The Role of Authenticity at the Studio Backlot Tour

After a recent tour through the Studio Backlot at Disney’s Hollywood Studios I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “Does anyone ever buy this?” Truth be told this is nothing new. I get a little irked every time I experience this attraction.

Michael Bay’s voice is the least enthusiastic one I heard all day at the park.

Is it a shadow of its former self? Yes, it’s been radically nipped and tucked over the years. Is the Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer-flavored Harbor Attack sequence a forced and stale relic? It is to me.

The “director” in my show had such poor enunciation and had apparently
recited her patter so many times she was nearly unintelligible.

But there’s more to it than just bad show. I feel like they’re trying to sell me something genuine that is, in fact, not.

I mean let’s face it, when was the last time a costume made in that costume shop was created specifically for a television show or film? Does anyone imagine the prop shop makes anything for productions outside those created for and performed in the resort itself? And who has ever really bought the whole “we’re now entering a hot set” shtick Amy the “production coordinator here at the studios” would have us believe as the tram enters Catastrophe Canyon?

Hi, I’m Amy, a production coordinator here at the studios.
And if you believe that, I have some lovely Florida farm land I’d like to sell you.

I suppose it could be argued that, technically, all of these things are used in production. The first time I saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, for example, and they introduced the guy playing Indy as a “professional stunt performer” I laughed because it’s both true and recursive. Whether or not he had any noteworthy stunt credentials beforehand is irrelevant in the world of theme park winks and half-truths. He’s hired as a stunt performer in the show and that makes him a professional. But it’s a tease, isn’t it? If you’re in a park that celebrates the movies and you are watching a movie-themed stunt show and they introduce a professional stunt performer, do you play the same kind of logical hopscotch I did or do you just assume he’s for real to one degree or another? And before you accuse me of being an overly-skeptic “foamer” you should know I both knew and had worked with this particular performer at a rural Renaissance Faire. And that, my friends, is a long way from Hollywood.

So I guess the chief questions are these: Is the Studio Backlot Tour authentic? And does authenticity even matter?

IS IT AUTHENTIC?

I imagine no one ever plans a visit to a Disney park expecting authenticity. The whole point is that we are visiting a purposely-distorted representation of places real and imagined. These richly themed environments are expected to be false and that’s part of the allure. Experiencing an art directed, entertainment-oriented place created with a specific point of view like Main Street U.S.A. is, in part, an interactive extension of a movie going experience. There is no real suspension of disbelief, but rather one plays along to enhance the enjoyment level these environments provide.

So then does the Studio Backlot Tour at Disney’s Hollywood Studios provide the same kind of themed fun? It struck me the reason I roll my eyes may not be the fault of Disney but of mine. After all, do I think that old mansion in Liberty Square is haunted? Or even a mansion for that matter? No, of course not.

In his June 4, 1989 New York Times review of the park, Jeffrey Schmalz wrote, “But any visitor expecting an elaborate tour of a working studio, a look over the shoulders of the dream makers as they actually shoot movies, will be disappointed… it is actually 90 percent theme park and 10 percent movie lot.”

The Studio Backlot Tour is neither “studio” nor “backlot” and is as false a creation as Castillo Del Morro or Harambe or Tumbleweed. So is my inability to relax and enjoy the tour like I do while on Pirates or Kilimanjaro Safari or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad entirely my own fault? Disney doesn’t play a complicit role in a deception here differently than that of any other themed attraction, right? Or do they?

DOES AUTHENTICITY MATTER?

Universal Studios Hollywood stopped offering tours of actual production studios in the early 1930’s when sound was added to motion pictures. About thirty years later after MCA took over Universal, a studio tour was re-opened to add to studio profits. And while, in the half-century or so since then, staged events and canned shows have overtaken more authentic elements on the tour, the fact remains Universal isn’t just a theme park but also a real, working studio. And this fact is what makes the cheesiness of something like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift demonstration palatable or at least forgivable because the tour also drives you through a nearby plane crash set from the film “War of the Worlds,” of which the authentic origin is clear. During any visit it might be possible to glimpse evidence of an actual production from the tour tram.

And though Universal Studios Florida was originally billed as an authentic production facility with full-sized replicas of New York streets, they have long since abandoned the conceit of selling the park as anything but movie-themed fun. It is with this adjustment of intent, for example, that the 2008 update of “Earthquake” to “Disaster!” created some cheesy good fun out of an otherwise outdated attraction.

So why hasn’t Disney also dropped the “working studio” fiction from the Backlot Tour and readjusted its intent to be that of movie-themed fun?

Sure, there are real prop vehicles from well-known flicks in the bone yard.

I take them at their word that the garishly painted chicken coup is from a Miley Cyrus film. (I hope you’ll forgive me if I refuse to vet that fact personally.)

And there are a ton of authentic props in the queue separating the Harbor Attack special effects demonstration and the tour tram loading area.

But how is that any different than Tibetan props at Expedition Everest or for that matter all the junk screwed to the walls of your local TGI Fridays?

The one part of the tour that got really enthusiastic responses from guests on my recent ride-through is Catastrophe Canyon. There is no discounting the sheer thrill of the heat from fireballs or the rocking tramcars or the thousands of gallons of water pouring down the mountain.

The framing device may be totally inauthentic but that’s real fire and real water and the fun that kind of live spectacle creates cannot be discounted.

Impressive, too, is the engineering reality of making something like that happen every ten minutes all day long, the infrastructure for which is presented in plain view as the tram rolls around behind the canyon.

But it’s not a film set. It’s a theme park attraction. And Amy isn’t a live production coordinator. She’s a canned voice-over artist. Sorry to burst your bubble.

So does it matter if it’s authentic? Perhaps not. But the difference between the white lies about a Studio Backlot Tour and the narrative of the cursed mine train of Big Thunder Mountain is that Disney doesn’t operate a mine. But they do make Hollywood films. And people are more apt to buy snake oil from a snake charmer. So how about showing this long obsolete part of the park some love, Disney, and at the same time show us a little respect for being smarter and more savvy than you seem to think we are? Drop the working studio conceit. Drop the cheesy trunk show of Harbor Attack and stop pandering to the lowest common denominator. Keep Catastrophe Canyon and even keep the tram vehicles if you must. But gut the rest and build us something amazing and awe-inspiring that befits a 21st Century theme park and celebrates our love of film.