The topic of Animal performances in theme parks strolled into my consciousness on the long legs of a giraffe in the summer of 2004, during a memorable car ride through Six Flags’ Wild Safari theme park. This safari park is located adjacent to the Six Flags’ Great Adventure theme park in Jackson, NJ, and is only thirty miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Both parks opened on July 4, 1974, and celebrated their thirty-year anniversary that summer. The park now holds “1,200 exotic animals representing 52 species from six continents” in what it calls “simulated natural habitats” (“Wild Safari”).  The safari park lived up to its slogan, “Don’t Miss All the Animal Antics,” when the windshield wipers of the family Ford Explorer were systematically dismantled and the car itself was thoroughly licked by a rambunctious giraffe.

 

After much laughing, shouting, and a brave trip out of the car to retrieve the wipers, it was determined that the giraffe’s motive was to lick the salt that the car had collected from the ocean air near the park.  Perhaps the most astounding aspect of this was the care and dexterity with which the giraffe removed the windshield wipers and gently dropped them on the ground. When we replaced the wipers on the car, they were unharmed and fully functional. Undoubtedly, this was not the first time the giraffe had dismantled the automotive equipment of a park-goer, and it even took the same approach with the car behind us. With the wipers safely on the ground, the giraffe can lick windshields at its leisure without fear of being struck in the face. And yet, the giraffe does not damage the car, as that would surely result in sanctions by park officials (the monkeys have recently been fenced off from cars), but carefully removes its impediment, licks its salt, and lets the car move onward.

 

As the giraffe’s tongue slid across the windshield, I could not help but recall the popular 1993 film Jurassic Park, with its iconic image of the water cup rippling with the footsteps of the approaching tyrannosaurus rex, who breaks free from his paddock to attack the guests in their cars (coincidentally, two Ford Explorers). The character of Ian Malcolm in the film has a mantra about the inevitable failure of limitations put onto animals in isolated environments: “Life finds a way” (Jurassic Park). This is quite true of the gentle Six Flags’ giraffe, for it has adapted to its new habitat by using the salt on cars as a mechanized salt lick.  The premise of Jurassic Park is a natural progression of the “theme park safari” mentality, as the wily entrepreneur John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough) uses DNA technology to recreate dinosaurs not for the sake of science, but for entertainment.[1]  Hammond himself calls his dinosaur island “the most advanced amusement park in the entire world” (Jurassic Park). With this personal account as a jumping off point, we can now analyze the implications of Jurassic Park on commercialized animal practices, and how they relate to Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park.

 

Jurassic Park, based on the 1990 novel by Michael Crichton, chronicles a pre-opening inspection of the theme park by scientists and a lawyer. Their visit quickly turns disastrous after one of the park’s employees shuts off the security systems to facilitate his scheme to steal and sell the park’s cloning technology. The director’s chair is occupied by Steven Spielberg, who also directed the 1975 hit Jaws, another film based on a novel in which the domains of human and animal violently collide. The similarities of form and content are evident from the first scene of Jurassic Park, in which an unseen velociraptor attacks a park worker and drags him all over the screen, with only the top of his body shown. As Mark F. Berry says in The Dinosaur Filmography, “If the raptor-cage prologue is actually a re-envisioning of the opening of Jaws, that’s okay, because it’s just as gripping this time around” (158). Audiences agreed, and Jurassic Park surpassed the success of Jaws, and is currently the number seven highest grossing movie all-time World-Wide (IMDB).

 

Jurassic Park and its dinosaurs have inspired many diverse academic readings. The story places itself squarely within the canon of science fiction by dealing with the anxieties of DNA and biotechnology.[2] The issues of technology are central to the film thematically, but many theorists have looked at the Jurassic Park dinosaurs from various other perspectives. From gender-coding of Dinosaurs, to American/Latino race relations, to the Post-Cold War patriarchal order, to analysis of chaos theory,  to special effects technology, Jurassic Park has lent itself to a great deal of discourse.  W.J.T. Mitchell, a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago, dispenses with many of these readings:

 

Jurassic Park is an indigestible feast, finally, because it is too smart for its own good. Certainly it is smarter than any “critique” that might be brought to bear on it [...] All the strategies that have stabilized and compartmentalized the contradictions of the dinosaur - its association with pure science and impure commerce; its role as a monument to national prestige and neo-colonial exploitation; its function as a figure of fertility and infertility, potency and impotence, gender differentiation and confusion; its place in parodic rituals of resurrection, consumption, and sacrifice – all these elements are brought together in a single symbolic system in Jurassic Park. (Mitchell, 226)

