Tomorrowland : Critical Social Theory of Planetary Politics
Manners, Ian LU
(2025)
International Studies Association
- Abstract
- According to Disney, “In Tomorrowland, the future is today!” In 2015 Brad Bird’s eco-science fiction film, Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, was released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the opening of the futuristic theme park land. The film was described as a “a gorgeous, flawed utopia” but flopped at the box office. The Disneyfication of climate crisis for commercial purpose serves as a vehicle for use of critical social theory (CST) of planetary politics in this paper. CST is a transdisciplinary approach to the social sciences that applies critique to the status quo in order to emancipate humans and the planet from the negative consequences of modernity. The paper applies CST to both the film and the study of international... (More)
- According to Disney, “In Tomorrowland, the future is today!” In 2015 Brad Bird’s eco-science fiction film, Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, was released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the opening of the futuristic theme park land. The film was described as a “a gorgeous, flawed utopia” but flopped at the box office. The Disneyfication of climate crisis for commercial purpose serves as a vehicle for use of critical social theory (CST) of planetary politics in this paper. CST is a transdisciplinary approach to the social sciences that applies critique to the status quo in order to emancipate humans and the planet from the negative consequences of modernity. The paper applies CST to both the film and the study of international relations in order to show how the teaching of IR (“Can we fix it?”), the culture of IR discipline (“Get in the car!”), and IR research (“The Monitor … makes you think negative”) require a radical paradigm shift to planetary politics. This paper uses a CST critique of the Tomorrowland of IR to bring the future back to today through reimagining our teaching, our culture, and our research within Karen Litfin’s 2003 holistic paradigm of planetary politics. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/841b3b93-cb7b-4f43-9bee-59356e92efe1
- author
- Manners, Ian
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- Tomorrowland, Critical Social Theory, Planetary Politics, Planetary Organic Crisis
- conference name
- International Studies Association
- conference location
- Chicago, United States
- conference dates
- 2025-03-02 - 2025-03-05
- project
- Planetary Politics
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 841b3b93-cb7b-4f43-9bee-59356e92efe1
- date added to LUP
- 2025-04-11 19:53:04
- date last changed
- 2025-04-14 10:30:16
@misc{841b3b93-cb7b-4f43-9bee-59356e92efe1,
abstract = {{According to Disney, “In Tomorrowland, the future is today!” In 2015 Brad Bird’s eco-science fiction film, Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, was released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the opening of the futuristic theme park land. The film was described as a “a gorgeous, flawed utopia” but flopped at the box office. The Disneyfication of climate crisis for commercial purpose serves as a vehicle for use of critical social theory (CST) of planetary politics in this paper. CST is a transdisciplinary approach to the social sciences that applies critique to the status quo in order to emancipate humans and the planet from the negative consequences of modernity. The paper applies CST to both the film and the study of international relations in order to show how the teaching of IR (“Can we fix it?”), the culture of IR discipline (“Get in the car!”), and IR research (“The Monitor … makes you think negative”) require a radical paradigm shift to planetary politics. This paper uses a CST critique of the Tomorrowland of IR to bring the future back to today through reimagining our teaching, our culture, and our research within Karen Litfin’s 2003 holistic paradigm of planetary politics.}},
author = {{Manners, Ian}},
keywords = {{Tomorrowland; Critical Social Theory; Planetary Politics; Planetary Organic Crisis}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Tomorrowland : Critical Social Theory of Planetary Politics}},
year = {{2025}},
}