Theory and Content-Creating in Las Vegas: Which Iconic City is the Kardashian Family? (improved)

Описание: The Kardashians are prototypical “Cali Girls” who’ve built an empire that has taken them all over the world. Like the famous cities they visit for work, their brand is industry-driven and instantly recognizable - and, in an increasingly urbanized global community, it’s not a stretch to wonder:
Which Iconic City is the Kardashian Family?

In this Video Essay (produced by Super Lestela Studios) I survey three major cities —Los Angeles, New York, and Paris —before landing on the conclusion that if The Kardashians were a city, they’d “be” Las Vegas. Colorful, capitalistic, and divisive, both The Kardashians and Las Vegas have mastered a balance of high-design and mass appeal.
We’ll discover surprising things about all of the iconic cities listed as we view them using the lenses of Thom Andersen, John Berger, Edward Bernays, Valerie Steele, Natasha Dow Schull, and Stefan Al (among others). We’ll transport from Kim’s tabloid times with Paris Hilton, to the Pop Art period, to our more recent media memories of Kim’s Paris Robbery, and, finally, to the neon-lit architectural history of The Vegas strip.
We’ll watch clips from Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and journey through some incredibly satisfying Urban Studies and Media Studies texts; we’ll interview the people of Vegas out on the sidewalks on a Saturday night; and we’ll sit down with both Cultural Anthropologist Dr. Natasha Dow Schull and renowned urban planner Dr. Stefan Al to talk about the theory and history that make Vegas the cultural force it is.
As Al writes in his book, The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream, “the strip began as an exception. But increasingly it has become the rule.”
Can the same be said about The Kardashians?

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WORKS CITED: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ZC0...

ESSAY: (coming soon)