Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge as Postcolonial Fantasy: Disney, Labor, and the Renegotiation of Border Discourses.

In the summer of 2019, Disneyland opened Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, an immersive

experience where visitors imagine themselves as members of a resistance army fighting

against a colonizing power. As Disney’s theme parks have increasingly become conduits of

global flows, the company’s original brand of U.S. exceptionalism has become incompatible

with the company’s strategic needs. In this article, we argue that Disney’s newest themed

land, Galaxy’s Edge, functions as a reworking of Disney’s colonial discourse and borderland

narrative, where postracial borderland fantasies coincide with the conglomerate’s evolution

from a national project to a global enterprise. Within this intergalactic borderland, racialized

bodies play an important role in creating an authentic experience, but in doing so, perform

various forms of labor on behalf of Disney. Through an analysis of the labor that racialized

bodies perform at Galaxy’s Edge, we examine how Disney’s modern-day articulation of the

borderland obscures the realities of the borderlands beyond the park.