Civilization, Discontent, and the Disneyland Parent: Baudrillard, Sartre, and Freud on the Spectacle of Approval
Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents presents a fundamental paradox: the very structures that allow civilization to exist—rules, norms, repression—also generate psychological unease. The instincts that must be sublimated to create a functioning society—aggression, dominance, hedonistic pleasure—do not simply disappear; they are redirected, often in pathological ways. Freud understood that modern neuroses were not merely personal afflictions but symptoms of civilization itself, as individuals struggle to reconcile their internal desires with the expectations imposed by society.
One of the clearest manifestations of this tension is the Disneyland parent—a phenomenon where a parent, rather than engaging in the difficult, often frustrating work of child-rearing, instead opts for extravagant but hollow gestures of affection. Instead of emotional presence, they offer spectacle: lavish gifts, indulgent experiences, curated moments that exist more for external validation than for genuine connection. This is not parenting as a relationship but as a performance, an act designed not only to please the child but also to signal something to others—the co-parent, society, and, most importantly, themselves.
Here, Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality becomes critical. Baudrillard argued that modern society has replaced reality with a system of signs and simulations, where the representation of something becomes more important than the thing itself. Disneyland, for instance, is not just a theme park; it is a carefully constructed fantasy, a sanitized, controlled simulation of happiness. In Baudrillard’s framework, the Disneyland parent does not engage in real parenting—they construct a simulation of parenthood, where love is measured by extravagance, where presence is replaced by proof of presence (photos, gifts, publicized gestures). Parenting becomes an Instagrammable spectacle rather than a lived reality.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s hell is other people (l’enfer, c’est les autres) provides another lens through which to examine this behavior. Sartre argued that individuals do not merely live their own lives but are constantly aware of how they appear to others. The Disneyland parent does not merely want to be a good parent—they want to be seen as a good parent. This is why their gestures tend to be public, conspicuous, and grandiose rather than subtle and private. Their identity as a parent is constructed through the gaze of others, and their anxiety about being perceived as insufficient drives them toward increasingly theatrical displays of devotion.
The irony is that this method of parenting does not necessarily lead to a stronger bond with the child. Just as Disneyland is an illusion of reality rather than reality itself, these gestures of hyper-parenting create an illusion of closeness that may, in fact, be hollow. Baudrillard warned that in a hyperreal world, people begin to prefer the simulation over the real. A child raised with Disneyland parenting may, over time, come to expect love to be performed rather than lived—shaped by gifts, extravagant experiences, and external markers rather than quiet, difficult, genuine engagement.
Freud would likely recognize the Disneyland parent as a product of civilization’s neurotic demands. Civilization discourages instinctual parenting, the kind that is messy, frustrating, full of conflict and struggle. Instead, it rewards parents who engage in socially sanctioned performances of parenting—those who buy the best gifts, enroll their children in prestigious activities, and create picture-perfect moments. The instinctual self is repressed, and in its place emerges a theatrical, consumerist version of parenthood.
In this way, the Disneyland parent is not just an individual failure but a symptom of a broader cultural condition. Civilization has trained people to value the representation of love over love itself, the signs of parenting over the work of parenting. Sartre’s existential challenge—to free oneself from the gaze of others—becomes all the more pressing in a world where approval is constantly sought, where love is measured in spectacle, and where the discontent of civilization manifests in the compulsion to perform rather than to be.