Epcot: Fact or Fiction?

Based on my experiences, the countries of Epcot’s World Showcase are an accurate representation of what tourists who visit those countries see. While not perhaps accurate representations of the countries themselves, they do seem to embody the same traits that people who visit those places take away with them. Disney has put a considerable amount of time and money into making the World Showcase experience as factual and true to life as possible, though it is very cleaned up. Obviously, lacking from the experience are smokers, pickpockets, and foreigners who don’t like Americans. However, all in all, the experiences that people are able to have in the World Showcase of Epcot aren’t that different from those that Americans experience in trips abroad.

The France pavilion of Epcot doesn’t differ all that much from the Paris that I remember. I went to Paris for a few days when I was sixteen years old. In all honesty, I felt much more confident in my language skills because I’d been practicing speaking French to the French people working in Epcot every year since I started learning the language at the age of eleven. While in Paris, my family went to see the Eiffel Tower, drove past artists’ stands by the Seine, ate loads of crepes and pastries, and dined in overpriced restaurants with amazing cuisine. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what you can do in the France pavilion in Epcot, in addition to there being a splendid film about the country.

I can only imagine that the same can be said for the other countries of the World Showcase: that they’re not that different from how Americans experience other countries. Touristy? Of course. Overpriced? Always. Inauthentic? Maybe. But they’re a fantastic introduction to other cultures and Disney seems to have taken pains to not indulge in any potentially harmful stereotypes.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with the World Showcase. The destruction of Maelstrom in the Norway pavilion to make way for a Frozen-themed ride has been controversial, to say the least. The American pavilion continues to confuse visitors. Why is it colonial-themed when the rest of the countries appear somewhat modern? Why does so little take up such a large space in the park? And there’s always the issue of which countries have pavilions. Can Disney continue to justify how Western-centric the World Showcase is? There’s certainly space to add India or Russia or Brazil. While the Norway and American pavilions may be veering away from the fairly accurate representation of the other pavilions, it’s clearly not an accurate representation of all the countries around the world. If it were, would Norway even have a pavilion rather than India or Russia?

The World Showcase of Epcot, though not without its problems, gives visitors a fairly accurate representation of what the typical American visitor to those countries might see.