132
Popular Culture Review
returns to the concept of disseminating visual pleasure through individual points
of mechanical consumption. Through Las Vegas there is a return to the concept
of the pleasure palace—S. L. Rothapfel’s Roxy or Sid Grauman’s Chinese
Theatre—^where spectacle is offered up for consumption in lavish locations that
could be called “theme-park casinos” as they accommodate thousands of
consumers at a time: places like the Luxor, the Mirage, Treasure Island, and,
what is purported to be the world’s largest hotel, the MGM Grand, wiiich boasts
“a theme park that take[s] days to visit” (Clines 1).^
The name of the biggest theme-park casino, the MGM Grand, should
alert one to the ability of Las Vegas to assimilate Hollywood’s commodities and
technology. The new casinos, the New York Times reports, are “opening with a
new kind of Hollywood star power, a tie-in emphasis on special-effects themepark entertainment” (Clines 1). Furthermore, the design of these casinos directly
utilizes the services of such Hollywood specialists as Douglas Trumbull, “the
special-effects master who fantasized time travel for such movies as
Bla derunner and Back to the Future"" (Clines 1). A consumer of theme-park
entertainment must be able to reference Hollywood (or film) at the same time
that it goes beyond it in order to understand such spectacular displays. As one
visitor to the Luxor pyramid exclaimed, “I mean, it’s like being inside, not just
at the movies” (Clines 1). What the spectator’s enthusiasm lacks in critical
distance is made up for by its succinct distinction between the representation of
reality provided by film and the simulation of reality provided by casino theme
parks. The difference between being “at” a movie versus being “inside” a movie
is a crucial difference.^
Another factor that bears upon the virtual entertainment of Las Vegas
and its relationship with Hollywood is the age of its audience. Las Vegas, like
Hollywood, is competing for the youth dollar as it strives to rejuvenate itself,
and signs of its cultural “hipness” abound (Karlen). ^ In a New York Times
article, one of the hip, under-40 crowd, a Hollywood television writer, explains
the attraction Las Vegas holds for him and his Mends:
“I’ll bet a dollar, then get bored. But for me, and a lot of
writers I know, the point is trying to temporarily re-create that
kind of rat-pack feeling where you walk into a casino wearing
a shiny suit while your mental soundtrack is playing Frank
Sinatra singing ‘Summer Wind.’ It’s nostalgia for things we
were too young to be aware of at the time.” (Karlen 5)
The television writer’s Las Vegas fantasy, like that of the visitor to the Luxor
Pyramid, expresses his loss of reality in terms of simulation—^he is not merely
“at” a Frank Sinatra film or performance, he is “inside” it. Furthermore, his
submersion within a Las Vegas that never was in turn creates a depthless sense