Term Paper on "Robert Townes Chinatown and the American Dream"

Term Paper 6 pages (1936 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Chinatown is a vision of the historic degradation of Los Angeles and the American dream. Contrary to the simple, monocentric view of a city put forth by Robert Park, Towne's interpretation of Los Angeles is more strongly tied to the urban sprawl theories of Mike Davis. The primary aspect that defines one's existence in the city is emotion. This emotion is generated by perceptions of crime, racism, drugs, and sex. The way in which a city is seen by its inhabitants depends upon how these aspects of human existence are presented to them. Today, we get this through the media of television and newspapers; in Chinatown it is largely through the printed press. The key, obviously, to alter a community's perception of itself is to manipulate the information the citizens are exposed to. This fact is illustrated in Towne's film, and the fabrication of fear by Noah Cross and other businessmen drives the public's understanding of itself.

Water is the foundation for all life. Mr. Mulwray, Mr. Cross reveals, enjoys the idea that life first began in bubbling pools of salt water. He believes that by placing a similar pool in his back yard he is, in a sense, giving it life. However, in actuality, the salt water is destroying his lawn, and ultimately, destroys him as well. Yet, it is less the physical pool that ends his life than the personal philosophy that drove him to build it. Mulwray wants to provide water where life demands it; so when he discovers that Mr. Cross is dumping reservoir water into the ocean it is as if he were throwing out life itself. This sort of thinking is completely contrary to the attitude held by Mr. Cross, and is detrimental to his crusade for profit. Mr. Cross feels that he is in control of water, and accordingly, in control of life. As such, he can alter the course of the city just as easily as he can irrigate a field. This illustrates the fundamental difference between the ideological basis of life and the ideological basis of business. Just as the beautiful idea of a life-giving pool breeds death, the idea of supplying a city with much needed water breeds profit loss.

The drought -- like all the major problems of the city -- is manufactured. It provides an opportunity for businessmen to sell land at drastically inflated prices. In this way, the diagram from Mike Davis' Ecology of Fear parallels the depiction of Los Angeles in Chinatown. The city is clearly bounded and divided by different manifestations of fear. The "Gulag Rim" and is not a physical reality in Davis' diagram; it is a construction of human emotion. The citizens of Los Angeles are trapped within the city not by prison walls, but by their emotional and economic ties to it. Mr. Gittes, for example possesses distaste for the moral and social degradation he sees in Los Angeles, but at the same time, he is entirely dependent upon it to make his living. Significantly, his disgust for the very things he feeds off of drives him out of Chinatown. Since Chinatown is one step closer to the feared and hated core of the city, Gittes feels he needs to escape it -- but he cannot escape Los Angeles entirely. He is held in by the moral depravity he needs to "make an honest living."

What makes Chinatown in particular an undesirable location -- to Gittes -- is the chaos it creates. Physically, Chinatown could occupy one of the wedges sticking into the center of Park's diagram. This would define clearly where it was in relation to the other socioeconomic factors governing the operation of the city. More generally, Park's diagram as a whole could be analogous to the city of Los Angeles, but this representation ignores the emotional drives held by the constituents of the city. What is lacking in Park's section of Chinatown is the fact that no one wants to be there. It is a confusing place because of language barriers, the sheer number of people, the crime rate, racism, and its image in the media. The area is closed off, it is specifically sectioned, and given a name to unambiguously identify it as something separate from the rest of Los Angeles. However, it is a part of Los Angeles; it is a vision of the entire city placed under a microscope, and the public does not like what it sees.

The driving force behind the infrastructure of Los Angeles in Chinatown is sustention of power. Cross and his business associates are interested in increasing their own levels of influence over other human beings. It is with this aim in mind that the fundamental structure of the city has been formally laid out. Obviously, if Cross were to purchase acres of land in the valley with no intention of improving the land, it would be a wasted business venture. Additionally, if he made public his intentions to improve the valley, he would be faced with stiff competition to purchase the land. Furthermore, even the most beautiful land in the world would be worthless if there was no demand for it. Cross thwarts all three of these pitfalls by employing his influence. but, he does this in an crucial manner: he uses deception.

Deliberate distortion of actual events, chiefly, is what formulates the future of Los Angeles in Chinatown. Succinctly, Cross helps to create a city in fear of itself and profits from the results. The elemental component of Davis' diagram is the demand to expand, to escape, to migrate. By analyzing a city as an analogy to a prison, it becomes apparent that the major concern of those within is to get out. Gittes gets out of Chinatown, but this is only one of the rings in the ecology of fear. By organizing the infrastructure of the city into ever-increasing rings of undesirability and ever-decreasing wealth the outermost rings automatically become the most valuable. Cross uses his influence to simply construct another ring that must, inevitably, become the most sought-after location.

It is distortion of actual events that hides Cross' actions from the public, and tricks them into thinking that their motives for wanting to leave the city are authentically their own. Manipulation of the media is a powerful tool. By paying Gittes to take pictures of Mulwray in compromising positions, the public is led to believe that a jealous wife is responsible for his death. Thus, Cross pulls a veil over the actions that will ultimately determine the future of the city. Similarly, the manufactured drought distracts the citizens from the reality of their situations, and feeds into their designs to escape the gulag that is Los Angeles.

Naturally, the truth of the city's situation is evident to those with the resolve and resources to look past the propaganda. Gittes gathers sufficient evidence to take Cross to the police, and nearly obtains a confession, but all the evidence in the world could not have changed the outcome. When Gittes tells Evelyn that he will take her father to the police she retorts, "He owns the police." (Chinatown, 1974). The truth is meaningless in the face of properly applied power.

Unfortunately, this is the state in which we find the concept of the American dream. Truth fails to triumph over corporate investments and actions. The American dream is strongly tied to the idealistic notions that good defeats evil, of intrinsic human equality, as well as economic equality. The general concept is that prosperity is directly proportional to the amount of effort put into an individual's contribution to society. There are numerous problems with this assumption, and largely, many of them are created by the structural barriers in place in modern society. There are barriers based upon race, religion, gender, national origin, and most significantly, wealth. The most fundamental difficulty with most conceptions of the American dream is that they automatically assume that society provides people with a level playing field. This ignores the fact that wealthy individuals take drastic steps to ensure that their place, as well as their children's place, in society is secure. So, not surprisingly, white males continue to dominate the landscape of the upper classes.

Cross takes this notion one step further; instead of merely creating a dynastic business for himself and his daughters, he exploits the entire city for his own enjoyment. He shatters the American dream by causing the public to fear itself so much that they are locked forever in their social position. They are, however, permitted to physically move, but only to locations that he has explicitly relegated for them. This movement to the outer rings of the gulag is only a superficial change: the underlying faults of the city, and society at large, continue to persist. Cross and his business partners capitalize on fears that they have perpetuated -- based upon racism and misinformation -- and offer a false remedy that they alone can provide.

The American dream is truly… READ MORE

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