“Fame, fortune, wealth, glamour, and excitement. The “City of Angels,” the land of the beautiful people, the leader in fashion, culture, and entertainment. Welcome to Los Angeles, California, one of the biggest and most celebrated cities in the United States.”
Stanford one week, UCLA two weeks later. I have to thank the football team for our extensive travel schedule because women’s track and field definitely doesn’t bring in a lot of money. I am currently in a hotel room four miles from UCLA and a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard. Track trips like these seem almost surreal as we are swept away from our normal lives in Ann Arbor and suddenly find ourselves across the country, guests at these famed campuses.
I have been to Los Angeles twice before and it was nothing like I had expected. Los Angeles and Hollywood is portrayed by the media by a magical town of celebrities and fame. However, I find LA to be somewhat ridiculous and sad. Sunset Boulevard is lined with huge mansions that are all surrounded by huge fences and coded gates. Hollywood is a short strip of tourism bookended by a pretty shady neighborhood. It is a world of extremes with the richest and the poorest people living in such close proximity of each other. The media ultimately persuades us that Los Angeles is a perfect city of wealth and fame. However, I feel that it is a city where celebrities lock themselves in their mansions to avoid the crazy tourists creeping on their houses and a city where the socioeconomic extremes are repulsive.
This fits with our recent discussion of persuasion. How do we have such an established perception of Los Angeles even if we haven’t been there? The media has a huge persuasive influence on people’s perceptions through television, movies, and magazines. Television and movies are powerful because they draw so heavily on the audience’s feelings, beliefs, desires, and interests. Therefore, many types of popular media rely on pathos rather than logos. Many fads and celebrities are not necessarily rational, but they are immensely popular because of the way they make people feel. This is an ultimate reflection of the power of pathos.
I attempted to discuss this phenomenon of a culture shaped by the powerful effects of the media through my experience at Los Angeles in my first paper of freshman year. The opening paragraph of this post is taken from the introduction of this paper. My teacher destroyed my paper and my confidence in my writing ability. However, I recently looked back on that paper and realized where she was coming from. I was trying to discuss a topic that I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood on and my argument was had undeniable holes. The narrative sections were descriptive but definitely high school writing. Even after this paper, I believed that my teacher didn’t appreciate my style. However, now that I have a great deal more experience in college writing, I realize that she was right and my writing and understanding of argument have come a long way since then. I found it fitting that one of my last blog posts should revisit this experience as a reflection of my progress in two years of college.
However, I think that part of my struggle with that paper was how difficult this phenomenon is to discuss. Even now, on my third trip to LA and with much more writing experience, I cannot capture the phenomenon that I experience when I come here. I know what I want to say but have a hard time describing it, possibly because I am addressing an audience that is corrupted by the very idea I am trying to analyze.
Perhaps this is an idea that is better considered on my own. Or maybe this trip I should try to visit LA with an open mind and rethink my ideas. However, the countless “Star Map” sales are difficult to ignore.
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