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Dream City: Los Angeles, Hollywood, and the History and Cartography of Storytelling

Bypo.smeallie

City of Angels

La-La Land. Tinseltown. The “City of Angels.” Los Angeles goes by many names, but one moniker that perhaps best sums up this southern Californian metropolis— “the Dream City.” It’s hard to imagine Los Angeles without the creative and artistic volcano that is Hollywood; it’s hard to imagine America or even the world without it! Where would we be without our “Godfathers” …our “Harry Potters” …our murderous, Hitchcockian motel owners or cannibalistic, Chianti-drinking serial killers?

Our modern world might’ve seemed a much duller place had we never gone on any adventures alongside Superman, Batman, James Bond, Bill and Ted, Vincent and Jules, Marty McFly, or Luke Skywalker! Imagine riding on a horse off into a beautiful desert sunset…or slugging it out with some archenemy on top of a cliff (in the pouring rain) …or cranking out a clever one-liner before finishing off a bad guy! We can thank Hollywood for all these classic memes and archetypes!

Before Hollywood

Let us turn the clock back though. There was, of course, a point in time when “stars and studios” didn’t exist. Local and urban theaters were around, but their narrative influences were much, much more diffuse. The Globe Theater in London, for instance, may have mesmerized audiences with its productions of Hamlet or King Lear, but no one, of course, was viewing these productions on their way to the New World. In fact, getting to the New World was its own, treacherous, challenging, and larger-than-life series of adventures! Traversing the New World was also its own extremely arduous task—starvation, bear attacks, exposure to the elements…you name it!

In the United States, Chicago is the city of architecture. Nashville is the city of country music. Seattle is the city of grunge music. New Orleans is the city of jazz. Washington D.C. is the city of politics. Portland, Oregon is the city of all things “charmingly idiosyncratic.” The two biggest epicenters for storytelling, theater, and art, though, are, of course, New York City and Los Angeles. New York City was a vibrant, culturally diverse, well-established place even before the birth of the American republic (Hamilton: An American Musical certainly drives home this historical reality). Los Angeles…well, that’s another story.

El Pueblo

Before the Europeans, Indigenous Californians- known as the “Tongva” (or the “Gabrieleño” according to the Spanish colonists) – dominated the Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley. Yaanga (Tongva: Iyáangẚ), meaning “place of the poison oak,” was their historic center of power. In 1542, though, maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo- on an official military exploring expedition up along the Pacific coast- claimed this area of Southern California for the Spanish Empire1. On August 2, 1769, Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached the site of Los Angeles, and several years later, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the area’s first mission- San Gabriel Arcángel2,3. A decade later (September 4, 1781), 44 settlers known as “Los Pobladores” founded the pueblo (town) of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (“The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels”)4.

When New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo existed within the new Mexican Republic (Governor Pío Pico made it the regional capital of Alta California)5. During the Mexican American War in 1846, though, the U.S. Marines occupied the pueblo, seized Los Angeles, and fought against 150 Mexican militias until they surrendered6. Mexican rule ended as the “Conquest of California” occurred and militaries signed the Treaty of Cahuenga (January 13, 1847)7. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States, and the city quickly took off!

Booming Los Angeles

Railroads began arriving with the completion of the transcontinental South Pacific Line from New Orleans to Los Angeles (1876) and the Santa Fe Railroad (1885)8. Prospectors discovered petroleum in the city and its surrounding areas in 1892, and, by 1923, its discoveries helped California become the country’s largest oil producer (accounting for about ¼ of the world’s petroleum output)9. As the population swelled, supervisor William Mulholland helped builders complete the Los Angeles Aqueduct (1913), ensuring the city received a sufficient water supply10,11

During World War II, Los Angeles became a major center of wartime manufacturing. Calship built hundreds of “Liberty Ships” and “Victory Ships” on Terminal Island, and the city itself became the headquarters for six of the country’s major aircraft manufacturers (Douglas Aircraft Company, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, Vultee, North American Aviation, and the Northrop Corporation). William S. Knudson of the National Defense Advisory Commission once remarked upon Los Angeles’ skyrocketing manufacturing industry: “We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible”12.

Los Angeles Skyline

After World War II, Los Angeles grew exponentially. The sprawling San Fernando Valley and the expansion of Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s propelled suburban growth. Many developers built and operated amusement parks- including Universal Studios, Beverly Park, and Disney Land- in the area13.

