Team Members: Andrew Gonzales, Miranda Hoegberg and Jennifer Peterson Ruiz

Being the heart of the film industry, Los Angeles has had to take on the role of an ‘any-city,’ suiting the needs and desires of the location scouts, directors, and writers. Los Angeles is required to stand in for other cities and locales, as well as project an image about itself that conforms to whatever story is being told. Thus, visual media distributed around the world often fails to capture any real sense of what Los Angeles is like beyond platitudes and stereotypes.

            Through this thick-mapping exercise, we analyzed a film that garnered critical acclaim while also generating serious conversations about race and representation in the film industry: La La Land. While the film is expansive in its representation of Los Angeles (an entire subset of expensive tours all use this film as the basis for their itineraries), it is also misleading. Each location is considered independently, such that film stills may be compared to current conditions and the white-washed main cast may be contrasted to a more accurate understanding of a neighborhood’s racial diversity.