 

We can gain insight into the critiques by looking at what Mitchell does not acknowledge. Though he gives us a laundry list of academic readings done of the film, none regard the creatures as animals. It is significant to note how few theorists confront the issues of the dinosaurs as theme park animals. After all, this is not a story about dinosaurs being recreated, it is a story about recreated dinosaurs in a theme park. These scholars are willing to look at the creatures in every possible way except as animals. In his 2002 book Animals in Film, Jonathan Burt points out the critical reluctance to take on an Animal Studies approach to film: “Given the significance of animals in visual culture and their extensive appearance in film, the smaller number of scholarly studies on issues relating to animals in film seems to me the product of willful blindness” (17). Burt’s point is directly applicable for Jurassic Park, which has academic readings of the dinosaurs as everything but animals. To genetically recreate dinosaurs for entertainment rather than scientific edification certainly begs us to examine the significance of using animals as tourist-style attractions. Therefore, it is necessary for us to read this film as a commentary about animal practices, particularly the commercialization of captive animals in theme parks.

 

The first (and oldest) animal practice to examine in the film is meat eating. The initial image of a dinosaur that we see in the film is a grand shot of an herbivore, the brachiosaurus, peacefully pulling branches off a tree. As Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, “The herbivores are so sweet and idyllic. The giant brachiosaurs low to each other like cattle in the peaceable kingdom. They rear up on their hind legs to find the juiciest leaves” (Gould, 54). Contrasting with the awe evoked by the brachiosaurs is the sheer terror evoked by the cunning, carnivorous velociraptors. To illustrate this, we are shown a live cow being lowered by a harness into the raptor pen to feed them, just as Hammond describes the meat meal that the humans will be eating for lunch. The movie makes us aware of the disconnect between animals and meat products as the empty, broken harness comes up, Hammond asks, “Yes, well, who’s hungry?” and the shot cuts to a fancy meat plate. The film clearly jests here that velociraptors devouring a cow is vicious, whereas a plate of finely cut meat with garnish is civilized.

 

As a mirror of the brachiosaurs, there is also a human herbivore in the film, the young girl Lex Murphy. We learn this when a goat is raised into T-rex’s pen to lure him into view for the park visitors. Mitchell views this moment for its gender significance, “The girl in Jurassic Park is a vegetarian who is appalled at the idea of witnessing T-rex devouring a goat, a spectacle that the boy thinks will be “cool” (Mitchell, 240).[3] Although gender constructions are at work, Mitchell once again ignores animal practices being addressed by the film moments before a T-rex reverses the human-eating-animal construction by eating the lawyer Gennaro. This examination of meat eating is brought out in full force in the other hunting scene of the film, when the children run from the raptors inside the Visitors Center. The raptors are able to literally open the door and gain access to the domain of human dominance over animals, the kitchen. As the raptors seek out the children, the set becomes cluttered with pots, pans, and utensils, representing a departure from the distancing tools of meat eating. These vicious animals will pull their meat apart with teeth and claws, rather than knife and fork. However, the humans are in their domain, and the young Tim is able to lock one of the raptors into a frozen room, eerily reminiscent of a meat locker, as the raptor ferociously attempts to escape. Though the dinosaurs are pushing the boundaries of the meat-eating paradigm, the constructs of carnivorous humans allow the children to escape.   

 

Another animal practice that Jurassic Park deals with is pet-keeping. One of the difficulties of interacting with long-extinct creatures is that there is no cultural framework in which the humans can safely put the animals. When T-rex is lured into view with a goat, the protagonist paleontologist Dr. Grant comments,   “T-rex doesn’t want to be fed, he wants to hunt. You can’t just suppress sixty-five million years of gut instinct” (Jurassic Park). The T-rex will not obey any fixed patterns of eating or be domesticated like a pet. This idea is reinforced when the scheming Dennis Nedry gets lost on his way to the dock and comes face to face with a venomous, carnivorous dilophosaurus. Nedry deals with the dinosaur as he would a domesticated dog in saying, “Nice boy, nice dinosaur. What, you want food? I just fell down a hill, I’m soaking wet. I don’t have any food” (Jurassic Park), and even mockingly asks the dinosaur to play fetch.  Unfortunately, Nedry fails to realize that this is not a pet relationship, and he does not provide the food, but, rather, is the food. Thus, the film establishes the dangers of viewing all animals as pets with the despicable Nedry, who is eaten alive because of his naïve attempt at a relationship with these animals.

