Fogelson claims Los Angeles in Ian Scott (2009, 210), “a city that was never meant to be.”
Since the founding of Los Angeles
in 1781 and the merging of Hollywood into its city in 1910 there has been a
constant struggle to find a way to represent the city. Film especially has had
a hard time to depict its reality as how do you do it when you don’t know what
the reality is. Jean Baudrillard author of Simulacra
and Simulation and America argues
that the more one try’s to reflect a reality the more that reality is moved
creating a new hyperreality in its place.
While I think it is evident films
about Los Angeles create a simulacrum for the viewer Baudrillard argues America
and Los Angeles itself is a Simulacrum of a utopian desire it was founded on.
Baudrillard (2010, p. 28) states, “America is neither dream nor reality. It is
a hyperreality. It is a hyperreality because it is a utopia which has behaved
from the beginning as though it were already achieved. Everything here is real
and pragmatic, and yet it is all the stuff of dreams too.”
To understand how this image of
America is created as a utopia Baudrillard defines the process in four stages. Baudrillard
(1998) comments, “1. It is a reflection of a basic reality. 2. It masks and
perverts a basic reality. 3. It masks the absence of a basic reality. 4. It
bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.”
This postmodernist thought and
idea of LA being a hyperreality is also acknowledge by writers in California. Scott
(2009, p. 201) comments, “modern writers on California, such as Mike Davis and
Kevin Starr, see LA punctuated by and defined as postmodernist, hyper-real, and
existing within a spatial temporality.” This idea of LA is taken further by
Edward Soja in Scott (2009, p. 202) who comments, “the city ‘resembles a gigantic
agglomeration of theme parks’; it is, if you like, a series of connected
Disneylands, each existing within its own configuration.” It is also evident that
with this hyperreality is present as it not only holds those in LA in the
hyperreality but also continues to draw people in. Mickey Rapkin comments in
his essay Leaving Los Angeles (2013,
p. 220), “that party – how can I describe it? It felt like the warmest bath, an
autumn sun, a delicate confection. I’d never felt so pampered, probably even in
the womb. I nearly fell asleep on a couch so soft it felt like it was possibly
made of real swans.” This reminded my of my experience in LA as I was constantly
over whelmed with what I was seeing. I struggled to put into words when I was
talking about it as some things such as the night clubs, beaches, restaurant
and sights were so over the top and hyper real how could I portray them with
the justice it deserved. With the hyperreality being ever present you can never
escape, as reality can never live up to the hyperreality. Even know I am home I
still think of somethings or compare LA to here knowing that the two will never
be close in comparison.
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| Staple Centre - Hyperreality of an ice skating rink outside in LA. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
One thing I did pick up on in LA
and I commented to some of my friends in the group who agreed with me was that
certain areas of LA seemed like a movie set. Especially the malls and even the
Staples Centre felt like a movie scene. This was due to some malls have movie
cameras, lighting, Christmas trees, music, trams and the uniformality of style
through out added to the effect of a movie set. Baudrillard (2010, p. 58)
comments, “the American city seems to have stepped right out of the movies.”
Scott (2009, p. 202) also speaks of Baudrillard who comments “the city was
invented, he suggested, ‘with the screen in mind.” If the city is a
hyperreality and a simulacrum then how can films not reflect this if they are
truly communicating LA to the world. Baudrillard reiterates the city of LA is a
movie set as the movie sets of LA are an illusion. Baudrillard (2010, p. 58)
comments in relation to film studios, “Where is the cinema?, It is all around
you outside, all over the city, that marvelous, continuous performance of films
and scenarios. Everywhere but here.” This idea of Baudrillard is evident in
Venice. For not just myself but for my whole travel group the moment we started
to walk the Venice Boardwalk and the Santa Monica shopping precient it was like a
movie set with people skating, selling mix tapes, photo shoots of models,
homeless selling anything they can, the setting of the ocean with the smog and
the binary opposition between the seedy beach vibe on Venice and up market
style of Santa Monica was like walking between two different film studios as
one would at Warner Brothers. This experience truly was one of a hyper reality
and that of a simulacrum of a utopian desire America was founded on.
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| Santa Monica - Shopping Strip (Same uniform movie setting look replicated throughout most of LA). Photo Andrew Mitchell |
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| Santa Monica - Starbucks (Same uniform coffee shop replicated throughout most of LA and America). Photo Andrew Mitchell |
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| Movie Theater LA. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Santa Monica - Shopping Strip (This time in the rain an occurrence that is apparently rare in LA). Photo Andrew Mitchell |
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| Santa Monica Pier. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Venice Beach - Sidewalk Stall. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Venice Beach. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Venice Beach - Sidewalk Stall. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Venice Beach - Man selling t-shirts on rollerblades using a guitar to draw in consumer. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
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| Venice Beach - Homeless doing anything to make income for themselves, this is a sand sculpture that cost money to photograph or record. Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
The hyperreality of LA being
filled with beautiful and fit people is another experience that was
communicated to my and one I experienced first hand everymorning. This being
the morning ritual of exercise along the beach. Baudrillard (2010, p. 39)
comments, “The jogger commits suicide by running up and down the beach. His
eyes are wild, saliva drips from mouth. Do not stop. He will either hit you or
simply carry on dancing around in front of you like a man possessed.” This again
can be a hyperreality of the fitness industry which I witnessed is at the top of its
game, something California prides itself one. Its one thing to be fit but
another to be seen being fit which I think encapsulates the reality of going
for a run in LA. The need to be seen doing it.
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| Santa Monica Beach Run - As Baudrillard (2010, p. 39) would put it "A man running straight ahead on a beach, swathed in the sounds of his Walkman, cocooned in the solidarity sacrifice of his energy." Photo: Andrew Mitchell |
While there are many other
theories such as the school of Marx that includes screen theory I had decided
to relate Baudrillard’s postmodern idea of a simulacrum with my experiences in
LA and how LA communicates itself to the world as a hyperreality. While it can
be argued that LA was a city that was never meant to be and that there are no
real representations of it in film perhaps that is the reality of LA, it is
different for every individual. While I could go on and write a thesis on LA as
a simulacrum what is evident is the argument Baudrillard puts forward for LA
being a hyperreality and the experiences I had in LA corresponded together. It
is evident through the experiences I had while in LA that LA is communicated
and sold to me and the world as a hyperreality.
Bibliography:
-Baudrillard, J 1998, ‘Simulacra
and Simulations Jean Baudrillard’, Selected
Writings, ed Mark Poster, Stanford University Press, pp. 166-184, accessed
12/1/2015 via http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations/
-Baudrillard, J 2010, America, Verso, London, United Kingdom.
-Rapkin, M 2013, ‘Leaving Los
Angeles’, Virginia Quarterly Review, vol.
89, no. 1, P. 220.
-Scott, I 2009, ‘Filming Los
Angeles: history, Hollywood, and the city’s disastrous imagination’, Literature-Film Quarterly, vol. 37, no.
3, pp. 201, 202, 210.
