My American Dream

I'm now back in Boston where it's cold, the trains break down, solid precipitation is inevitable, and the cobblestone is a historic dark brown. After our dalliance with L.A.'s utopia, most of us have described our return as "going back to reality." To us, this is our reality: Boston is where we live, work, go to school, hang out. All of Boston's frustrating distinctions that are part of this reality made us hypersensitive to L.A.'s palm trees, sun, and chic enchantments. I wonder if we'd loose that after staying there for longer? Yuron from the Coffee shop hasn't.

In my first post before I left, I hated on Hollywood. Like many, I was disturbed by its plastic fakeness and its ability to distort our perception of reality. In some ways, I still feel that way. I also hated on my college for spending so much money on a trip to cover such a blase event when more significant happenings were occurring in the world around us, and I still do not think that this mainstream-movie lovefest is really all that special.

And yet I have to admit that it made me think about my reality in terms of our American identity in a global culture striving for something more than war or famine. In America, our reality is not only one in which an event like the Academy Awards can happen, but also one that can empower a small group of college students to experience, explore, and create- which is exactly what we did on this trip.

This, I think, is a facet that we forget to think about around things like the Oscars: it exists inside a reality in which almost anything is possible with the right ideas and available means. Sure, movies full of car chases and sex scenes can "blind" us from the terrestrial "truth" around us, but as long as we see them as nothing more than stories told through our culture, this is a perfectly healthy thing. If we remember this, than we will weed out the stories told, as Winkler explained, for the bottom line of selling the audience as a product. We will be able to look past the implications of living our life through movie stars and see them as they are: real people who are good at being someone else for a little while. We will understand that cameras and lights can distort the way subjects are portrayed not only in fiction films, but also in journalism and non-fiction filmmaking. If we understand Hollywood's reality as something fake that makes us happy sometimes and not as something real that we strive to be like, than all of its hegemonic side effects, I think, can be resolved.

Over the past week, I have created things, experienced places, met new people, became better friends with people I already new, and saw things most people never get to see in real life. I think a lot of people view Hollywood fame as "the American dream," but I think this is wrong. To me, my American dream is the ability to experience and explore a place or idea like Hollywood- which is exactly what we all did on this trip. I am thankful that we live in a place and time that this is possible, and I look forward to moving forward and instilling the importance of this journey to all that will listen.

Stay posted for media from our adventure!