Disneyland with the Death Penalty
"Disneyland with the Death Penalty" is a 4,500-word article about
The article followed Gibson's observations of the
Though Gibson's first major piece of non-fiction, the article had an immediate and lasting impact. The Singaporean government banned Wired upon the publication of the issue.[3] The phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" came to stand internationally for an authoritarian and austere reputation that the city-state found difficult to shake off.[4]
Synopsis
There is no slack in Singapore. Imagine an Asian version of
Zurich operating as an offshore capsule at the foot of Malaysia; an affluent microcosm whose citizens inhabit something that feels like, well, Disneyland. Disneyland with the death penalty.— Gibson, William. "Disneyland with the Death Penalty"[2]
The title "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" referred to the subject of the article, the Southeast Asian city-state of
Gibson found it painful to try to connect with the
Gibson deplored the absence of an authentic metropolitan feeling,
The creative deficit of the city-state was evident to the author also in the Singaporeans' obsession with consumerism as a pastime, the homogeneity of the retailers and their fare, and in what he characterized as their other passion: dining (although he finds fault with the diversity of the food, it was, he remarked "something to write home about").[2] He returned then to the theme of the staid insipidity of the city-state, observing the unsettling cleanliness of the physical environment and the self-policing of the populace. In detailing Singaporean technological advancement and aspirations as an information economy, Gibson cast doubt on the resilience of their controlled and conservative nature in the face of impending mass exposure to digital culture – "the wilds of X-rated cyberspace".[2] "Perhaps", he speculated, "Singapore's destiny will be to become nothing more than a smug, neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity, amid a sea of unthinkable ... weirdness."[2]
Toward the end of the essay, Gibson briefly covered two applications of the
Impact and legacy
The Singapore government responded to the publication of the article by banning Wired from the country.[3] The phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a famous and widely referenced description for the nation,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] adopted in particular by opponents of Singapore's perceived authoritarian nature.[13] The city-state's authoritarian and austere reputation made it difficult to shake the description off;[4][14] Creative Review hailed it as "famously damning",[15] while The New York Times associate editor R. W. Apple Jr. defended the city-state in a 2003 piece as "hardly deserving of William Gibson's woundingly dismissive tag line".[16]
Reviewing the work in a 2003 blog post, Gibson wrote:
That Wired article may have managed to convey the now-cliched sense of Singapore as a creepy,
Heathrow.[17].In 2009, John Kampfner observed that the phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" was still being "cited by detractors of Singapore as a good summary of its human rights record and by supporters of the country as an example of foreign high-handedness."[18] "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" was assigned as reading on the topic of "Singaporean progress" for a 2008 National University of Singapore Writing & Critical Thinking course.[19] The piece was included in a 2012 compilation of Gibson's non-fiction writing, Distrust That Particular Flavor
Critical reception
The article provoked a strong critical reaction. The Boston Globe characterized it as a "biting piece on the technocratic state in Singapore".[20] It was recommended by postmodern political geographer Edward Soja as "a wonderful tour of the cyberspatial urbanities" of the city-state.[21] Journalist Steven Poole called it a "horrified report", and argued that it showed that the author "despises the seamless, strictured planes of corporate big business" and is "the champion of the interstitial".[22] In a review of Gibson's 2010 novel Zero History for The Observer James Purdon identified "Disneyland" as one of the high points of Gibson's career, "a witty, perceptive piece of reportage, hinting at a non-fiction talent equal to the vision that had elevated Gibson to digital-age guru".[23]
Philosopher and technology writer Peter Ludlow interpreted the piece as an attack on the city, and noted as ironic the fact that the real Disneyland was in California—a state whose "repressive penal code includes the death penalty".[24] Urban theorist Maarten Delbeke noted that Gibson cited the computerized control of the city-state as responsible for its sanitized inauthentic character, a claim Delbeke called "a conventional, almost old-fashioned complaint against technocracy".[5] In a 2004 article in Forum on Contemporary Art & Society, Paul Rae commented that "[w]hile an ability to capture the zeitgeist is to be taken seriously in a context such as this one, Gibson's journalistic reportage is inevitably unrefined", and cited the accusation of Singapore-based British academic John Phillips that Gibson "fails to really think [his critiques] through".[25]
In
urbanist and architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas took issue with the acerbic, ironic tone of the article, condemning it as a typical reaction by "dead parents deploring the mess [their] children have made of their inheritance".[5][26] Koolhaas argued that reactions like Gibson's imply that the positive legacy of modernity can only be intelligently used by Westerners, and that attempts such as Singapore's at embracing the "newness" of modernity without understanding its history would result in a far-reaching and deplorable eradication.[5]Singaporean Tang Weng Hong in turn wrote a critical response to both Gibson and Koolhaas.[27]
See also
- Technocracy
- Asian values
- Commodity fetishism
- Paternalism
- Postmodernity
- Simulacra and Simulation
- Urban planning in Singapore
- Capital punishment in Singapore
- Caning in Singapore
References
- ^ Cover of Wired issue 1.4 in which Disneyland with the Death Penalty originally appeared
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Gibson, William (September–October 1993). "Disneyland with the Death Penalty". Wired. Vol. 1, no. 4. Condé Nast Publications. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
- ^ a b c Mehegan, David (March 1, 1995). "Multimedia Animal Wired Visionary Nicholas Negroponte is MIT's Loud Voice of the Future". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company.
