The first and last signs of Main Street: semiosis and modality in California and Hong Kong Disneylands

Abstract

Main Street is an indelible image in the American consciousness made hyperreal at Disneyland California in 1955. For subsequent parks in Tokyo and Paris, Disney recontextualized Main Street, but Hong Kong Disneyland’s version was formed as a copy of the California original. This copy demonstrates that transference of a structural form to a new cultural context is not a guarantee of the concomitant transmission of the originating culture’s sensory modality. The arising dissonant tension between the form (signifier) and substance (signified) of Hong Kong’s Main Street has led to its ongoing semiosis due to local cultural and corporate pressures. This paper presents a framework to analyze this dissonance and semiosis through comparison of external and internal photographs of the same eight landmarks at both parks. The problem of transferring meaning into a new cultural context for an international sign suggests Hong Kong’s Main Street could be the last that Disney constructs.