Action vs. Symbolic Gesture Theme Analysis

Many of Smith’s interview subjects talk about the feelings of comradery, purpose, and hopefulness they experienced during and in the immediate aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In “Trophies,” Paul Parker speaks of how “good for the soul” it felt to “sp[eak] out on April 29,” to voice outrage over the LAPD officers’ not-guilty verdicts. Parker views the riots as the Black community “puttin’ a race of people on notice.” In “A Jungian Collective Consciousness,” Paula Weinstein, a Hollywood producer, recalls travelling to South-Central Los Angeles, the area where the riots took place, and being a part of a “multiracial / and multicultural line of people” distributing food to the community. She remembers feeling a sense of “community” and believing, if only for a moment, “that it actually could change,” that a collective desire for justice and social progress could dismantle an “unjust” system. Of course, she then immediately notes how all this was an illusion, and politicians’ talk of change and the perceived unity of the “multicultural” volunteers represented little more than “big gestures.” In “Screw Through Your Chest,” Harland W. Braun wonders whether it is “the truth of Koon and Powell being guilty / or is it the truth of the society / that has to find them guilty in order to protect itself?” (Koon and Powell were two of King’s attackers, who were indicted in a second federal trial.) In other words, were Koon’s and Powell’s convictions intended to make it look like justice had been served? Instead of explicitly answering this question, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 compares the hopes many had for the future of race relations in Los Angeles to the reality: an city that remained unchanged and fearful after the riots. With this, the play illustrates how institutions that are unwilling to commit to radical change use empty promises, symbolic gestures, and compelling rhetoric to make it seems like things are changing—when in reality, things remain the same.