Post-Mass Culture

The prevailing cultural configuration in the United States is indicated by two recent items in the New York Times, whose common background is worth excavating. The first of these is a story published on 28 August entitled ‘Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class’. It traces the erosion of the homogeneous Disney experience under the pressure of rising inequality, by recounting the visits of two families to its resort in Florida. Scarlett Cressel, a bus driver, and her family are intended to stand in for the American ‘middle class’; their household income is almost exactly the national median. The family are relegated to interminable queues because they cannot afford express passes, nor accommodation at the resort’s hotels. Shawn Conahan, a tech executive, and his daughter have an entirely different experience, breezing to the front of the long lines with their $900 ‘Lightning Lane Premier Pass’. The upshot: while the Cressel family started their day at 5am and managed to visit 9 rides, the Conahans arrived at the park at 10am and visited 16. As the article’s author, Daniel Currel, points out, the contrast makes a mockery of the theme park’s historic slogan: ‘Everyone is a VIP’.