 

The film’s deepest critique of animal practice is its portrayal of the use of animals in safari theme parks. We must remember that the protagonists are not brought in to study the animals, but to approve the park itself for the investors. The theme park mindset finds its greatest opponent in the figure of chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, who interjects during the conversation about how much to charge for entrance fee, “The lack of humility before Nature that’s being displayed here staggers me” (Jurassic Park).  Malcolm lays out harsh criticisms of Hammond’s attempts to impose order in the park, and warns,

 

The kind of control you’re attempting is not possible because if there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well there it is. (Jurassic Park)

 

Malcolm’s words ring true not only in the film, but also for the owner of a 1994 red Ford Salt-Lick driving through a New Jersey theme park. Giraffes, however, are not the only animals interested in dismantling cars. The T-rex in the film goes to great lengths to destroy the SUV with the two children inside. T-rex pushes the car with its nose, then pushes through the glass roof before tipping it over and eating a tire. As Mitchell tells us, “T-rex can recognize a worthy antagonist when he sees one, so he attacks the park vehicle, chews up its tires, and pushes it over a cliff when he finds it indigestible” (222). But the attack is not about digestion, it is about adaptation. This is not only an attempt to devour the protagonists, but also a revolt of the animal against the theme park construct into which it has been put. The dinosaur may not take off the wiper, but it pulls off the tires, a move that cripples the car and puts an immediate end to the tour. Thus, we see a subversion of the safari framework, for the animal destroys the park car and eats the lawyer who had been sent to approve the park.

 

In addition to coyly commenting on animal practices, Jurassic Park also directly addresses technologies of formal animal representation in entertainment. Technology is a hot-button issue in the film, as the break down of the computer system is what leads to the escape of the bio-engineered dinosaurs.  This anxiety manifests early with the Dr. Grant’s first line, “I hate computers” (Jurassic Park). Shortly after this line, Grant physically illustrates the hunting techniques of velociraptors in the Cretaceous period for an impetuous teenager. Though Grant is not skilled at technology, he has the imagination and the scientific background to paint the verbal story. Steven Spielberg, however, does have the technology, and actually shows us the safari figure Muldoon devoured in the same fashion that Grant describes. In fact, Spielberg was so confident about the technology in the film that he proclaimed before the release, “I guarantee that you will believe that the dinosaurs are real” (qtd. in Berry, 158).  We now see the two opposed attitudes to the technological discourse, for the thematic content shows the perils of technology, while the form pushes the boundaries of film technology.

 

The complicated relationship of animals and film technology has been commented on by several scholars. Stephen Jay Gould recognizes the inherent tension of the technology in the film, saying, “The conscious ironies and recursions embedded in Jurassic Park’s own reality are clear enough – for the best dinosaurs are computer generated within a movie based on a novel”(56). Jonathan Burt points out the similar polarized tensions of marketing digital animal representations by noting: “Critics of animal films have long observed an opposition between scientific and entertainment values, an opposition that usually translates across a series of polarities with objective scientific truth, education and detached observation on the one side and commerce, entertainment and pleasure on the other” (92). Within this dichotomy, Jurassic Park falls on the side of commerce, as it uses the innovate new means of computer generated images to depict animals for entertainment, as opposed to education, in the form of a summer blockbuster film. To summarize, Jurassic Park is a film using technologically innovative animals as piece of entertainment to bring to life a narrative that warns against using animals as technologically innovative pieces of entertainment. So how does the film reconcile these deep seeded tensions and ironies?

 

The answer comes to us from the very origins of theatre. Moments before the T-rex breaks out of its paddock, it drops the leg of the goat it has been fed onto the roof of the ride-vehicle, then swallows the goat. This evokes the origins of the word “tragedy,” the Greek for “goat song.” Previously at the fence of the T-rex paddock, Ian Malcolm remarked about the death of God amidst the rapid growth of scientific engineering. Spielberg recognizes the new God of science, and sacrifices this goat to a digitally created dinosaur as an act of appeasement.   Spielberg pushes the boundaries of digital mimesis, the replacing of animal actors with computer-generated technology, while simultaneously discouraging the forwarding of DNA biotechnology. As visual effects artist Dennis Muren says, “The ultimate experience of what we’ve done is that the audience is unaware of the technology and just gets into the spirit of what we’ve created” (qtd in Berry, 167). This quote allows us to understand that Spielberg is calling for the use of technology in the arts through the use of computer-generated animals, in which bio-ethics are not a problem. Jonathan Burt discusses the evolution of this animal technology in regards to putting together “collages” of images to mimetically create the presence of animal:

