In the conclusion to her study on Bodie, Califorina, Dydia DeLyser writes, “Authenticity is not the end result of a visit to Bodie. Rather, it is a vehicle through which the narratives of the mythic West, of progress, and American virtues, are made tangible and believable to visitors.”
What do you think DeLyser means here? Based on her observations, what forms of authenticity do the tourists and the staff members experience in this ghost town? How does she as a researcher measure these authentic experiences? As you reflect on her conclusion, cite at least one concrete example from her observations that supports or illustrates your response.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In her conclusion, DeLyser writes about authenticity and questions whether or not Bodie can be considered an authentic ghost town. In her line, "Authenticity is not the end result of a visit to Bodie. Rather, it is a vehicle through which the narratives of the mythic West, of progress, and American virtues, are made tangible and believable to visitors”, she is explaining that though Bodie may not be totally authentic, visitors still can experience through their own imaginations what it felt like to be a true resident of a ghost town. When speaking of authenticity she mentions how they constructed the town as well as the fact that there is no gift shop or anything to make Bodie seem unreal, such as Knotts Berry Farm in California. She gives detail about how they try to use the original material from the roofs of the buildings when fixing them. When they ran out of original material they used Coca-Cola to replicate the look of an aged tin roof. I don't think it is the true authenticity that matters in a place like Bodie. It is only important that the town resemble what an old Western town would have looked like so that visitors can imagine what it feels like to really be there. A fine example is the man who brought his children to Bodie and showed them a one bedroom home so that they could appreciate the living situation they have been given.
ReplyDeleteWhat I got out of DeLyser's article based on what she was trying to say seem to be two very different things. I thought that much of the article was actually against how authenticity plays a role in this major "ghost town". I thought that her major point was not that authenticity of a ghost town exists, although the ghost town continues on with time and promotes the general personality of Brodie, as a white middle class western town.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, the main point she was trying to show was that authenticity does exist in the ghost town. She says people who have lived in the town ever since it has been growing have preserved the feel by moving into the older houses instead of putting up new ones. She also points out there are minimal commercial buildings set up around the town and the simplicity of a western town is preserved. This quote shows how Brodie conserves is "western touch". "Bodie's tarnished appearance is in part the result of more than a hundred ears of harsh weather and decades of neglect. But in part also, as this commentator notices, it is a conscious creation of a group of maintenance workers who attempt to faithfully carry out the state's policy of "arrested decay"(DeLyser 614). Here she is mentioning that the staff and people of the town actually try to maintain the tarnished, old look to add to the western feel and "authenticity" that is promoted.
One reason I feel that authenticity can not truly be justified in this mining town is how much the city has had to be rebuilt. For example, "When Bodie's Lester Bell house was reroofed, workers carefully removed and saved as much of the old rusted tim as possible to reuse on the new roof. When there was not enough, and new tin had to be added, we were distressed at the shiny appearance of the roof and so oxidized it with coca-cola to make it look more authentic, even though this was not part of our instructions for completing the job and had to be carried out on our own time"(DeLyser 614). To me this doesnt truly hold the feel of authenticity, especially when there are many other places across the country that truly have authentic mining venues.
DeLyser means that the tourists and staff members concerned about the authenticity of the Ghost Town because they enjoy the "primative life" that takes place there. They like the imaginative aspects of the town. They love the idea of a Ghost Town and the stories and setting the come with it. The part about the staff answering 'no' if they have television,when in reality, they don't have cable access, but do watch movies and recorded TV regularly shows that they want to preserve this idea of the old west and the idea of a "primative life". No television makes life in a Ghost Town more authentic. This is just one example of the many things the town does to preserve its authenticity.
ReplyDeleteIn DeLyser conclusion, “Authenticity is not the end result of a visit to Bodie. Rather, it is a vehicle through which the narratives of the mythic West, of progress, and American virtues, are made tangible and believable to visitors.” I think that what DeLyser means here is that people make Bodie authentic because of the items there and they believe in myth from what is in front of them, without actually knowing what happened in that land. So from the land and the artifacts, they create their own sense in believing of what happened and I think that is what DeLyser refers to when she states it is through the vehicles because it is the people who come and visit that place who narrate their visits. Also, the way she comes up with this conculsion is that she has worked at Bodie and was able to observe the people but the landscape itself, which makes her authentic in her work because she was there to experience the town and the different crowds. Finally, when DeLyser gives a concrete example of making this place authentic is that they preserve the location in order to keep the building what they were made up of and so the visitors allows to see the buildings back in the 1800’s and allows them to believe what happened here from what they see.
ReplyDeleteWhen DeLyser writes, “Authenticity is not the end result of a visit to Bodie. Rather, it is a vehicle through which the narratives of the mythic West, of progress, and American virtues, are made tangible and believable to visitors” I think she means that authenticity is not easily defined. There are several reasons on each side, some that present the argument that Bodie is an “authentic” ghost town, and some that argue that it is not. The tourists and staff members experience all the preserved buildings, slightly decayed (and preserved to be so) which instills a sense of history that provides authenticity, but on the other hand, because they do preserve the buildings the way they do, it counteracts it’s purpose. The town is not a real representation of what it was like in the late 1800s. Tourists don’t realize that Bodie is much less authentic than it appears. “Objects in Bodie trigger feelings and fantasies. They evoke chains of ideas and images that lead far beyond their initial starting point in the artifacts themselves” (DeLyser 624.) This says to me that there is a definite genuineness to the ghost town, but there are definitely factors that go into triggering “feelings and fantasies” that are done on purpose, probably to attract tourists, which makes is un-authentic.
