As the class comes to a close, I find myself trying to draw conclusions from everything that we have done this semester. I have convinced myself that both Dr. Stogdill and Mr. Donnell are attempting to convey some sort of grand message about L.A. that we as a class are supposed to discern. With every project, reading, movie, discussion, experiment, etc… that we have done, it is my belief that our teachers have guided us to some sort of greater understanding of the city that most of us have lived our whole lives in (sorry to Midge, Alex, and any other person who might have been born elsewhere). So, without further adieu, I present my take away from the City of Angeles Class of 2015.
The City of Los Angeles that I know and love is really centered around Pasadena. Other than water polo tournaments and the occasional DTLA outing, I rarely venture into "the city." "The city" for me is really only a few buildings that I pass by on the way to LAX. The question now becomes why? Why are cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, etc… known for their bustling urban settings filled with life, vitality, and community while L.A. is know as a sprawling, laid back oasis with beaches, babes, and Hollywood? There obviously is not one answer, but I think that L.A. Plays Itself has started to point me in one possible direction.
In L.A. Plays Itself, we see a city that is exploited and molded to fit whatever role that it needs to play. It does not have one true character, but thousands of ever changing roles. From the site of alien invasions to the home of a mobster to a place of unchecked lawlessness, L.A. is whatever the next movie director wants it to be. When it comes to the movie industry, it has no identity; it is a place that can be whatever you want it to be as long as you are willing to pay the right price. Although we have yet to finish the movie and do not know what conclusions are going to be drawn, I think that it is important to look at what L.A. is, if anything, outside of the movie business.
Los Angeles is a place where you can have six different styles of architecture on one street. L.A. is the place where you can spend a relaxing and warm day on the beach in January. It is the place where an ethnic enclave like Little Bangladeshi has almost no people of the Bangladeshi ethnicity living there.
It is a place where freeways and cars are part of the culture. It is a place with at least ten colleges in a fifty mile vicinity. It is a place that is so much more than Hollywood and celebrities, and it is my hope that sometime in the future L.A. will be able to break away from its movie industry reputation.
I'm really engaged by the idea that Los Angeles is just a blank canvas waiting to become the setting or the subject matter for the next Hollywood blockbuster. Of course, Los Angeles has it's own personality too, but very few people live exclusively in the city of Los Angeles - they live in L.A. county or in the Greater LA Area. People don't *live* in Los Angeles; they live in Pasadena, or San Marino, or Silverlake, or Beverly Hills, or South Central. Because so few people actually live or spend most of their free time downtown (unlike cities like New York and San Francisco, where a large part of the population either lives or frequently spend free time downtown), there aren't many people to color the canvas of Los Angeles in the first place, allowing any director, producer, or actor to come in and put their own personal stamp on the city's image. This is partly because downtown has historically never been the kind of communal hub that places like Times Square represent, but also because many people who came here from elsewhere (who, as we've learned, represent a large portion of Angelenos) bring much of the outside perception in with them, internalizing it and bringing it closer to reality. After all, as Lee demonstrated in East of Eden, expectations often dictate reality and not the other way around. Such is Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think is so interesting about this class is that we have focused so much of our discussion and literature on the entertainment industry. It is an undeniable part of the culture of L.A., and really L.A.'s identity, that I completely understand why we have focused so much on it, and yet, at the same time, I find myself always pushing back against the stereotype of celebrities and Hollywood that so often follows me when I introduce where I live. Yes, I know people who work on movies; yes, I have seen celebrities while shopping; no, I do not want you to only think that about where I live.
ReplyDeleteBut what do I want people to think about Los Angeles? This is where I start to run into trouble -- yes, I don't think our city should be confined to discussion about "Hollywood", but, as I brought up earlier in discussion today, what is the thing you first think of when you think of Los Angeles? Today, I felt like the first thing I think of is in fact Hollywood and the movie industry -- sure, maybe it's not always on the forefront of my mind like it is in some other people's, but I don't know what else I would say first when I think of Los Angeles.
Like Lindsey, I want to recognize that Los Angeles is so much more than the stereotype. But a stereotype is ingrained in our culture -- how do we overcome it?
