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Popular Culture Review
Las Vegas and video is strengthened by the new casinos' increasing reliance on video slot
machines and video arcades as sources o f revenue. Unlike traditional entertainment
options the casino offers its patrons, video games are expected to make a profit (Francis
X. Clines. “Gambling, P a ri^ No More, Is Booming Across America.” The New York
Times 5 Dec. 1993, sec. 1:1).
^ I am following Marshall McLuhan’s notion o f the media ^\1lich links film to the “hot”
medium o f print rather than the “cool” medium o f television (see Understanding Media.
[Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995]). The relatively older media o f print and film
represent reality through a process o f sequencing and linearity. The medium o f television,
to which I would add video and casino theme parks, represents reality through
juxtaposition and simultaneity. McLuhan argues that the effect upon the person receiving
the different media is hypnosis in the case o f hot media like film and hallucination in the
case o f cool media like television (32).
^ Confirming the growing number o f young visitors, the Las Vegas Convention and
Visitors Authority reports that “31 percent o f the city’s 22 million visitors were under 40,
and 14 percent were under 30” (Neal Karlen. “A Stroke o f Genius.” The New York Times
25 Apr. 1993, sec. 9:5).
^ Referencing Hollywood nostalgia for Las Vegas gives the film ’s parody a depth and
relevance that might otherwise be missed if its parody were restricted to an ironic and
ultimately self-indulgent reversal o f possible antecedents like William Wilder’s The Lost
Weekend. See Michiko Kakutani’s criticism o f the film as part o f a “N ew Nihilism” in
The New York Times (24 Mar. 1996, sec. 6:30).
^ Here and elsewhere, my reading has been influenced by Laura M ulvey’s notion o f
woman as spectacle. See “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” in Visual and Other
Pleasures (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1989).
^ See Patricia Leigh Brown’s report on Las V egas’s architectural changes in The New
York Times (7 Oct. 1993: C4). In particular, her account o f the destruction o f the famous
Dunes casino in order to make way for a new theme-park casino. Treasure Island,
provides a good illustration o f the simulacrum’s omnivorous powers. The destruction o f
the Dunes was turned into a crowd-pleasing spectacle as the old casino was “felled by
phony canon fire fi*om an ersatz British frigate” (4). A. Wynn, chairman o f Mirage resorts
and owner o f Treasure Island masterminded the demolition extravaganza and also had
plans to work it into the plot o f a made-for-television movie (4).
* Maslin also indicates how the movie romanticizes Siegel and Hill by omitting, among
other things, such details as Siegel’s involvement with drug smuggling and H ill’s life
after his death {New York Times 13 Dec. 1991: C12). Furthermore, the m ovie’s
dramatization o f the opening o f the Flamingo as Siegel’s last chance to redeem him self
with the mob also distorts the historical record. See James F. Smith, “Ben Siegel: Father
o f Las Vegas and the Modem Casino-Hotel.” Journal o f Popular Culture 25 (1992): 1 23.
Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. N ew
York: Semiotext(e), Inc., 1983.
Benenson, Laurie Halpem. “Bugsy Taps a Mobster’s Lavish Dream.” The New York
Times 1 Sep. 1991, sec. 2:7.
Brown, Patricia L e i^ . “In the City o f Change, Is ‘Las Vegas Landmark’ an Oxymoron?”