The ride incorporates a series of dolls moving woodenly in native costumes to the strains of 'it's a small world after all, it's a small, small world'. This ride does not depend on size, surprise or even geography. In fact, 'it's a small world after all' is a circuitous ride where all the dolls are the same and only their costumes change. The spectacle is invested in the series of national costumes visually representing cultural and spatial divisions on the body while at the same time proclaiming their sameness. However, in 'it's a small world after all', the costumes themselves represent cultural difference and 'Otherness' while the uniform robotic movements of the dolls prove their essential similarity.
Costumes depend upon certain cultural knowledges and body techniques to be worn properly.
Therefore, it is not the clothing itself but how it is worn that makes it cultural. It is for this reason that costume, as symbolic shorthand, often seems exotic or even ridiculous. Wearing a costume depends upon body techniques that change much more quickly than the veneer of cultural iconography that the costumes produce. Not surprisingly, the fantastic and ridiculous are also the exotic 'Other'. While costumes such as kimono, dirndl and military uniforms are understood as national costumes, my definition of costumes in the cultural mapping process is much broader.