Modern-Day Tinseltown

Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965 and later the Rodney King riots in 1992. Los Angeles became the birthplace of the internet in 1969 (University of California Los Angeles transmitted the first ARPANET to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park)14. Citizens elected Tom Bradley, the city’s first African American mayor, in 1973, and, in 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population size (becoming the second largest city in the United States). Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1984, and a decade later, a magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city.

Los Angeles has given us big-name sports teams like the Dodgers, Chargers, Rams, Lakers, and Angels. Neighborhoods like Compton have given us some of the country’s most influential hip-hop/rap artists, such as Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube, while bands such as “The Beach Boys” have helped create the city’s whole relaxed, leisurely “surfer dude” culture (hence the popularity of places like Manhattan, Laguna, and Venice Beach). But, if there is one culture that primarily dominates Los Angeles, it is, of course…Hollywood!

Welcome to Hollywood!

When we think of Hollywood, we undoubtedly think of all its directors, producers, and stars. Big household names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Steven Spielberg probably come to mind…as do studios like Universal, Paramount, Warner, and Columbia Pictures. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is undoubtedly one of the country’s biggest tourist traps, as are places like the Hollywood sign, Capitol Records Building, and Dolby and TCL Chinese Theaters! The Griffith Observatory and the Getty Museum also punctuate the city’s culture, as do its major thoroughfares (namely Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Drive, both of which became eponymous films in 1950 and 2001, respectively). What is the story of Hollywood, though?

Hollywood’s Walk of Fame

At the end of the 19th and turn of the 20th century, real-estate developer H.J. Whitley arranged to buy the 480-acre (1.9 km2) E.C. Hurd ranch. He shared his plans for this new town with Los Angeles Times publisher General Harrison Gray Otis and prominent businessman Ivar Weid. Businesswoman Daeida Wilcox, who donated land to help in the development of Hollywood, helped give the suburb its name.

An acquaintance of hers owned an estate by the name of “Hollywood” in Illinois, and Wilcox is quoted as saying: “I chose the name Hollywood simply because it sounds nice and because I’m superstitious and holly brings good luck”15,16. She recommended the name to her husband, Harvey H. Wilcox, who purchased 120 acres of land in the area on February 1, 1887. Mr. Wilcox filled in the name “Hollywood” on the Los Angeles County Recorder’s office on a deed and parcel map of the property in August 1887. By 1900 Hollywood was booming.

Hollywood Grows

The region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, and two markets. Los Angeles (1900 population size: 102,479) lay 10 miles (16 km) east through barley fields, citrus groves, and vineyards. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue, and citizens converted an old citrus fruit-packing house into a livery stable, in turn improving transportation for Hollywood residents. H.J. Whitley, who had become president of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company, opened the prestigious Hollywood Hotel in 1902. Whitley continued to promote the Hollywood area, paying thousands of dollars to install electricity, arrange for electric lighting, and to build both a bank and a road into the Cahuenga Pass.

By 1912, major motion picture companies had come west and made Los Angeles their official production headquarters17. The mild temperatures, varied landscapes, and bountiful sunshine were very enticing. Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey also sued various filmmakers to stop their productions, and so these various filmmakers escaped this challenge by relocating to California18. Biograph Company film director D.W. Griffith- whose controversial 1915 silent epic “The Birth of a Nation” stoked outrage from the NAACP- became a prominent name in Hollywood, as did Cecil B. DeMille. The first studio in Hollywood opened in early 1913 on Formosa Avenue19. Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Columbia also pitched their studio tents in Hollywood, as did several other minor companies and rental studios.

The History of Narrative

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!” “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Victor Fleming gave us both of these timeless quotes from major films released back in 1939 (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, respectively). “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” “No. I’m your father.” “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “Greed is good.” “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night!” “We’ll always have Paris.” “I’m the one who knocks.” “No soup for you.” “Winter is coming!” Really…there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of film and television quotes you could probably think of off the top of your head…each as familiar and canonical as…oh, let’s say…the Gettysburg Address or the “I Have a Dream” speech.

American movies and television shows (or motion pictures in general), of course, took their cues from plays and books…which in turn took their cues from epic poetry…which in turn took their cues from oral narratives. Storytelling really is as old as humanity itself!

