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Article: Orgy of looking: the construction of the L.A. rebellion in the British press.
- Article from:
- Afterimage
- Article date:
- October 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Visual Studies Workshop. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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This analysis is about the reporting of the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 in Great Britain and in particular one photograph of it that was widely circulated in the European press. I have never been to Los Angeles, but I feel as though I know it. From its future, glimpsed in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), to its present on T.V. in the series L.A. Law, to its past in detective stories, from Dashiell Hammett's novels to Starsky and Hutch in the '70s--Los Angeles is a place that I know, but do not know at all. L.A. is a repetitive multiplicity of overlapping, conflicting, and contradictory representations that each contribute to a conglomerate image. As Mike Davis succinctly ...