- ^ .
- ^
ISBN 978-90-6450-355-9.- ^ Culshaw, Peter (February 26, 2005). "You will now be creative!". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on October 1, 2008. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
- ^ Freeman, Jan (September 15, 1993). "The Crusoe Game; Baby Boomers Get Re-Wired". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company.
Gibson's travel report is not bad, but it's pretty much summed up by the line the editors stole for the cover: "Disneyland with the Death Penalty".- ^ Mian, Imran-Vincent (September 16, 2005). "Singapore's other side; Toeing the line". International Herald Tribune. The New York Times Company. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
- ^ Vest, Jason (April 15, 1994). "Justice Under the Lash; Did Singapore Beat a Confession Out of a Young American?". The Washington Post.
- ^ Hilsum, Lindsay (October 5, 2007). "Why Burma Was Crushed". Channel 4. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2008.
He turned Singapore into an immensely rich, alarmingly clean, politically repressive city-state, described by the science-fiction writer William Gibson as "Disneyland with the death penalty". Business Traveller. February 1, 2003.Famously referred to as "Disneyland with the death penalty" by writer William Gibson, Singapore has had its fair share of criticism.- ^ McCullagh, Declan (August 1, 2003). "Something's in the air: liberties in the face of SARS and other infectious diseases". Reason.
Another explanation for Singapore's comparative success in containing SARS is its single-minded determination to take whatever steps necessary, with scant regard for such individual liberties as the right to travel and associate freely. This is the city-state the cyber-punk writer William Gibson once described as "Disneyland with the death penalty": While free trade is largely embraced, chaos is verboten.- ^ Parsons, Tony (November 4, 2002). "Comment on litter fines". The Mirror.
S2CID 153634282.- ^ Sinclair, Mark (August 1, 2004). "A decade of decadence: the authoritarian society of Singapore turned four ex-military policemen into rebel designers. Mark Sinclair meets Phunk Studio". Creative Review.
But with prosperity has come blandness: the stereotypical view of Singapore is of a financial hub, an ex-pat paradise, a strictly run, litter free state with little cultural activity or interest. Disneyland with the death penalty is one famously damning description.- ^ R. W. Apple Jr. (September 10, 2003). "Asian Journey; Snacker's Paradise: Devouring Singapore's Endless Supper". The New York Times. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
- ^ Gibson, William (May 22, 2003). "S'PORE, IN RETROSPECT". WilliamGibsonBooks.com. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2010.
ISBN 978-1-84737-818-7.- ^ "University Scholars Program". National University of Singapore. Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved September 24, 2008.
- ^ Gilbert, Matthew (September 18, 1994). "Getting Wired: This San Francisco Magazine is the Rolling Stone of the Digital Revolution". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company.
ISBN 978-1-57718-001-2.- ^ Poole, Steven (October 3, 1996). "Virtually in love". The Guardian. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
guardian.co.uk(Guardian Media Group). Retrieved September 12, 2010. ISBN 978-0-262-62151-9.Since these articles are an attack on Singapore, it is ironic that the real Disneyland is in California—whose repressive penal code includes the death penalty- ^ Rae, Paul (2004). ""10/12": When Singapore Became the Bali of the Twenty-First Century?" (PDF). Forum on Contemporary Art & Society. No. 5. Singapore: Substation. pp. 218–255. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-01-07.
While an ability to capture the zeitgeist is to be taken seriously in a context such as this one, Gibson's journalistic reportage is inevitably unrefined- . pp. 1009–1089.
- ^ What is Authenticity? Singapore as Potemkin Metropolis" a response to Gibson and Koolhaas by Tang Weng Hong (archive)
External links
- "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" at Wired.com