Narrative experts and philosophers- from Aristotle to Robert McKee- have diligently tracked this fascinating part of our existence. As any historian on this subject will tell you, the first stories likely occurred around primeval campfires as Grok and Uru recounted their wile adventures fighting off lions and slaying mastodons!

It’s All in Our Heads

According to one article- The Storytelling Brain: How Neuroscience Stories Help Bridge the Gap between Research and Society, by the National Institute of Health’s Journal of Neuroscience- “regions that are not traditionally thought to be part of a ‘language network’ in the brain become consistently activated when people listen to narratives. Example areas are the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, and mPFC [prefrontal cortex]”20. The author then goes on to describe how this “extended language network” includes areas next to the traditional temporal and inferior frontal “language” regions20.

“The posterior midline activations have been linked to the larger time span of narratives (compared with single sentences) (Lerner et al., 2011). The medial prefrontal activations, in turn, have been related to the ‘mentalizing’ aspects (Tamir et al., 2016) and immersive properties (Hsu et al., 2014) of narratives”20.

The author further explores the concept of the “default mode network” (the state that the human brain is in when a person is not actively focusing on something).

“The ‘resting state’ invites narrative construction. The type or content of the mind wandering that takes place during the resting state is unconstrained (and unknown), but it is conceivable that it has narrative structure (Jacobs and Willems, 2018)”20.

Wonderworks

Basically…we can never escape our capacity both to produce stories and, for better or worse- to be beholden to them! The types of stories we deliberately or helplessly churn out obviously vary, though. English American screenwriter and scientist Angus Fletcher details different categories of stories in his nonfiction work, Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature (2021). He expounds upon them as though he were describing mechanical inventions.

Literature

“The Empathy Generator” includes stories like The Book of Job and Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. “The Vigilance Trigger” includes Dante’s Inferno. The “Sorrow Resolver” includes Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the “Humanity Connector” includes Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, “The Second Look” includes Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Kurosawa’s Rashomon, and “The Gratitude Multiplier” includes George Elliot’s Middlemarch. These are just a few of the ones he highlights.

Genres and Categories

We as consumers of stories can also generate an endless array of categories for them. Films like Pulp Fiction and 21 Grams play with the power of nonchronological narratives. Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel both play with the power of different perspectives.

Alexander Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo employs what I’ll call the “narrative rule of thirds.” The first leg of the novel (approximately 300-400 pages) is concerned with Edmond Dante’s escape from prison, his life at sea, and his treasure hunt. The two remaining legs of the novel (an approximate 1,000 pages) are all concerned with his extremely calculated and prolonged acts of revenge!

Robert Zemeckis did something similar with the movie Flight (2012). In the first part of the film, the main character contends with a horrific plane crash. The bulk of the movie, though, zeroes in on the main character’s struggle with alcoholism.

Sometimes a writer/author or director will carefully split their story in two. Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is a good example. Francis Ford Coppola does something similar in The Godfather Part II. The two narratives crosscut between one another. In the “earlier” timeline, Don Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) rises in status. In the “later” timeline, Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) falls from grace.

Like Michael Corleone, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from “Breaking Bad” also slowly devolves. This narrative category we might call “The Metastasis” (fitting as the main character from Vince Gilligan’s epic crime thriller slowly dies from cancer). John Milton’s Paradise Lost may be the quintessential example of this type of story. Tragic villains like Anakin Skywalker and Daenerys Targaryen also epitomize this genre.

“The Road to Damascus” or “Breaking Good” is the inverse of “The Metastasis.” Think Derek (Edward Norton) and Danny (Edward Furlong) from American History X, Darth Vader from Return of the Jedi, or Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. Also, as the name suggests, this category would include St. Paul/Saul from the biblical New Testament. The arrogant Saul is blinded and then becomes St. Paul when he “sees the light.”

Think of any major axiom or adage you’ve heard in your life, and you’re guaranteed to find its unique narrative angle. “He who hesitates is lost” (“paralysis by analysis”). “Life is unfair.” “The truth will always catch up to you.” “Crime doesn’t pay.” “Fortune favors the bold.” “Seize the day.” “In order to gain your life, you must first lose it.” “A problem ignored is a problem multiplied.” “Life is short.”

