Celebration, Florida Song Lyric Analysis
English 30 – Adam Lupo
Alex Jenkins
�Who are these �average persons?�? Residents of exclusive housing regimes where you have to drive past the security check point to get in�? Who
swim in swimming pools, oranges falling off the trees and rolling around in the dust, so they go and buy �fresh� polished ones from the supermarket?� These
are the questions asked by Chumbawamba�s Liner Notes following the lyrics to the song �Celebration, Florida.� The song discusses a gated community in Florida, built
and run by Disney, and the issues the existence of such a community raises. These issues include manufactured nostalgia and innocence, categorization, the loss of
democracy, the nature of the �American Way,� and corporate mandated happiness. The song is a brilliant representation of the band�s anarchistic political message and
uncanny ability to relay that message to the rhetorically aware consumer.
�They're buying up nostalgia for a time they can't remember down in Celebration, Florida. They're sharing homemade corn chips--even the dogs get
facelifts down in Celebration, Florida.�
What is manufactured nostalgia? Brandy Davis, in her April 1997 article, �New Urbanism: Cause for Celebration?� offers an answer:
�Supposedly, by commodifying nostalgia, Celebration will attract residents who don�t want to take their tops off. It will be a community of people looking
for the simpler, purer, good ol� days � like it was when they were growing up...or how they wish it was when they were growing up.
Whose sense of nostalgia is Disney selling? And is that sense of nostalgia real or imagined?� I would argue that it�s entirely imagined, and Henry Giroux agrees,
in his 1995 article, �Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture��� French theorist Jean Baudrillard provides an interesting theoretical twist on the scope
and power of Disney's influence by arguing that Disneyland is more "real" than fantasy because it now provides the image on which America constructs itself. For
Baudrillard, Disneyland functions as a "deterrent" designed to "rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real.�
What does this fiction of the real have to do with the way in which America constructs itself? This seems to beg the question, what is America, and what is the
�American Way?� Is there an �American Way,� and, if so, is the Disney Corporation perverting it by creating a corporate run closed community? The American Way
Chumbawamba proposes in the song is indeed one of buying up nostalgia, and a world in which dogs get facelifts�only slightly less ridiculous than the fact that people
do.
The good folks pull together--it's July 4th forever down in Celebration, Florida.
The neighbors bring you coffee, and everyone's always happy down in Celebration, Florida
Is this how America constructs itself? Does July 4th forever mean that America is overly patriotic and without good reason? Are we proud of a country, or of an
imagined ideal? It seems the song is arguing that this patriotism is at best misguided and at worst mind-numbing and blinding. Should we be happy when, �There's
nation fighting nation, and there's kids with malnutrition, but not in Celebration, Florida?� It seems that Chumbawamba is arguing, through their song, that this
is not only irresponsible but also dangerous, as the mentality is so widespread. Chumbawamba is saying, through sarcasm and irony, that we do think it�s July 4th
forever and that we, as Americans, are always happy, and that this is no way to lead a meaningful life.
Later in Giroux�s article, he points out that, �For example, Jon Wiener, argues that Disneyland's version of Main Street America harkens back to an "image of
small towns characterized by cheerful commerce, with barbershop quartets and ice cream sundaes and glorious parades."
For Wiener this view not only fictionalizes and trivializes the history or real Main Streets at the turn of the century, it also represents an appropriation of the past
to legitimate a present that portrays a world "without tenements or poverty or urban class conflict.... it�s a native white Protestant dream of a world without blacks or
immigrants.�� As Chumbawamba state in their song, �They're keeping out the deviants to protect the residents of Celebration, Celebration, Florida.� Who are
these deviants? And, as stated in the introduction, who are these average persons, that would like to live in Celebration, Florida? Is this only the first step toward the
furthering of the gap between rich and poor, between black and white, between American and un-American? It seems that Chumbawamba is saying that when we, as
Americans or as any privileged people live ignorantly and categorize, we lead ourselves to an unequal society.
This seems to raise the question of categorization. When a group is labeled as �deviant,� one must ask, deviant from what? What is this norm from which so
much of America is excluded? Is it, then, a norm, or rather is it an ideal, rather like the good ol� days, in that they, as Billy Joel would posit, �weren�t always good, and
tomorrow ain�t as bad as it seems?� As Davis mentions in her article,
�Celebration�s first robbery, first murder, and first kidnapping are inevitable. Families may move there to avoid crime, but they�re seriously deluded
if they think they can escape it. What they do want to escape is what New Urbanists see as a postwar suburbia that has raped the environment, dissected
communities, and led to a heartless modern wasteland lacking compassion and breeding crime.�
So, the overarching questions Chumbawamba raises seems to be encapsulated in their witty lyrics, such as, �Social Engineering, it gives you that fuzzy
feeling�� and their contrasting tone of the song, which is repetitive, simplistic, and unoriginal, as, perhaps, they are arguing is the problem with Disney. Overall, the
song is intelligent, original, and exigent, as it discusses a serious and current problem using popular music as a vehicle to reach the most dangerous consumer
group�those aged 18-25.
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