Tuesday, August 26, 2003
(12:09 AM) | Anonymous:
Understand, The Dream Is Over
Everything now a days is affixed with "American" as its prefix. We have 400 different movie titles ranging from new indie sensation American Splendor to American Werewolf In Paris, American "something" clothing lines, American "Somewhat" book lines, I even saw an "American Light" night-light. Oh yeah, and perhaps the worst I saw was the "American Bible" during one trip to Mardel "Christian" Supercenter. (And I guess the "Christian" prefix could be a whole nother post..)
But for whatever reason, we today are caught up in this idea of "what is American?" I wholly expect within the next year to see some fragrance company having highly stylized goth models asking that very question in all sorts of alluring voices, promoting their new perfume "American."
I think what is so enamoring about this idea is the many different things we've been told are "American" over the history of our country, none of which has rung true. I think if anything can be defined as The American Dream, it is that very thing, that it is a hoax.
The one thing you can know for certain if you are an American, is that you are being lied to by someone. (Perhaps that's true for the world, but nowhere so certianly as here.) This has so become truth that America thrives on the hoax, a fortiori, hoaxes are the only way we know how to live our lives. And this starts from the beginning.
The Europeans want to find a new route to the East. They want to get to the East because it has spices, and other material goods, yes - but also because there is this sense of enlightenment seen to be coming from the East. We want that quick path to get the same spiritual fulfillment that everyone coming back from the East talks about. So Columbus sets out and lands in the islands. More come after him and push through to the mainland until the point where we are ready for settlement.
Think back to the first week of American Literature and John Smith. He wrote back about the amazing conditions and hasleless trip across to America. The Path to America was smooth, the weather was brilliant, there was a bounty of unending wealth just waiting for any man brave enough to step up and take it. He wrote this form the midst of losing most of his people on the way over and more in the terrible conditions after arrival in a most unlivable place filled with increasingly hostile indigenous people. This was the original American Dream. This was a hoax.
Progressively we push farther and farther west, because we have to get through the continent. We are told of free land, of piles of gold, of everything any man could ever want, if he only has the courage to make his dreams come true. We must get through the continent, afterall, in order to find that enlightenment of the East we originally sought after.
We get there, we get to the end of the continent, we see the ocean that is the Westernmost East, and we come face to face with a lie. What is to be found at this westernmost part of our dream continent? Hollywood. In Day of the Locust, Nathanael West describes Hollywood as "the place where people come to die." He describes it as a place filled with everyone who ever set out in search of this dream only to awaken to find they had been hoodwinked. People follow movie stars and show up in droves at premieres and any other place where one star might be spotted because here is the dream, able to be touched and grasped and for a moment to seem not so far away. But the dream is over and dead.
West goes on to describe the potential for violence contained within those who finally are confronted with the fact that they've been lied to, those with nothing else to lose because they've given it all to the dream. I've never been to Hollywood myself, so I can only speak as one who's read a book. But if indeed Hollywood is the place where people "go to die," the American Dream lies buried there as well.
That's a really pretentious way to end this, but heck, it's the only way I can think of.
Sorry.
