Disney Land Dubai

Lots of the places in Dubai feel like an Epcot or Disney Land version of commercial and consumer life in the US.  The style and images that the stores are trying to create is the same but the effect of these image is slightly altered.  It is as if in molding the puzzle of consumer life in Dubai, the stores maintain the same shape of the puzzle piece, but they now need to be twisted 15 degrees to fit the realities of life here, to fit together in the puzzle.  This gives rise to some quite odd consumer outlets and experiences.  At Starbucks, for instance, the stores are modeled the EXACT same as at home down to the displays, chairs, and the different coffee and mugs for sale.  Here, instead of a white woman serving you coffee though, it is a Philippino man.  Sitting next to you is not a student working on his laptop but two Emirati men.

The next example came the night before last when we went to Uptown Mirdiff, an area in Dubai with an upscale outdoor shopping mall.  Mirdiff feels like it could come from the charming downtown of a North Shore of Chicago.  Except here the shopping center is modeled on these towns.  So no mater how hard they try to make it feel "authentic," it never quite does.  Everything from the upper end department stores to the Caribou Coffee is marketed the same.  This gives it an odd feel that you're visiting an Epcot Center rendition of a day in Evanston or Winnetka.  The last example that I came across recently was when I was buying boots from Columbia Sportswear for our upcoming trip to Ethiopia.  At the store, the walls were lined with pictures of people hiking in their gear in the Rocky Mountains, not trekking the malls (or even deserts) of the UAE.  

What these different consumer products offer is allusions to a certain social position, one to be desired (whether for the leisure, wealth, or adventure associated with it).  Since each store's style is not always congruent with the content that is being offered, the masking and representation (or re-presentation) of these consumer images becomes very evident.  When the re-presenting is done in a new context, one that is not necessarily more or less valid but always different from the first, the ultimately vacuous nature of consumer products and their associated image becomes apparent.

So if it is all about the artificiality of the product's image and the ease at which it can be resituated, then does it matter where it is being sold in the first place? Can it be said that one locale is more "authentic" than another if the stories behind a product's image are developed to create desires of a social position (and the luxuries that correspond with it)?  Can anything be authentic in a consumer society if the layers of a product's image obscure the content (if any) that lie beneath (or on the all to evident surface)?