Belly of the Whale

The most poignant narrative category, I’d argue, though, is the “underworld” or the “belly of the whale.” Pinocchio and the biblical story of Jonah are quintessential examples. Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid also of course qualify (as the main characters literally travel through the underworld). Dante’s Divine Comedy comes in second place, and the Bible’s crucifixion of Jesus Christ story, arguably, comes in first. Whether or not you believe the story really happened is irrelevant. Its impact is what matters!

Another name for this genre might be what I’ll call “please…don’t give up hope.” It’s the type of narrative category that someone might use when talking to a person who is suicidal. Several years ago, one of my father’s oldest and dearest friends went through his own Book of Job/Belly of the Whale experience. His business collapsed…as did his marriage, but his sorrows weren’t over. Sadly, his teenaged daughter also fell to her death. My dad couldn’t get in touch with him. None of his friends could. He totally fell off the map. And then one day (during the Covid-19 pandemic) …out of the blue…he resurfaced. My dad- usually very stoic- burst into tears when he received a call from him.

The most telling part of his story was that it wasn’t something grandiose that saved him. It was something simple. When he had moved to his new home in Kansas City, he released his “grip on the bottle,” and he joined a local softball league. He immersed himself in it, and it was this seemingly innocuous pastime that he argued saved his life!

Return to the Southern Californian Metropolis

The last time we had seen him in person was 17 years ago in his beautiful home outside of Los Angeles. And with that we bring the article full circle. Los Angeles is ultimately the modern-day “narrative city.” Hollywood is, of course, its primary manufacturer and exporter. But even the city itself is narratively built. Mountains, oceans, and deserts surround it. Looming palm trees line its expansive boulevards. Its sprawling, centerless neighborhoods reflect its broad multiplicity of stories. There are the fancy famous people…the struggling immigrants…the aspiring rappers…the aspiring actors…the easy-going “surfer dudes” …and so on and so on. Every peak and valley…from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven…characterize this “City of Angels” …. or “Dream City”!

SOURCES

  1. Willard, Charles Dwight (1901). The Herald’s History of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: Kingsley-Barnes & Neuner. pp. 21–24.
  2. “Portola Expedition 1769 Diaries”. Pacifica Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
  3. Leffingwell, Randy; Worden, Alastair (November 4, 2005). California missions and presidios. Voyageur Press. pp. 43–44.
  4. “Settlement of Los Angeles”. Los Angeles Almanac. Archived from the original on September 2, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  5. “Pio Pico, Afro Mexican Governor of Mexican California”. African American Registry. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  6. Bauer, K. Jack (1993). The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Bison books ed.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 184.
  7. Guinn, James Miller (1902). Historical and biographical record of southern California: containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century. Chapman pub. co. p. 50. Archived from the original on March 18, 2023. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  8. Mulholland, Catherine (2002). William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-520-23466-6. Archived from the original on November 6, 2023. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  9. Kipen, David (2011). Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels. University of California Press. pp. 45–46. ISBN 978-0-520-26883-8. Archived from the original on November 6, 2023. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  10. “The Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Owens and Mono Lakes (MONO Case)”. American University. Archived from the original on January 9, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  11. Reisner, Marc (1993). Cadillac desert: the American West and its disappearing water. Penguin. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-14-017824-1. Archived from the original on November 6, 2023. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  12. Parker, Dana T. Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II, pp.5–8, 14, 26, 36, 50, 60, 78, 94, 108, 122, Cypress, CA, 2013
  13. Braun, Michael. “The economic impact of theme parks on regions” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 7, 2021. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
  14. Hafner, Katie; Lyon, Matthew (August 1, 1999). Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet. Simon and Schuster. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-684-87216-2. Archived from the original on November 6, 2023. Retrieved October 1, 2011.
  15. “California Holly: How Hollywood Didn’t Get its Name”. Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  16. Cendars, Blaise (1995). Hollywood: Mecca of the Movies. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 23.
  17. Jacobs, Lewis. The Rise of the American Film Harcourt Brace, New York, 1930; p. 85
  18. “History of Hollywood, California”. Retrieved May 27, 2014.
  19. Worster, Donald (2008). A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir. Oxford: Oxford University Press (OUP). p. 535.
  20. J Neurosci. 2019 Oct 16; 39(42): 8285–8290. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1180-19.2019

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