Beyond the Magic: How Disney’s Manufactured Ruins Shape Our World

Building in Disney's Animal Kingdowm with peeling paint.

Visitors to Disney's Animal Kingdom may be in awe of the park's immersive storytelling, with its crumbling architecture, overgrown ruins, and the sense of an ancient, distant world. But Professor of Communication Studies Derek Buescher sees a different story. His research shows how these manufactured ruins subtly teach tourists to view non-Western cultures as broken, outdated, and in need of fixing.