Everything Is Nixon's Fault

The Monsanto House of the Future

Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World has undergone several facelifts over the past couple of decades, flirting with Jules Vern steampunk (a flop; that sort of brass-and-verdigris theming is simply incompatible with the lush semitropical setting) and currently (to my knowledge) settling for white plastic à la Buzz Lightyear, WALL-E's Eve, and Apple products. Compared to the original Disneyland Tomorrowland's style, it feels rather flat to me.

The problem doesn't lie entirely with Disney, of course; since the late '70s our society has simply failed to have a unifying concept of Futurism at all. The Cold War lasted too long; the western world couldn't sustain its visions of constant shiny progress when it was obvious that we weren't making any progress against the Russians. The threat of war and nuclear annihilation and climate changes and the degradation of the world were too depressing and made for a society far too pessimistic to maintain belief in the raygun gothic ideals of the previous decades.

There were always those who held that Futurism was rot to begin with, of course, rejecting it as too pat and perfect, naive and conformist, but that segment of society moved from an iconoclastic subculture to the overwhelming majority as the years went by. The Future used to be bright, shiny and full of flying cars and Googie spires; nowadays it's dark, grungy, and really just more of the same old same old war and poverty and depression, only this time it takes place on a spaceship (which is also dark, grungy and depressing).

I personally choose to reject the modern form of small-f futurism and embrace the old big-f Futurism! (punctuation sic). We need more chrome, more giant lasers, more villains who want to take over the world to get rich instead of blowing up buildings for their vision of religion. We need spy-fi and Lalo Schifrin and motherfucking rayguns.

You can keep the flying cars, though; I don't trust most people on the road in TWO dimensions, much less three.

The Most Serene Republic - Present of Future End (myspace)
Jared Mees and the Grown Children - Bees (myspace)
Wolf Parade - California Dreamer (myspace)