Cinematic Re-Presentations of Las Vegas: Reality, Fiction and Compulsive Consumption

Special Issue

Abstract

As a macro-spectacle, Las Vegas represents a singular display of the problems which arise in attempting to distinguish meaningfully between “reality” and “fiction”. In this article we provide an example of a discursive method to explore the interplay between “social relations” and “images” as critical facets of the realities and fictions which constitute the “Las Vegas Spectacle”. Social relations are examined using the systematic application of critical discourse analysis and the specific images analyzed are Las Vegas films. An intrinsic feature of the various representations of Vegas is the notion of “compulsive consumption”. The implications of the “Vegas phenomena” (i.e., the centrality of spectacle, consumption, and the collapse of fiction and reality) for the study of organizations and processes of organizing are also discussed.