The Disney Store

Leslie Moreno

English 114B

Professor Macklin

March 28, 2012

The Disney Store

Ethnography is when you observe a certain place or institute to provide evidence for a study you are conducting. At first I wanted to observe Disneyland, but because I was too far away and the tickets were of high price, I decided to do a study on a "Disney" closer to me...the Disney Store! I had gone home during the weekend so I decided to do my study at the Disney store located at Montebello in the Montebello mall. I arrived at the Montebello mall around 12:30pm on Sunday March 25,2012 and marched straight for the Disney store. As soon as I reached my destination I could tell right of the bat that the store was packed. There were a couple of parents, mostly dads, waiting outside with the baby strollers an purchases from other stores waiting for their children and wives to come out of the store. As I walked into the store the first thing I noticed were the many people in that store. I have heard people say that no one goes to the Disney store and yet when I went there were so many people. When you first walk into the store you see that on your right side they have the toys for boys and on your left is the section with all the toys for girls. The little boys were with their fathers choosing a toy while some mothers were telling them no because it is too expensive. When you turn to your right the first thing you see is the miniature princess castle. They have the princesses section where all the little girls are with their mothers trying to find their favorite Disney princess. I saw a couple of mothers going around with their sons trying to find that perfect gift. As I am observing something catches my attention, I hear the song from the best movie in the world. I heard the song "kiss the girl" from the Little Mermaid, playing from a section on the left middle of the store. There was an area where adults were sitting around or standing watching a big screen television playing scenes from Disney movies. The little kids are sitting around giggling and chatting about the scenes that are passing on the screen. I get so caught up in the screen that I wasn't even noticing I was being bumped by other people. At one moment I got bumped and I turned around to say I was sorry when I noticed the most beautiful tree ever! There was a cut out display of a tree with projections of different lights and Disney characters playing in the tree. They were displayed all around the store which made it seem like a magical forest. As I was observing the tree I noticed on the back wall something interesting. On the top of the wall there was a projection of the famous flying scene from Peter Pan. I noticed that all around the room there were projections from scene of Disney movies. The projection also shows Disney characters fly across the store or Disney characters float on balloons. While I am watching the projections my attention comes to the walls where there are shelves stacked with Disney merchandise. All around the store there are furniture filled with Disney things. There are shirts in one and ceramic cups on another, collectables on display and stuff animals stacked together. Throughout the whole store there wasn't a single place that was empty; when a shelf was almost empty the employees would restock it with more.

During my observations of Disney store I started to think about Disneyland and how it is the same as the Disney store. The both appeal to our emotions of happiness, we feel happy when we are at both places. Society enjoys being happy and stress free, and what better way to do it than spend an entire day with your family and having fun. Most parents save up and work hard to take their family to Disneyland, they see the smiles on their children’s faces and they can’t help but to be happy. Disney has a power that society can’t help but get lost in it, because now a day’s people are miserable with how the world it turning, if there is even an ounce of happiness what can be better. Walt Disney once said, “Laughter is timeless, Imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” I believe they are all true, there is nothing better in the world than laughter and I am eighteen and I love Disney with all my heart. I think it is Disney strong belief of in joy and happiness that we love it so much and are willing to pay all of that money to get in and enjoy it. Disney has a power that is indescribable, even in the Disney store you feel that magic of happiness. Then again not all Disney stores are the same, there are a few that are not as “magical” as the one in the Montebello mall. I had gone to the Disney store in the Northridge fashion center and it was plain. I have been told when I moved to Northridge that no one ever goes to the store so I decided to check it out myself. It was a really plain store, the only thing I liked about the store was where the paying table was under it was sketches from famous Disney movies, and it light up! That was the only thing I liked from the store, I didn’t even feel like buying anything, which makes me to believe that first impressions are everything. Disneyland and the Disney store at the Montebello mall had exactly that, they both had great first impressions, the impressions of happiness.   

FW: 3/20

I have an idea on what i want to write about, but im trying to analyze more on the concept, like the power source. Im also trying to figure out how to analyze my space, because i chose disneyland its a huge space and im trying to see where i should start. My goals is to finish the essay first of all, but to figure out how im going to be writing my essay, the structure and what are my main points. My main goal is trying to get a thesis statment, that is always difficult for me.

From a Cat to a Lion

In From a cat to a lion she writes about how community colleges are worth less than a four year university. I agree with her because my twin sister, Jacqueline, is going to a community college. I don't believe that community colleges are less of a value than four year universities, they are actually cheaper. I didn't go to community college because i was accepted at CSUN, my sister wasn't accepted and was forced to go to a community college. I personally have been to one of her classes and I have to say that her class may be harder than my class here at CSUN.

Reflective Writing Project Text

While I was writing my project text I encountered many difficulties, one of my difficulties was how I start my essay. I learned when I was working on my writing process that using is outline seemed to work for me. I wrote an outline of three main points I wanted to discuss during my essay and how they connected to one another.

Brainstorm for Project Text Essay:

        I.             Normal Vs. Abnormal

·         What society considered normal people and abnormal people

·         How they separated the two “types” of human beings

      II.            Learning from the mentally ill?

·         The doctor took the elephant man in with him and studied him to try to find a way to “cure” him

·         “The great Confinement” talks about how “hospitals

    III.            Abnormal people were put on a “show” and were made fun of

·    While I was writing my essay I was finally able to realize what rhetoric is. I never was able to fully understand what rhetoric was but now I understand it better. Knowing what rhetoric is helped me understand better what it is that I was going to be writing.

