Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 71

A Countercultural Gatsby

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culturally, artistically and economically, America has seemingly regressed. As our
economy becomes more and more service oriented, real income has dropped
dramatically. Concurrently, Broadway features adaptations of Disney movies and
Jerry Springer, Howard Stem, and “wrestling” rule their respective mediums. It is
no surprise that in 1998 it was assumed there would still be an audience for Terry
Gilliam’s cinematic adaptation of Fear and Loathing. At the same time Americans
are increasingly enjoying other forms of tawdry entertainment, they are also more
often than not voting to legalize casino gambling in their home states (often under
the misleading guise of “our schools win too”); accordingly, the neon lights and
gin-soaked kitsch of Las Vegas, once considered gaudy and cheap, have become
de rigueur for the culture at large. When reading Thompson’s ridiculing treatment
of Vegas today, it no longer seems quite as funny, although it certainly seems even
more applicable; this is because in the years since its publication, Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas has gone from being specifically about Las Vegas to applying to
America as a whole.
Throughout Fear and Loathing the idea of the existence of the American Dream
is mocked ceaselessly. Thompson believes it is so far removed from the actual
realities of American life that it is virtually impossible to discuss seriously.
Consequently, Fear and Loathing is in some ways a nonstop burlesque of the
American Dream. As John Hellmann observes, “disillusionment with America’s
ideals, the exposure of American values as self-deceptions, has so long been typical
of modem American Literature {An American Tragedy, The Great Gatsby), the
search for those ideals can no longer be taken seriously” (81 -82). Taken as a whole,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a bitter dirge; the heart of the American Dream
is never found because it has been ripped asunder. Thompson contends that a new
American Dream has been bom out of the shambles of the rags to riches myth, and
that at the heart of the new dream is no longer the belief that hard work and faith in
the system will be rewarded; instead, the best most Americans can hope for is to
simply survive. As he writes: “We are all wired into a survival trip now . . . . The
realities of the movement were already fixed; the illness was understood to be
terminal, and the energies of The Movement were long since aggressively dissipated
by the rush to self-preservation” (178-80).
The emphasis on survival that Thompson noted in 1971 has in the 1990s
evolved into an increasingly desperate desire for instant gratification among
Americans. Las Vegas is America’s Pleasure Island, tempting us with the lure of
easy money, playing the Fox to our Pinocchio; but where is the cultural equivalent
of Jiminy Cricket to tell us we can’t get something for nothing? Apparently Jiminy
has given up on us, choosing instead to slurp free Scotch and sodas, ogle cocktail
waitresses, and feed the slot machines nightly until dawn. With every second that
goes by, for many Americans the chance of financial security seems to slip further