 

Advances in technology have not necessarily changed this collage approach, even though with CGI they may do so eventually. Jurassic Park and its sequels, with their amalgamation of stop motion, animatronics and CGI, are some of the most striking recent examples, though they are part of a long tradition of dinosaur movies, from The Lost World (1925) onwards, that have pushed the boundaries of all sorts of tricks and techniques in filmmaking. Such films reveal the modern at the heart of the archaic. (Burt 158)

 

Thus, Spielberg uses the highest levels of cinematic technology to recreate the most ancient of extinct species. Burt’s theory is that the impulse to create collage images of animals is aligned with a modern mentality, analogous to an impressionist’s use of broad, painterly strokes to fool the eye into seeing a landscape. Though a deeply modern notion, it is no different than an ancient chorus of frogs chanting “Brekekekek” in Aristophanes’ Fifth Century BC comedy The Frogs (500). That said, the opposite of Burt’s statement is also true in Jurassic Park, for there is archaic at the heart of the modern. Spielberg’s goat sacrifice harkens back to the earliest origins of theatre, and calls for a new version of an archaic art form, achieved through digital representations of animals. Animal technology is to be used safely in the arts, rather than dangerously in nature. In this way, Spielberg’s vision of digital mimesis is a new genre with the means to bring back the dinosaur without having to actually bring back the dinosaur.

 

This not only resolves the technological tension in the film, but reconciles older impulses of animal re-creation. Of course, realism is crucial in digital mimesis, requiring that real animals be carefully studied, as animal theorist Jane Desmond observes:

 

The animators from Industrial Light and Magic created the movement of the brachiosaurus in the movie Jurassic Park by spending hours at wildlife parks watching animals and touching their skin. The result is a “dinosaur that strode like a giraffe but weighed as much as an elephant, a musculo-skeletal impossibility.” In these cases “realistic” does not mean anatomically and kinesthetically accurate (as if such knowledge about the brachiosaurus were even possible), but rather anatomically plausible. (173-4)

 

We gather that the brachiosaurus evokes a familiar animal look and movement, while audience members visually feast upon the grandeur of the extinct animal.  Desmond also discusses one of the earliest of animal technologies, taxidermy, in relation to developments in CGI and animatronics. (164)  Jurassic Park satisfies Desmond’s conception of the taxidermic impulse because it brings dead animals to life on screen without having to kill them first.

 

Movie-goers have eagerly accepted these new digital representations, and many animal performances in contemporary films have been done digitally, taking the forms of talking fairy-tale donkeys, lumbering elephants from Middle-Earth, pirate ship devouring Kraken, and neurotic clown-fish. Spielberg’s call for digital creations has been boldly accepted, as nine out of top ten highest grossing movies all-time world-wide have included digital animal representations.[4] Jurassic Park has worked itself into the cultural fabric of animal representations. The influence is so significant that in 2002, the discovery of a new species of Ankylosaurus was named 'Crichtonsaurus,' in honor of author Michael Crichton (IMDB). The film has even revolutionized the technologies of actual theme parks, which are beginning to adopt advanced digital technologies in their rides. However, the presence of Jurassic Park can be felt most strongly in the attractions that have not adapted to the changing animal technologies, such as the Kilimanjaro Safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

 

As John Hammond learns of a tropical storm headed towards the island, he sarcastically remarks, “Ai-yai-yai, why didn’t I build in Orlando?” (Jurassic Park). Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Hammond, because no one purports to make dreams come true more than the Walt Disney Company. Kenneth B. Kidd says of Disney, “By the 1980s, Walt Disney World had helped establish theme parks as cultural sites that everyone should visit, like the world fairs and expositions before them” (268).[5] These institutions have a long history of presenting animals for public viewing, and Disney recently pushed commercialized presentations of animals into the twenty-first century with the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998. Disney began work in 1995, and used top animal experts, including well-known primate researcher Jane Goodall, in preparation for construction (Eisner, 402). Comprised of five sections, Africa, Asia, Dinoland USA, Camp Minnie-Mickey, and Discovery Island, the park is 500 acres, “four times the size of the Magic Kingdom, with room enough for two full-fledged safari experiences” (Eisner, 233). Disney had now built its own park with what Hammond refers to as “biological attractions.”

