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Reviews
| Expo–Magic of the White City, directed by Mark Bussler. 116 minutes. Inecom Entertainment Company, 2005, video. $24.95, DVD.
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| Some events in American history do not puddle; they seep into the cultural aquifer. The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition was one of these. Even in 1933, with Chicago's second world's fair underway, it was hard to forget the previous exposition. Writer Minnie Hite Moody, for instance, wrote Once Again in Chicago, a romance that brought two lovers who first met at the 1893 fair back together at the 1933 event. As much as they tried to concentrate on the modernism of the second fair, memories of the first were just too powerful to overcome. More recently, Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, with its grisly tale of mass murder set against the backdrop of the World's Columbian Exposition, tapped into this aquifer and brought the fair back near the surface of popular consciousness. Expo–Magic of the White City picks up where Devil in the White City left off, providing the visuals that help us to understand why this event was so visually overpowering. But when all is said and done, this is a film that, while visually exciting, only skims the surface of the fair. |
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Some history and historiography are in order. The exposition opened to the public in 1893, twenty eight years after the end of the Civil War. With the U.S. threatened by economic instability (the economy would crash while the fair was underway) and increasing industrial violence, good reasons existed for middle-class Americans to worry if the war between regions had been the opening volley in a broader conflict between classes. What began in Chicago as an effort to continue the cultural construction of the United States after the Civil War, a process which originated with the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, quickly became an effort to "incorporate" the United States as it faced mounting economic and political crises stemming from industrialization and growing gaps between the wealthy at the top of America's economic pyramid and those at its racially divided base. To promote national unity, exposition organizers played one race card after another from a stacked deck. They kept African Americans at arms length; they exhibited indigenous people from around the world in circumstances that made them look positively "savage" as contrasted with the "civilization" apparent in the exposition's White City (the main exposition palaces that were painted white); and they embedded a social Darwinian ideology into the spatial logic of the fair that enabled fairgoers to imagine themselves following the course of evolution as they walked the length of the Midway, from the African village at one extreme, to the Woman's Building standing at the gateway to the White City. |
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That at least is my view of the 1893 exposition. Not all historians agree. Some consider it a mistake to think of the people along the Midway as trophies or specimens of imperialism and suggest that they are better understood as performers. Others argue that the fair is less about race and imperialism than it is about consumerism and mass entertainment. The point is that the World's Columbian Exposition has, over the past few years, excited a great deal of debate among scholars—debates that in many respects reflect both the bitter arguments about cultural representation that occurred while the fair was being organized, and ongoing debates in American society about the power of cultural representations to shape public perceptions. |
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Perhaps the most divisive debate at the time was the one that occurred between white exposition managers and African Americans about whether blacks should be allowed to control their own exhibits. This led to arguments among African Americans about whether to boycott the fair because of its racist policies. Women also raised questions on the matter of representation at the fair: How should women's accomplishments be represented at the fair? Should women's exhibits be placed alongside men's? Should women have a separate building? Should women use the occasion to demand voting rights? |
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Clearly, the 1893 fair engendered debate and controversy in the Gilded Age, and continues to generate debate down to the present. But the film flattens what was untidy and unruly about the fair and tends to treat the exposition as the embodiment of cultural diversity and as "putting the 'unum' in 'e pluribus.'" So, is this to suggest that this film is not worth showing to students? Not at all. The film ends with an image of a World's Columbian Exposition playing card that features a bird's-eye view of the exposition. This is the perfect encapsulation of the film. Like this image, the film provides a visually rich overview of the fair. But teachers who show Expo–Magic of the White City need to know the history of the exposition and understand why it was so controversial in its own time. Teachers must address the smallpox epidemic that originated at the fair, the exploitation of indigenous people, and international response—for example, as far away as Russia, Leo Tolstoy (who probably saw one of the reproductions of the bird's-eye image of the fair that circulated around the world) remarked: "The [exposition], like all exhibitions, is a striking example of imprudence and hypocrisy: everything is done for profit and amusement—from boredom—but noble aims of the people are ascribed to it. Orgies are better." Clearly, the 1893 exposition represents a teachable moment. With a bit of groundwork laid by teachers, this film can help. |
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| Montana State University, Bozeman |
Robert W. Rydell |
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