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158 Remember that iconic Saul Steinberg cartoon map on the cover of a 1976 issue of the New Yorker magazine? In the drawing, “The World as Seen from New York’s 9th Avenue,” the artist captured perfectly the hubris, the arrogance and ignorance, of New Yorkers. Steinberg has us looking west over Tenth Avenue and the Hudson River into the rest of the United States. To our left is Mexico; to our right is Canada; and in the distance is the Pacific Ocean. New Jersey is portrayed as a thin buffer between New York and the rest of the country. The only other states mentioned are Texas and Utah; the only other cities mentioned are Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. With such a limited view of the country, it is not surprising that the Holland and Lincoln tunnels loom large in American film, literature, and the other arts, which are dominated by the New York City cultural elite.1 Much as the rest of us may object, New York City is the self-proclaimed national center for literature, publishing, music, film, theater, dance, and visual art. Most of these creative people are jammed into Manhattan because they do not want the stigma of living in the outer boroughs. When they want to escape to the “real” America west of the Hudson in their own cars, they must use either the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel, unless they want to go out of their way to use the George Washington Bridge or the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. In dealing with the arts, I have followed the lead of other American Studies scholars. For the most part, I have set aside the position of aestheticians that the arts should be defined narrowly. Instead, I have embraced a larger spectrum of art forms and examined them from a cultural point of view. This debate on levels of culture has a long history in America. Alexis de Tocqueville tried to understand how democracy worked in a system that had Tunneling Through the Arts a survey of creative endeavors chapter 9 I done away with the aristocracy. Could democracy and excellence coexist? This is a question that continues to bedevil scholars and intellectuals. The conclusion reached by Tocqueville was that it was doubtful that democracy in America would be hospitable to high aesthetic quality. He may well have been correct. So it depends on your point of view. If you wish, you may conclude that we are living through the end of history. But I prefer to think that we have entered an era of pluralism and equality.2 A notable example of the Holland Tunnel in popular culture is the 1996 film Daylight, starring Sylvester Stallone. The story premise is that the Holland Tunnel has collapsed at both ends because of a multiple-vehicle crash. Some young thieves are fleeing from a robbery, their car racing through the tunnel to get away from the police. They unwittingly crash into a convoy of trucks carrying some illegal highly toxic flammable material. There is a spectacular fiery explosion. We are introduced to a large group of innocent characters who have to find a way out, including a beautiful young woman. Naturally, there is considerable time pressure because the tunnel is about to collapse. Stallone plays the role of the disgraced former head of New York City’s Emergency Medical Services who bravely tries to rescue those in danger of entombment, even those who question his authority and his competence. Our misunderstood hero has to find a way out through hidden passages to save himself and all the other people. Although movie critics generally prefer intellectual films that explore important ideas or portray heart-touching situations, they were remarkably kind to this action thriller, giving it full credit for what it was. For example, Susan Stark of the Detroit News wrote, “You’ve got fire, flood, and mud. You’ve got poisoned air, frazzled electrical connections, crumbling masonry. You’ve got rats. What’s not to like?” Similarly, Gary Arnold of the Washington Times summarized the film by writing, “Vivid apprehensions about death by collision, crushing, suffocation, and conflagration are confirmed in a matter of minutes and then enhanced by fears of drowning.” Finally, Melinda Miller of the Buffalo News paid this film the ultimate compliment by comparing it to a couple of horror classics when she wrote, “‘Daylight’ will do for tunnels what ‘Jaws’ did for the beach and ‘Psycho’ did for showers...

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