 

Though it capitalizes on the financial success of Jurassic Park, the admittedly tacky and kitschy DinoLand USA is not of much interest to us as Kidd confirms this with, “DinoLand USA is the most anomalous section of Animal Kingdom if we understand the park as zoological” (283).  Our focus is the Kilimanjaro Safari, located in the Africa section of the park.[6] This is a 110 acre safari ride that takes guests through a simulation of the African plains holding over 250 African Animals (Destination USA).  The critiques of commercialized theme park animal captivity found in Jurassic Park are willfully ignored by Disney, which places its animals into an artificial habitat created by designers whom Disney refers to as “imagineers.”[7] When we juxtapose the film and the Disney park, we see the thematic morals regarding technological innovation and its relationship to animal practices in Jurassic Park, arrived at through both form and content, are ignored and subverted in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.  What we will see is that the new technology of digital mimesis and the warnings against animal captivity that resonate in Jurassic Park are lost amidst Disney’s consumer based “circle of life.”

 

Before we analyze how Disney fares in regards to the warnings of Jurassic Park, we must look at some of the logistics of the ride itself. First, Kilimanjaro Safari is indeed a ride, with a narrative that tracks down “nasty elephant poachers” in an attempt to save an elephant named “Little Red” (Destination USA).[8] The narrative unfolds not because, but in spite of the animals brought in to recreate an African scene.  Concept Designer John Shields says of the animals, “We want them to appear to be herds of animals intermingling with each other just as they do in Nature” (Destination USA). We may be quick to say that the animals cannot act this way because they are not in Nature, but given that the ride has a narrative, it seems that Disney forces park goers (and the animals) into suspending disbelief. If the purpose of the ride is to unfold a story about malicious poachers, then the presence of an entire savannah full of animals seems almost incidental. To achieve a feel of reality, Disney must put the animals in the background, for human existence rarely focuses on the viewing of animals. This does not mean though, that the animals should be out of sight, for Disney has spent enormous sums of money and time to bring the animals to this space. First, Disney carefully constructed the terrain, as Shields tells us that the ground of the fifty acre “African Savannah” is raised by thirty feet to make it look like a “distant vista” (Destination USA). However, this is merely a stage, and Disney must control not only the set, but the performers as well. To do so, Disney uses “Browse,” which is vegetation used to feed the animals, placed near the path, which, “encourages animals to stay close to the ride vehicles” (Destination USA). This luring food turns the animals into unknowing actors. While they fulfill their biological need for nutrition, the animals stay within view and perform their perfunctory role in the narrative.

 

Though Disney can keep the animals in view, they cannot regulate behavior.  Novelist/Journalist Carl Hiaasen eagerly anticipates the hijinks of the animals:

 

“Animal Kingdom is inhabited by real wild animals – not robots, not puppets, not holograms, not cartoons, but living and breathing creatures that (unless Disney starts tranking [tranquilizing] them) will eat, sleep, drool, defecate, regurgitate, sniff each other’s crotches, lick their own balls, and occasionally even copulate in full view of the tourists.” (qtd. in Kidd 269)

 

This is less true than one would think, for Disney controls the daily patterns of the animals and has them well trained and tightly contained. With free roaming animals in a theme park, it is guaranteed that there will be restrictions, but Disney has purposefully kept these out of the sight and mind of the spectators. Joe Christian, the Curator of Mammals at the park, tells us, “The exhibit is situated so that the guests can’t see the 18 foot deep, 21 foot wide moat that maintains the lions separate from the rest of the animals here on the Savannahs” (Destination USA). This is only one of several hidden barriers including ravines, fences, underwater concrete barricades, and cattle guards, which are incorporated into the environment to maintain the suspension of disbelief. As for the sniffing, licking, and copulation that Hiaasen discusses, Disney handles this in a manner similar to Jurassic Park by controlling breeding. Animal Kingdom staff track the hormones of the female animals and breed them when the levels are highest (Destination USA). This not only controls breeding patterns, but also perpetuates the animal population within the park.

 

Another means of maintaining control is achieved by creating two spheres for the animals, the pen and the performative. Dr. Beth Stevens, the Vice President of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, reveals that the animals are trained with audio signals to return to their “night houses” at the end of the day. The narrator of the Destination USA Travel Channel programs tells us “These night houses are state of the art and Disney spared no expense,”[9] although we only see shots of the plain looking concrete, fenced exteriors. In this way, Disney maintains control of daily patterns, attempting to bring order to even the most simple of bodily behaviors, such as eating, sleeping, and interaction with other animals. With the animals housed in pens, the safari itself is no longer a simulated habitat, but is a complete stage. These are captive animals brought out onto a constructed space during the day to perform animal.

