Since I live about halfway between the nation's capital and the Manassas battlefield in Virginia, I am supposed to be giddy with excitement at the prospect of Disney's America, a theme park devoted to some version of American history.
It will be a colossal undertaking: comparable in size to other Disney projects, employing several hundred lucky natives, bringing untold millions of visitors annually to America's pre-eminent tourist attraction.I confess to some feelings of annoyance. I own no property near the venue, so money isn't an issue; and as one who travels to the city by train, I could easily avoid the inevitable congestion. Yet, in the midst of the general rejoicing, I find myself hoping the notion will collapse and suspecting that it could.
While local politicians and chambers of commerce, building-trades unions and civic boosters see visions of sugar plums dance in their heads, I see second thoughts, zoning fights, corporate tax breaks at ratepayers' expense and heated debates about political correctness.
Of course, the wish may be father to the thought - I think Disney properly belongs in Florida or California, or maybe Texas, not suburban Washington - but the distances between planning, plotting, purchasing and building are greater, in this NIMBYfied age, than Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Chip 'n' Dale and Disney chairman Michael Eisner might suspect.
Only Walt Disney's minions, after all, would believe that a history theme park - a bite-sized, sugar-coated replica of reality - should be built within driving distance of Washington, D.C. And only in America, I fear, might the public prefer a gleaming facsimile to the real thing.
Why walk around Washington - be a witness to history, feel the heat, touch the pavement, gaze at the documents - when you can ride the Underground Railroad from Colonial Village to Depression-o-Rama? Why visit neighboring Manassas, see the ramparts and trenches, the dangerous woods, the hillside where Gen. Jackson stood "like a stone wall," when you can push colored buttons, put on mouse earphones and listen to robots re-create the same scenery?
That will be a difficult challenge to traditionalists, preservationists, historians, purists, anxious residents and assorted sticks-in-the-mud as they prepare to do battle with a popular icon. For while grandiose plans are always far from certain, the culture, I fear, is stacked on Disney's side.
America at its best and worst, both funny and appalling.
Here in Washington, unfortunately, the trend is well-ensconced. For instance, the Smithsonian Institution, which used to feature endless rows of glass cases containing historic artifacts, now markets its possessions with excitement and verve.
Instead of seeing the actual objects, or reading the real papers, or gazing in wonder at Lincoln's bloodstained handkerchief, visitors are seduced by Hollywood documentaries: authentic re-enactments, mocked-up scenarios, historic-style settings, genuine imitations - all symbolized, in recent years, by a publicity-minded penchant for acquiring and exhibiting TV memorabilia.
Americans, colonial and post-colonial settlers of an idea-turned-nation, are forever in search of a useable past. There was a time, of course, when the past was too contemporary, and builders crossed the sea to appropriate a heritage: Greek revival architecture, mock-Tudor houses, gothic universities, old world religion, Irish names, German-style schools. But Americans now properly claim their own culture, and 400 years along, have plenty of evidence to ponder and absorb, readily accessible and waiting to be seen.
Do we really need Disney to trivialize the past, to render history vulgar in the shadow of the city where Mrs. Adams hung her laundry, Gen. Lee chose his side, Justice Holmes dissented and Jackie O held court? Perhaps, once again, we should look beyond our shores, where Euro-Disney (outside Paris) just lost about a billion dollars.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)