (the dark side of it).
By postmodern culture we mean the
fast-food restaurants, shopping malls, cyber-cafes, Disney Theme
parks, Las Vegas casinos, cruise ships, and all the other examples of
the "new means of consumption" in the postmodern society.
David Harvey - is a moderate
postmodernist who sees great changes in society since 1973, and these
changes are at the basis of postmodern thinking. At the same time he
sees continuities between modern and postmodern. What modern and
postmodern share is what Harvey calls time-space compression.
Globalization compresses both time and space. The globe is shrinking
and processes accelerating in this "postmodern era." Space
compresses as foods are available from around the globe. And time
compresses with the speed of the microwave.
Fredric Jameson - sees society as now
in the late phase of Capitalism, where its cultural logic is
Postmodern, but it still has the same old tricks of multinational
corporate greed. Summarizing Ritzer (p. 186-190):
Superficiality - Postmodern
society is superficial, the way that Las Vegas, Disney and
McDonalds are simulations, superficial copies of copies whose
"original never existed." Example Chicken McNugget
is a copy of a copy with no original.
Loss of Emotion - See contrast of
The Scream with Monroe.
Loss of Historicity - McDonalds,
like Vegas, and Disney are pastiches, or hodgepodges, random
combinations of past, present, and future. The historical referent
is absent.
Reproductive technologies -
Postmodern technologies. Our technologies are flat imitations, not
nearly as exciting as those of the industrial revolution. What is
flatter and more featureless than McDonald's food and service?
We have moved from McDonaldization to
Disneyfication
on to Las Vegatization (Tamara
Manifesto).
Next: McDonald's,
McDonaldland & McDonaldization main web site
