Discussion Board Post #8

Disneyland’s ride, It’s a Small World, welcomes people from all around the world, but it

fails to acknowledge people with disabilities. The lenses, Semiotics and Critical Disability

Studies along with the concepts of signifiers and victim stereotypes from these lenses reveal

discrimination against people with disabilities. Therefore, Disneyland’s It’s a Small World fails

to fully represent the all of the different types of people in the world.

It’s a Small World is a ride in Disneyland that features animatronics that represent people

and cultures from around the world. As people ride a boat in the dark, they pass animatronics

dressed as people around the world while the song, “It’s a Small World,” plays in the

background. However, other than the brief appearance of Dory, a character with short-term

memory loss from ​Finding Nemo​, there doesn’t seem to be many representations of disabilities

in the It’s a Small World ride.

Semiotics can be seen It’s a Small World through the use of signifiers. As Lois Tyson

states in ​Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, ​a signifier is “a mental imprint of a

linguistic sound” (Tyson 202). In It’s a Small World, one of the major signifiers is the use of

animatronics dressed as people from different parts of the world and are supposed to signify the

different variety of cultures and people in the world. None of the animatronics dressed as people

have any visible disabilities, using signifiers to only signify the able-bodied people in the world.

Further examples of an unfair portrayal of people with disabilities can be seen with the Critical

Disability Studies lens.

 Critical Disability Studies can reveal the use of victim stereotypes in the It’s a Small

World ride. In ​Common Portrayals of Personas with Disabilities ​by Media Smarts, the author

explains that “the most common stereotype of persons with disabilities is the victim, a character

who is presented as a helpless object of pity or sympathy” (Media Smarts). When on the ride,

people with wheelchairs are put onto a different a boat with room in the back of the boat to fit a

wheelchair securely to the boat and is secured by Disney employees. Although it can provide

some security, people in wheelchairs are unable to do anything in the case of an emergency

without help of someone else to get them out, which renders them helpless to take care of

themselves.

In conclusion, It’s a Small World is a reminder of the discrimination against people with

disabilities in society. With the use of Semiotics and Critical Disability Studies lenses and

concepts such as signifiers and victim stereotypes, it can be seen that people with disabilities are

treated differently than others in society.