Today we had the amazing opportunity of seeing Warner Brother Studio’s Back Lot, along with its museum displaying costumes from movies and TV shows. As I walked through the displays, showing outfits from shows I had watched and loved- Smallville, Hart of Dixie, Gossip Girl- I was in awe and started to realize how strange it was that something I had watched on a screen 2,000 miles away was suddenly right before me. The tangibility of the pieces gave a reality to the shows that had previously been all fictional, a separate world. As I walked outside up to Rosewood City Hall, a setting in the show Pretty Little Liars, it felt odd and surreal. Here I was, standing in a place captured onscreen as a fictionalize universe.
The strangest of all was the upstairs of the museum, which had a giant display of artifacts and costumes used in the Harry Potter movies. There was the Marauders Map Harry used in the 3rd movie, the Basilisk fang from the 2nd, a Dementor’s cloak, Harry’s robes, and even the talking Sorting Hat, which a lady promptly placed on my head. Here I was, getting “sorted”: every child’s fantasy, including mine. The whole experience was an indulgence in fantasy, which, now that it was physically in front of me instead of plastered on a television set, seemed more real.The transition from watching a show or movie on screen to being on the set and seeing the props and costumes used was a magical experience, and I can better understand why hoards of people tour sets and get VIP passes behind the scenes. It brings them closer to these made up worlds which they have grown to love through a screen. It brings reality to the fantastical.