 

Now that we have seen Disney’s “actors,” we can look at the themes of the narrative. Executive Designer of Walt Disney Imagineering Joe Rohde say the function of the narrative is to “reflect upon the conservation issues that threaten the existence of these animals in various places” (Destination USA).This reflection happens to be done by driving theme park guests through a secretly compartmentalized, faux-African landscape in which dislocated animals spend their nine-to-five eating strategically placed vegetation. But worry not, the poachers are caught and all ends happily. And what of Disney’s own relocation of the animals?[10] Disney CEO Michael Eisner sees a benevolent order that negates the disruption of both the animals’ lives and the Florida eco-system:

 

“The Animal Kingdom takes us full circle. Thirty years ago, all you could find on our Orlando property were vast herds of grazing animals and some rather intimidating reptiles. Today, after billions of dollars of investment, we have unveiled out most original theme park concept yet: vast herds of grazing animals and some rather intimidating reptiles.” (404)

 

Eisner’s humor is lost on Kidd, who puts the above in a clearer context, “Theme park construction, he’d have us believe, proceeds like the circle of life, replenishing and restoring” (Kidd, 274).  Though the “circle of life” rhetoric is pervasive in Animal Kingdom, Eisner has much difficulty holding it together here, as Disney is actually breaking the circle of life by taking these animals out of their natural habitats and into a fake savanna where they perform for food and sleep in concrete pens.  

 

Now that we understand the setup of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we can see how it deviates from the technologies of animal representation suggested by Jurassic Park.  To do this, we must turn once again to W.J.T. Mitchell, who gives us his reading of Jurassic Park’s final human/animal confrontation:

 

The final scene of consumption occurs when dinosaur eats dinosaur, leaving the white suburban nuclear family [Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, Lex, and Tim] free to escape with their lives, chastened by the lessons they have just learned about the dangers of unbridled greed and unlimited technology. (225)

 

The key problem with Mitchell’s argument is that, in the context of the film, the archetypical middle class nuclear family is responsible for neither the greed, nor the technology: for they did not create the park, nor are they involved in the process of DNA experimentation. Where these families are implicated is demographically, namely in the frequency with which they take their children, the “target audience” as Hammond refers to them, to theme parks. After their harrowing experience at Jurassic Park, Lex and Tim’s fear will not manifest itself near test tubes, but, rather, on safari rides. 

 

Such anxieties about the implications of commercialized animal captivity could have found their solution in the revolutionary advances in digital animal representations, but Disney has chosen the traditional path of zoo-style animal viewing. As the staunch critics of Disney, Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan have said, “Animal Kingdom is involved in a seemingly endless logic of simulacrum. Animal Kingdom is a simulacrum of a simulacrum, in that it purports to be a safari park, which is itself a simulacrum of an uninhabited wilderness” (103). Disney has invested millions of dollars and hours to show animals on a fake setting, peripherally involved in a contrived, hypocritical narrative. Though Disney has the ability and the finances to satisfy animal care regulations, as well as make the ride entertaining, the implication is that they will go to enormous lengths to preserve the imperialistic order of animal viewership.  The zoo cages of old have now been rendered invisible by imagineers, replaced with simulated habitats and feeding patterns encouraging the performance of animality. Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park warns that life breaks free from such constructs. Even so, as alternative animal representations grow stronger, Disney simply thickens the bars enclosing its consumer based “circle of life.” In his animal theory book Reading Zoos, Randy Malamud shows how zoo history has led us to this new park:

 

If our cultural baubles cannot all be displayed under one roof, as in Paxton’s nineteenth-century imperial showcase, then they are at least concentrated at one exit off the Florida Turnpike in Walt Disney’s twentieth-century version. With its zoo, Disney will expand its empire, further remove animals from nature, and forcefully convince spectators of how wholly corporate America can appropriate nature as a subsidiary of Mickey Mouse. It’s the logical culmination to the cultural history of captive animals during this American century. (104)

 

Animal Kingdom fits into a long history of animal presentations that Jurassic Park warns against and technologically undermines. Nevertheless, Disney uses its seemingly infinite resources in an attempt to assume control over Nature and forward the historical trajectory of animal captivity. Hopefully, the adaptation of a rambunctious giraffe in the park will reveal the hidden bars of this twenty-first century zoo.