I'm engaged by Lindsey's description of LA without an identity–although our literature shows us that this is largely a misconception, there are examples of representation we can point to as to why outsiders might believe it. Los Angeles tries so hard to be anywhere that can sometimes feel like nowhere. One of our first course texts described the city as one with a serious self-image problem. When Woody Allen claims LA's biggest cultural contribution to be right-on-red and then then that movie wins an Academy Award (Best Picture) from one of LA's most cherished institutions, there's a disconnect between the way we live our lives and how we see our city portrayed. Why are we so content to put the blinders on? Do we have less of a stake in our city's representation because we are all possessed by our own private property? Who does LA belong to?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking back to Alex V.'s comment in class today, which was something to the effect of, "Los Angeles struggles with its identity because it's the only city that tries to control it." I'm engaged by this statement in the context of Lindsey's recognition that searching for greater meaning in the city is subjective; it's qualitative rather than factual. We're drawn away from generalization but not necessarily toward specification - we're viewing L.A. from a new perspective that's anything but precise. This town might be a menagerie of sin and salvation in the eyes of the world but to all of us Angelenos it's just a place to call home. What that place is remains to be discovered by every one of us. In the words of Edward Abbey, "There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California."
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, the way to get past the LA Hollywood stereotype is by focusing on the people who live, work, and drive in the city. When I think about my biggest takeaway from the class, I think about what I’ve learned about the people I encounter everyday and those that inhabit the greater LA area. I think about the neighborhoods we’ve explored, the teachers/professors/historians/etc. we’ve heard speak, the interviews we’ve conducted. I think about the question that was posed originally to get us in the City of Angels class mood- does a place shape us or do we shape a place? In order to get past the ethereal movie business that seems to be the most prominent feature on the face of L.A., digging deeper into the people and recognizing how little the everyday angeleno has to do with the movie business and Hollywood is key.
ReplyDeleteI am really interested in a shift I have noticed over the progression of this class. At the beginning of this class many of us described not feeling like a part of the city. 'The city' was like what Lindsay said. Pasadena or maybe whatever adjacent city you happened to live in. Now we have spent days talking about the perception of this city. It seems to me like many of us, myself included, are beginning to think of LA as our city not the source of our traffic on the way to the airport. We are fretting over what OTHER people are thinking of OUR city. To me I now live in LA for more reasons than nobody knows where La Canada is and I think that's pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteFor the past few days, we have really concerned ourselves with the stereotypes that people place on Los Angeles. The reality is that these stereotypes will not disappear tomorrow and worrying about others being hung up on these stereotypes will not change it either. As was mentioned earlier, Los Angeles always seems to be trying to portray itself to the world. This constant attempt to control its image only furthers the negative image that it has. The beauty of Los Angeles seems to lie within its nuance. The true Los Angeles is multifaceted, made up of the personal stories of its inhabitants, and has a long history marked by an intersection of multiple industries. I think that the many aspects of Los Angeles are what make it so interesting and that is what should be focused on, rather than its image.
ReplyDeleteThe class sentiment that we never really felt part of the city strikes true to all of Los Angeles's inhabitants I think, and it contributes to Alex's idea of the city trying to define itself. It's challenging for so many people to truly grasp the scope of Los Angeles, and because its inhabitants all understand it differently, the stereotype of "a city without an identity" begins to ring true even among its most loyal residents. As a lifetime Angelino, I had no idea that calling the city "LA" only proved the city's inferiority complex. Every inhabitant reads the city in ways so unique that no other metropolis can compare, and that is both what defines Los Angeles and makes it so difficult to define.
ReplyDeleteLike most of us, I've called myself an Angeleno my whole life, but really had no idea what it meant, and I had little interest in Los Angeles as a whole. Up until now, I was happy buying into the stereotype that New York and Chicago were "real" cities, and Los Angeles wasn't. In this class, we've looked at LA through so many different lenses; we've talked about Los Angeles in the context of seismology, weather, ethnicity, travel, etc, and I think the reason we're getting sort of hung up now on Hollywood is because it's the one place where Los Angeles really does feel inferior to us. To me, the fact that LA is a place that is physically so unusual and almost dangerous (our city is used to getting shaken and set on fire every few years) makes it so interesting. The fact that we have such a diverse population that is so segregated makes it so easy to see the history of our city and how those ethic enclaves have formed and changed, which is fascinated. But LA in Hollywood is not something we have direct control over, and it's frustrating to us. We live here, yet everyone is content watching our city be lawless and immoral or explode on screen. We know our amazing city, but for a city so big and self-aware, we have no control over what anyone else thinks of it.
