Simulated authenticity: Storytelling and mythic space on the hyper-frontier in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Westworld

Jane Lovell,Sam Hitchmough

doi:10.1177/1468797620937912

Jane Lovell, Sam Hitchmough

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797620937912

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Abstract

This article explores how the mythic, nineteenth-century American frontier is authenticated by postmodern forms of storytelling. The study examines accounts of William Cody’s extensive 1902–1903 Buffalo Bill’ s Wild West tours in the United Kingdom and the futuristic television series, HBO’s Westworld (2016–), which is set in an android-hosted theme park. Comparing the semiotics of the two examples indicates how over a century apart, the authentication of the myth involves repeating motifs of setting, action and character central to tourist fantasies. The research illustrates how some elements of the myth seem to remain fixed but are negotiable. It is suggested that both examples are versions of a ‘hyper-frontier’, a nostalgic yet progressive, intertextual retelling of the American West and its archetypal characters, characterised by advanced technology. The implications for tourism are that simulating the authenticity of the frontier myth creates doubts in its veracity paradoxically due to its lifelikeness.

Highlights

This article integrates three different concepts of tourism: fantasy, myth and storytelling to offer a new perspective on the authenticity of the American frontier. MacCannell (1973) first suggested that tourists, alienated from modern life, fantasise about finding authenticity ‘elsewhere’
The discussion moves on to how Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Westworld stage mythic space using a variety of motifs, beginning with those associated with action
The vastness and sublimity of the landscape is a motif of the frontier setting and Buffalo Bill conveyed mythic space to visitors using seductive backdrops painted by Matt Morgan, at the cost of 40,000 pounds, which was a hyperreal sum of money at the time (Cody, 2012)

Summary

Introduction

This article integrates three different concepts of tourism: fantasy, myth and storytelling to offer a new perspective on the authenticity of the American frontier. MacCannell (1973) first suggested that tourists, alienated from modern life, fantasise about finding authenticity ‘elsewhere’. Simulacra are authenticated by tourists on multiple levels, as demonstrated by research conducted on Lord of the Rings locations and film sets in New Zealand (Buchmann et al, 2010), in the Adirondack Park (Vidon et al, 2018) and at large-scale projection-mapped light installations (Lovell, 2018) Both Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Westworld could be considered simulacra in the sense that they use the sophisticated technologies of hyperreality to augment their retelling of the frontier myth. Inquiries were framed and categorised using Thompson’s motif categories of setting, action and character (object, the fourth category of motif used by Thompson, was included in the findings of this article as an aspect of character) This approach involved using content analysis (Rose, 2001) in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and Westworld to identify different motifs which deconstruct the myth of the frontier.

Discussion

Conclusion