ReplyDeleteDeLyser states in the last paragraph, “Bodie’s perceived authenticity is a vehicle through which they can experience a fantasy past that may never have been, but that nevertheless holds meaning for each person who imagines it.” Based on these two statements I believe that DeLyser means that through what seems like an authentic ghost town of Bodie, people are able to connect to the mythic nature of the west through their own imagination. The town of Bodie allows one to conjure their own image of how ghost towns were are perceived and experience what they were like.
ReplyDeleteShe talks about how the staff of Bodie try and avoid using modern technology in the town. However, they aren’t living exactly how people in ghost towns lived. The entire truth and authenticity behind the town is not preserved. Instead the town is preserved for a certain point in the town’s history instead of the entire history of the town. Based off of the reading, Bodie seems to have been preserved for the period in which it was a ghost town itself instead of its entire history starting before people were abandoning the town.
“In the ghost town of Bodie, the concept of authenticity enables visitors to experience the past as they imagine it. Signs of age and wear remind them of the endangered state of that past, and the notions of progress from a difficult past.” This statement runs parallel to the quote I mentioned in the first paragraph and shows that the physical look of the town is portrayed in a way to show progress from a “lonely, difficult past.” Instead of showing that the town was at one point a self-sufficient booming town, Bodie shows the downfall and desertion of the town.
To be quite honest, I’m not entirely clear what she means by her conclusion. From what I can tell from the text, and her experiences on working there, it seems like what people think to be ‘authentic’ may not really be ‘authentic’ at all, or another part that stuck out in my mind was where she mentioned that they refurnished the roofs on buildings with coca-cola, or did other extra detail work to make the buildings look more authentic, even though by definition, by changing them, they were causing them to become fake. However, I think what she may be trying to get at (the article was quite dense and, truthfully, I had a difficult time understanding it) is that authenticity may only be what we believe it to be, and that as long as the experience is authentic in our own minds, then to us it is. Whether the experience is TRULY authentic is another question altogether, but perhaps not so important. What WAS important is what the people thought was authentic, based on their past personal and social priming.
ReplyDeleteDeLyser could mean a number of things with her statement about authenticity only being a vehicle. As she explored ghost towns, she found authenticity in reseearching these things. By taking a deep look at how visitors and staff viewed Bodie's landscape, she found that authenticity "was a vehicle to engage populary held notions about the mythic West and American values." But after some more thinking, she says that with there being such a wide array of ghost towns, it is extremely difficult to come to an answer that isn't merely speculative.
ReplyDeleteI believe that DeLyser means that being in a place and observing and absorbing the experience is how authentic the experience will feel. I think that authenticity come from experience and thoughts or what you already know about the experience your being emerged in, in this case Bodie. I think that the tourist experience authenticity through how the space is preserved, through imagination, and how Bodie is not commercialized. I think that the staff gets more of the authentic feeling through the essence. They live like the might have in the past. Yes, they do have more modern things but, it still is a lot behind civilization as we know it now. DeLyser, as a researcher, measures authenticity by observation, this is through participate observer studies and interaction.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the landscape, buildings, and other structures of the Ghost Town located in Bodie, California have been manipulated and manicured to a certain degree, the town still preserves its authenticity. Delyser expresses the importance and significance of Western history and how it relates to modern day. The focus of the Bodie State Historic Park is to preserve the town's rich history that helps give reason to the stereotype of the "Wild West." The "Wild West" is a prominent theme in film and literature, and Bodie displays a firsthand look at the "Wild West." Delyser emphasizes her role in engaging the past in a California ghost town. She talks of her work as an active member in the Bodie community, "Not only did I study Bodie's visitors and staff, I also lived and worked there as a member of the seasonal maintenance staff for ten summers as a participant-observer with a heavy emphasis on participation" (Authenticity on the Ground 605). She speaks of the advantages and disadvantages that come with being a part of the community she studies. Delyser explains the physical aspects that make the town authentic in its form. Original materials were used for all means of restoration. I think that this physical representation is important in understanding Bodie as a Ghost Town. It serves as a visual aid, and when visitors travel to Bodie they are able to imagine themselves as figures of the past. There is something truly unique and satisfying when one visits a place; there seems to be a complete connection between humanity and landscape. Being present in a specific place is much different then reading about it in a book or watching a film.
ReplyDeleteDeLyser conveys that our presence in a place and whether it has an authentic feel to it or not is determined by the stereotypes that are associated with it. Say one went to Disneyland on an overcast day. It then started raining and the majority of the people in the park left. Because of the conditions, those at the park probably wouldn’t feel like they were experiencing the “magic” of Disneyland. When we think of the park, we think of crowd, curros, warm weather and essentially, the fun, magical world of Disney. What DeLyser is saying is important that the place that we are coincides with its stereotypes, because these ideas, these stereotypes shape the way we think about people and places. However, when she measures how those being tested observe and react to a place, she fails to incporporate diversity. Those being tested, she reveals, are solely middle class, white people. Stereotypes can change due to race, gender, age, etc. Therefore, the middle class white people will tend to have similar perceptions and stereotypes. In this sense, her measuring technique was flawed.
ReplyDeleteWhat DeLyser means by saying, "Authenticity is not an end result in a visit to Bodie," is that it is not the town of Bodie that makes it authentic. It is the people that make up the town of Bodie that makes it believable. She states that the people who live there are the ones that bring about the belief of this "authentic" Western town. The people that DeLyser talks about bring about this non-authentic town. The only reason it is popular and considered "authentic" is because the people that DeLyser has seen has created it to the audience that interprets it.
ReplyDelete