ReplyDeleteI am very engaged by Daniel's comment. I spend a lot of my free time in and around Downtown Los Angeles, but up until this year, I have always felt like somewhat of a tourist in the city. I am in Downtown almost every weekend, but I have never had the proper appreciation for the city, so for a long time, I felt like a foreigner on a day trip during visits. There has always been something in Downtown that has drawn me back so frequently, but I did not know what it was. I too believe that I have grown a strong connection to the city over the course of the class. I believe that I am starting to identify with L.A.'s lack of identification. The identity of Los Angeles is so much more than just its portrayal in movies. Our city can be everything and nothing at the same time. Los Angeles is an enigma.
ReplyDeleteI am very engaged by Lindsey’s comment that Los Angeles lacks identity. I had never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Los Angeles has played roles depicting paradise on the beach versus business or crime. The streets of LA encompass architecture of different centuries, countries, and styles. This humble-jumble chaos is what we call Los Angeles.Throughout this semester, my mind has been pulled in a million different directions, and I’ve concluded that Los Angeles’s identity is that it has no sole identity. It’s identity is encompassed by the identities of individuals around the world, a melange of ideas, a heterogenous mixture that never quite flows well together, a mixture that carves its own path. Where will this path lead LA in the future?
ReplyDeleteIt’s possible to connect with Los Angeles without knowing its entire detailed history, but by learning its literature, its upheaval, and its industry, we have all begun our own journeys of discovery. I regret that this journey has only begun now and seventeen years late. Los Angeles had always been a gathering of destinations, but not until this class did I find myself driving the streets of Downtown or the unknown Marina Freeway, trying to connect the dots and form an L.A. picture. I’ve only just begun identifying myself as an Angeleno as our class attempts to discover its true meaning. I’m engaged by several people’s comment on Los Angeles’ lack of identity, and corresponding with that, the people’s disconnect from the city. It would be interesting to hear what some “more experienced” Angelenos would have to say about their connection with Los Angeles over time.
ReplyDeleteThis theme of discovery, of changing positions and new opinions, is a running thread throughout our involvement in this class. Our systematic study has affected how we experience our own city, a journey which I think we had all started around the time that we chose this class, and has progressed over the past semester. That's the obvious; that is what has felt like the point of it all, deep down. I've always told people that I live in Los Angeles, often simply for the fact that everyone has heard of L.A., but the past couple of years have been a journey to really meaning it when I say that.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Angeleno is a unique term in that the word itself doesn't bring any specific kind of person to mind. Perhaps I've escaped any general ideas attached to the word, but in my mind Angeleno is a term that manages to encompass the vastly diverse people of the city. I believe that it's a representation of L.A.'s identity, the identity which is near impossible to define, especially with the cloudiness of stereotyping. The identity, and therefore the term Angeleno, has a blankness that often results in outsiders assuming a lack of identity, when really it's more of a blank space for all of the city's inhabitants to make their mark. There's an inclusiveness to this city (whether some of its residents like it or not), despite its history not always expressing that quality.
I am very intrigued by your observation that Los Angeles has played a thousand different roles, and that it is whatever the director wants it to be. Los Angeles is celebrated not for its history or significance as a major city, although it has much of both of those qualities, but celebrated because of its ability to be so different for so many different films. Hollywood’s effect on Los Angeles is an example of how people have come to take advantage of Los Angeles. If we were to compare New York City to Los Angeles, we would find that in films New York is always New York, but Los Angeles is not always Los Angeles. This makes it seem like Los Angeles had no identity, nothing to call its own. Although I want to dispel stereotypes about Los Angeles and tell people that it is more than Hollywood portrays it to be, I also can’t help but be in awe of what Los Angeles has become. We talked in the beginning of this course about how Los Angeles is a city of opportunity, and the fact that it can be so adaptable for filmmakers makes Los Angeles live up to its reputation.
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