"The Old West in Modern Splendor': Frontier Folklore and the Selling of Las Vegas."

Jones, Karen. ""The Old West in Modern Splendor': Frontier Folklore and the Selling of Las Vegas." European Journal of American Culture 29 (2010): 93-110. Print.

Jones journal is about the old west and its connection with modern splendor of selling Las Vegas. When Vegas first was established it was in desperate need to advertise about its casinos and fantasy land, they turned to the old west and how it was a place with ideas of individualism, risk, freedom and adventuring and that is what Vegas was trying to be at the time. The fact that Vegas is the equivalent of the old west adds a new take on my paper because the west was a place where a lot of violence took place and wasn’t really seen as a place of fantasy as Vegas is so the fact they are comparing them adds a new perspective. Timothy Luke talks about how casinos and gaming space has shaped the business aspect of Las Vegas which is how the old wests business was changed in aspect that casinos are updated old west bars. This fits in my research because it talks about lands of fantasy and how the old west may have been a place of reality but it had its fantasy aspects as well. This source is helpful because it touches upon the fantasy aspect of my research paper which will help me link it to the reality of suicide. Jones would say that because Las Vegas is known as a place of fantasy, people do crazy things in their own worlds including hurting themselves and others and not really having a care about it. I am going to take some quotes from this journal and use them to support my research question.