Project Text

Leslie Moreno                                                                                                                  Moreno 1

English 114 B

Professor Macklin

22, February 2012

What is Abnormal?

How does one define deformed? There are many different definitions for the word deformed, such as disfigured, misshapen, morally perverted, and even so badly formed or out of shape as to be ugly. These definitions are the worst thing to ever call another human being. The world that we live in now is driven by the outward appearance of another human being. People are split into two categories: normal and abnormal. What I did not understand about this categorization of people was how they define a person as normal? Was a person normal if they had blond hair? Were they abnormal if they had black hair? Was an abnormal person someone with a big head? Someone who had a mental illness? Some people who are considered abnormal were put on display at shows where they are made fun of and tortured. In Bernard Pomerance’s play called The Elephant Man he writes about a, man who is abnormal and how a doctor tries to help him become normal. I hear the phrase, “All men were created equal,” so why did the people not understand that and treat abnormal people as unequal. The categorization of people into normal and abnormal is unjust, because all humans are suppose to have been born the same, with a beating heart. It is unjust because not only do we not

                                                                                                                                                  

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recognize them as one of us but it makes these “abnormal” people feel they don’t belong, and that there is no place for them in society. Society is built upon the principle that “all men are created equal,” it is the law of the land so why don’t we obey the law and consider each other equal.

If I were to ask a person what they think is a normal person, most people would find it difficult to answer because they themselves don’t fully now either. Yet, if I were to ask who they consider as abnormal people they would say people who are deformed. The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance is a play about a man named John Merrick who is publicly humiliated because of the deformation of his head.  He is called the elephant man because when his mother was pregnant she was hurt by an elephant and so he was born deformed. In The Elephant Man Ross the manager of Merrick says, “Tuppence only, step in and see! For in order to survive, Merrick forces himself to suffer these humiliations.”(The Elephant Man 3) What Ross said was unfortunately true because Merrick is not treated like a normal person he can’t work like everyone else can. “Normal” people can work and walk on the street like nothing, they can do whatever they want because they are normal.  People even used to try to completely separate normal from abnormal people by putting them into “hospitals.”

Michel Foucault wrote in his book Madness and Civilization about the insanity during the Age of reason. The second chapter of his book is called The Great Confinement, and he writes about how hospitals were “assign the same homeland to the poor, to the unemployed, to prisoners, and to the insane.” (Foucault 39)All of these people were put to live under the

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same roof, and those who could work were put to work inside the hospital. “In its functioning, or in its purpose, the Hospital General had nothing to do with any medical concept. It was an instance order, of the monarchical and bourgeois order being organized in France during this period.” (Foucault 40) He believed that hospitals were supposed to be a place for medical needs not to house prisoners and insane people together. Although these hospitals did help in some ways, for example they provided work for people who were poor and had no job. These hospitals also put a roof over the heads of poor people who had nowhere to live. As for the insane people, since they could not work what they did with them is that they studied their mental illness to try to understand it more. The doctors studied what kind of illness it was, what it did to the person and what could they do to make it better or prevent it. Even though it seems like these hospitals seemed to do good Foucault disagreed for the main reason that in these hospitals they were trying to change the people to be just like everyone else.

The purpose of these hospitals were to separate the normal people from the abnormal. Society did not want the normal humans to be interacting with the abnormal humans so they separated them. While doing so they had the people inside work to keep the hospitals going, even though it did not last. They were just way too complicated places to keep so many different people, with different needs, living together. They had to keep the prisoners in check and take care of the mentally ill plus make sure the poor people were doing their jobs. In The Elephant man, Treves also took Merrick in to try to study Merrick’s condition and help him with his illness.

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Treves is the doctor in The Elephant Man, who takes Merrick in so that he could help him. Treves studies Merrick to see what it is that Merrick has and how he can fix it. While he studies Merrick he also teaches him how to be normal, he teaches him what it is to be a normal person. Treves start discovering that Merrick is normal, he is intelligent event thought he has a disease. Merrick said, “But sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams,” and I believe him. I believe that he was a normal person because he was just like every human on this planet, he had a heart and he dreamed.  Personally I think that a normal human is one who has a heart and who dreams, and the good thing about that is that every single human is born with both.

There is one small difference between the world today and the world before, that it is filled with people who are friendlier to “deformed” humans than in older times. In older times “deformed” humans were treated horribly and worst than they are treated today, they were displayed as “objects” to be made fun of by people who paid to see them. Personally I am against the discrimination of “deformed” humans and I never like the thought that they were once put on display to be made fun of; the world is a cruel place. Yet in this cruel world I believe that people are not bad and that they don’t mean to judge they were just raised in a society where it is normal to judge. Deep down I think that everyone feels guilty about it and sometimes even do something to change it. Now a day I see people standing up for “abnormal” people, I even see them hanging out and laughing together. People have changed and have begun to realize that no matter what we are all humans born into the same cruel world.

                       

Freewrite #2

What is a rhetorical situation?
A rhetorical situation is when something happenes that you dont expect to happend. I have no idea :(

Freewrite #1

One weakness that i would like to work on is  my weakness of understanding what happenes in the class half of the time. i never seem to fully undertstand what im writing about, or what the class is discussing. My stronger point would be that no matter what i always seem to do my work even if i dont fully understand. i am hoping i acctually understand more so i could write a better essay.