Reflection

Since I began writing, my view of this song has completely changed. Before I even looked at the lyrics, I listened to the song and watched the video, which depicts the song as another superficial pop song and entertainment for the sake of entertainment. Once I analyzed the words, my interpretation of the song took on a whole new meaning. While I was writing my essay, I discovered deeper meanings to the lyrics that influenced my understanding of the song and therefore the dream.

One new meaning I found was related to the line “looking for the golden light” (line 8). At first, I thought this just meant searching for happiness or gold (whatever that would mean to you). I thought about this image for a while and realized that if Marina believes the dream is like light, than to her it must be impossible to obtain because light is intangible. Light is impossible to hold, contain, or claim as your own, so if this is how your dream is physically represented then there is no way for you to capture it; it is simply an illusion.

Because I am not from Los Angeles, I did not understand the importance of Vine Street. My professor told me Vine is notorious for having prostitutes lurk on corners and the area in general is extremely sketchy. So Anya, the character in the song, does not want to end up living in this area, which obviously makes sense, but her means to protect herself are shallow and repugnant. Instead of working hard by creating her own business or working twelve-hour days, she just wants to marry into money and take the easy way out. This is where the California Dream differs from the American Dream; the American Dream is about earning your success where the California Dream is about simply finding it. Marina seems frustrated with this method, because she is an example of working hard to earn success. To her, this lifestyle has no meaning behind it and therefore is detestable.

The Academy Award nominations were announced on Monday and while I was stalking the website and magazines, I stumbled upon the Oscar’s ad campaign this year: “Celebrate the Movies.” The advertisements that went with this show famous movies accompanied with the saying, “We showed you how to…” For example, Gladiator is one of the posters and it says, “We showed you how to…be a hero.” This tag line suggests that films are the only reason why people know how to act a certain way in their lives. I would never have even considered how this is similar to what the boosters of the 1800s did, but in a sense it is.

Now instead of viewing this song as simply a pop song, I realized that it truly has meaning and its “poppy” sound is mocking American pop culture. I have way more respect for the song and Marina and the Diamonds as I saw that they didn’t want to just make money off of a track; they actually wanted to make art for the sake of art.