Sharon Sekhon
 
 
 
 
 
 

Beach Boulevard and Its Erroneous Alchemization of Place
 
 
 
 
 
 

Historian Carey McWilliams observes, "Migration spells maladjustment."² Nowhere is this more visible than in the array of establishments along Beach Boulevard. The constructions and their functions relate the residents' inability to make a compassionate claim to the land. Instead of pulling from the richness of the region, immigrants chose to look back in history and recreate an unfamiliar past. One wonders at the people who came to create Beach Boulevard. What kind of dreams did they foster? What did they leave to come here? Was the trek across the continent so disheartening? Were they the Homer Simpsons of West, coming to California to die?³ If so, was this their vision of heaven? Or, were they disillusioned with the California Dream, like Didion's Lucille Miller?⁴

It is an island of evasion that boasts of Ripley's Believe It Or Not wax freak shows, Wild West Extravaganzas, a stuccoed feudal fortress called Medieval Times, and the glittering icon of Movieland Wax Museum.

Interspersed between these gaudy figurations are almost comforting, homogenized chain restaurants such as the International House of Pancakes or Spoons. They are the only reality check one gets on Beach Boulevard.

Upon exiting the freeway to Beach Boulevard, one is accosted by an overriding sense of artificiality. Coexisting signs post "Costa Mesa Gun Show" or "Dollshow at the Anaheim Convention Center" or "Jesus lives!" They jump out in bold, black lettering against neon green and pink. Of course, there is a MacDonald's, but even it hearkens to an unknown past, highlighting its immense toy train display--showing "the extraordinary German craftsmanship (of miniature trains) at LGB-'The Big Train.'" Across the street from MacDonald's, sits an adult theater next to an aging, empty Yarn Mart. The Studio Theatre offers titles like Adultland and Young & Restless and Satin Angels amidst other amusements.

Some of the cheapest motels in Orange County exist here, with ominous, telling names like the Gaslite Inn. They offer kitchenettes and inexpensive weekly rates. Some boast of waterbeds. All have the required square patch of murky, blue-green swimming pool, ten feet long and five feet deep. These dingy motels painted in dusty pinks and sticky blues cater to the circulation of tourists who finally make it down to Beach Boulevard. These motels are the last stops on a traveler's itinerary, if there is enough time left after seeing Disneyland.

Beach Boulevard sits a concrete jungle splashed in garish, mocking color that makes mute the few existing plants. Cement islands separate the street's lanes where a few dwarfed shrubs struggle amidst the din of honking and brake screeching, the spews of choking exhaust, and are locked into the land by unbudging concrete and growing asphalt. The trees that border the boulevard exude an unmatched sadness in their solitary stance. In immobile silence, they stagger and sigh; transplanted immigrants themselves to this region. Little dignity remains in the other plants and trees of the street, for they are merely ornamental appendages to the buildings--shaven into unreal animal forms or wilting in neglect.

The symbolic, desperate state of the flower reveals much about the place's fecundity; or rather, sterility.⁵

With the anaerobic near-death experience of the foliage of Beach Boulevard, the existence of two museums exhibiting wax figures does not seem out of place. First, Movieland Wax Museum, a "Fortress of Solitude," as Umberto Eco aptly called it, "a museum of memories."⁶

It is an immense structure, visible from the freeway, ablaze with cascading and blinking lights, twenty-four hours a day. It is open rain or shine. The museum glares a curious children's aspirin pink during the day and an eclectic mix of architectural styles--from Spanish to Chinese. The statues placed all around the building range from a ten ton, eighteen foot replica of "David," to a menacing, oversized boar flanked on each side by figures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. From the outside, one can hear piped in music of an orchestrated singsong quality that supposedly resembles a tune from the roaring twenties. Billboards advertise the latest additions and ceremonial unveilings to the museum--July 24, 1993: Billy Rae Cyrus; November 2, 1992: Tom Selleck; July 19, 1991: Gloria Estephan. Inside is a dimly lit celebration of Hollywood's fictional, celluloid past--Marilyn Monroes and Clarke Gables: waxen idols with smiles frozen upon parted lips like three-dimensional publicity stills. A cardboard sign announces,

Ripley's Believe It Or Not stands directly across the street from the Movieland Wax Museum, as if representing its alter ego, glorifying the strange and grotesque. The architecture here meets the same exoticism of its sister--here it is quasi-Aztec, complete with a sculptured, Buddha-like Mexican deity. Its brochure tempts tourists and residents alike with a "'Chinese Shrunken Head,' the size of a lemon; 'Wadlow the Giant' at 8'11'' tall, the human high-rise, and many others. Ponder all the possibilities, as you step into the Unbelievable world of Ripley's and become a Believer!" Beach Boulevard delivers faith.

Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament recreates another false history. The architecture for this structure is an impenetrable "castle" made of brick. In this "11th century" setting, one thousand spectators, or "friends," have the opportunity to relive the not-so-recent Middle Ages through an equestrian show, a contest between two dueling "knights," and by meeting an overweight actor portraying a facsimile of Henry the Eighth, or "His Grace, Count Don Raimundo II.". The dinner "feast" is served without utensils, allowing customers to digress to a simpler time and eat with their hands. Even the waitresses are to be called "wench." It serves as another warped revival of the history that Beach Boulevard so caters to.
 

Wild Bill's Wild West Dinner Extravaganza and Knott's Berry Farm are yet more attempts to search and present an unfamiliar, nonexistent past. Wild Bill's exists as a mighty masculine representation of the trying; tough days of the West, painted in a pretty, pastoral pink with pristine white trim. Its brochure shows a sexy, glittery representation of the cowboy days of our nation. All performers wear cheerful red, white, and blue "sparkling" costumes. Saloon girls wear skimpy halter-tops with white leather boots. "Wild Bill's" brings its customers "Americana" including beer, wine, and "Coca-Cola". promising to be "unforgettable."

Along with celebrating the West like Wild Bill's, Knott's Berry Farm also celebrates the tumultuous "Roaring Twenties," the prehistoric "Kingdom of the Dinosaurs," and "Knott's Airfield."⁷

It is at Knott's that one can find an exact replica of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, framed in the lulling sway of tropical palm trees.
	At Independence Hall, there exists another replica of the Liberty Bell, complete and cracked.
Knotts Berry Farm truly meets the needs and expectations of Beach Boulevard--offering five different realities to escape to, not to mention microwaveable maple syrup.

	Amusement parks and extravaganza centers are not the only establishments that delve into non-reality on Beach Boulevard. The Homes Savings of America on the corner of Beach Boulevard and La Palma displays a friendly mural between frontiersmen and Native American Indians. The gold mosaic of the scene glitters in amiability and neighborliness.
Po' Folks, a restaurant specializing in Southern cooking offers an "All You Can Eat Chicken Dinner."  For $6.99 one can eat to the motto of "I'm po,' but I'm proud," in an ambiance reminiscent of "Green Acres" or the "Beverly Hillbillies," pre-Beverly Hills.

Even the giftshops of Beach Boulevard mirror this retreat from reality. The Crystal Factory and Capodimonte Ceramics shop specialize in other eras: American Indian Kashina dolls adorned with rabbit fur;
	pastel peach and gilded Louis Quatorze statue/lamps; mid-sized figurines of King Tuts that stare blankly ahead; busty, brazen Cleopatras holding wild leopards at bay; (breathe) fake, aged Remington bronzes; life-sized, immobile dogs that don't bark or growl; sleek, grey-glazed dolphins jumping in midair, and baskets of shiny, forbidden fruit.

Sense of place here has undergone a cotton-candied alchemization that teeters upon an unknown, intangible history. Beach Boulevard developed in, what appears to be, a desperate thrust towards a secure, fantastical escape; and, continues to cater to this need. This need is best explained as a general sense of uselessness and futility by the people, or as Carey McWilliams explains,

If this is a fair measure, what does Beach Boulevard tell us of our culture? And finally, the artificiality and historical negligence revealed on this strip expresses a repetition of precarious alchemy, similar to Holland's tulipomania. As observers and cultural participants, we must collectively and faithfully determine if any aspect of our history should be rendered golden. If we are not conscientious, we risk the same collapse culturally as the tulip bulb's fate in Holland.

1.  Will & Ariel Durant, ed. The Age Of Reason Begins. (New York: MJF Books, 1961) 479-480.

2.  Carey McWilliams. Southern California: Island on the Land. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Books, 1946) 239.

3.  Nathanael West. The Day of the Locust. (New York: New Directions, 1933) 80.

4.  Joan Didion. Slouching Towards Bethlehem. (New York: Noonday Press, 1961) 3-28.

5.  J.E. Cirlot. A Dictionary of Symbols. (New York: Dorset Press, 1971) 259.

6.  Umberto Eco. Travels in Hyper Reality. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983) 4-5.

7.  American Automobile Association, ed. California/Nevada Tour Book. (Heathrow: American Automobile Association, 1990) 36.

8.  David Lowenthal. The Past Is A Foreign Country. (London: Cambridge Books, 1985) 330.

9.  McWilliams, 239.

10.  Yi-Fu Tuan. Visual Blight In America. (Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, 1973) 26.