The Day Of The Locust Essay

Hyperreal L.A. in The Big Lebowski and The day of the Locust

Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust is based in the thirties in Hollywood and focuses on a group of charters lives that is supposed to resemble that of what it was really like in L.A. at this time. The Coen brother’s The Big Lebowski is about a charter who goes by the dude, and is adventure to try and find who kidnapped Bunny Lebowski and who peed on his rug. It is also set in L.A. but in the nineties instead of the thirties. Through Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and simulacra of the characters and scenery in both of these sources of entertainment it is clear to see the hyperreal setting of L.A. that they both strived to depict. In The Day of the Locust the most obvious example of hyperrealism is how West depicts the scenery. It is hard to tell in some parts if you are on a set, or somewhere in L.A. This can be seen throughout the novel especially when the main character Todd “heard a great din on the road outside his office… the tattoo of a thousand hooves” (59). This is the opening of the novel when Todd is getting off work and the reader is told he is at the office. The reader most likely believes it is just a regular office but then when he hears the horses running and someone

Lebowski himself is hyperreal. When you first meet Mr. Lebowski the dude is taken on a tour of all his accomplishments and he comes off as this incredibly wealthy man but then later find out he actually has no money it was his wife who was wealthy. This clearly is hyperreal because you weren’t able to distinguish this fact until his daughter Maud told the audience. Another arguable form of hyperrealism is the entire movie itself. With all the characters being stereotypes they fit into simulations of what we think those people would be like. It is also however a form of simulacra being based very loosely off of old detective movies but it is more of a parody of these older