Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 80

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Popular Culture Review

uninviting and oppressive in America. But the same people who complain about
Phoenix’s heat somehow don’t notice it in Vegas. Indoor amusement parks and
endless “attractions” are also forever being built, the idea being that Vegas is fun
for the whole family, not just the folks. As Mom and Dad gamble away little Johnny’s
college fund, at least they can be comforted by the fact that he had a hell of a time
at the theme parks.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of the “new” Las Vegas is impresario
Steve Wynn’s $1.6 billion Bellagio hotel. The Bellagio is currently being featured
in the popular press, perhaps best exemplified by a recent Time Magazine cover
story (10/26/98) and a lengthy article in Vanity Fair (October 1998). However, the
press is concentrating on the impressiveness o f the hotel’s $300 million art
collection, which may indeed attract a different kind of clientele than traditionally
associated with Vegas casinos. However, let’s not forget why Wynn is trying to
draw wealthy fans of the arts to his hotel; in addition to its impressive art collection,
the Bellagio also features an immense 130,000-square-foot casino in which art
fans can wile away the time between viewing Impressionist masterworks. Just as
the luster of Gatsby’s West Egg mansion helped to make him more attractive to
Daisy, so too will the Bellagio’s art collection help to lure upscale patrons to the
high dollar slots. Despite the tow n’s massive growth and image makeover,
Thompson’s perception of Las Vegas still holds true; in fact, as America continually
becomes more and more Vegasized, his 1971 vision of Vegas becomes ominously
prescient concerning the reality of present day America. Vegas hasn’t changed at
all. It has grown exponentially, and it has been repackaged to look more inviting to
our eyes, but underneath the veneer the intent of the town is the same as it was
when it was run by mobsters: sell the belief in immediate attainable wealth in
order to bring in suckers to take their money. Doesn’t anyone equate the building
o f new casino after new casino with the incontrovertible fact that Vegas’ rise is
built in part on the financial desperation of millions of people? As the traditional
belief in the rags to riches version of the American Dream has fallen by the wayside,
America’s has become a culture that is obsessed with instant gratification, and
Vegas happily and profitably panders to our obsession. For better or worse, Las
Vegas has become the best prism through which to view American culture as a
whole, and we only have ourselves to blame.
Thompson’s Duke, like Jay Gatsby before him, initially believed in a green
light, but, unlike Gatsby, Duke finally understands that even though “he had come
a long w ay... and his dream . . . seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp
it,” it is “already behind him, somewhere in that vast obscurity beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (Fitzgerald 159).
Duke has lived through the death of the possibility of the American Dream. He has
survived. At the end of Fear and Loathing, as he heads for L.A., he thinks to