The "Renourished" Beaches of Myrtle Beach: The Most Postmodern Beaches in America
At home, we’ve recently been watching Aerial America, a series that originally aired on the Smithsonian Channel. Each episode of Aerial America explores a different state in the United States by means of aerial photography and historical and cultural audio narration, a genuinely beautiful educational experience in which one can learn a great many new things about the history, culture, landmarks, and geological history of various regions in the United States and the distinctive aspects of each of the 50 states.
One of the segments in the episode on South Carolina (episode 11 of Aerial America) focuses on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which has now led me to conclude that the beaches of Myrtle Beach are the most postmodern beaches in America. The coastline of Myrtle Beach is full of white, sandy beaches that are some of the most picturesque in the nation. Yet, unknown to many South Carolina beachgoers, the beaches of Myrtle Beach are, according to Aerial America, being eroded at a rate of approximately eight inches per year. To replace the lost sand, a project is underway to pump wet sand from the ocean floor a short distance from the coastline, wash and clean it, and redeposit it along the beaches of Myrtle Beach, effectively recycling the sand to stabilize the erosion of the coastline, preserve the beaches as a tourist attraction, and safeguard the nearby beachfront properties that would otherwise eventually be in danger from the erosion of the coastline.
A common theme in postmodern philosophy is the preeminence of the narrative over the so-called reality. While the sandy beaches of Myrtle Beach may look natural, authentic, and pristine, in reality they are an elaborate albeit beautiful contrivance, an artificially constructed and narratively reinforced simulacrum of the “original” (in irony quotes) beaches in their “natural” (also in irony quotes) state. The natural/original beaches are eroding away, quite rapidly. In truth they eroded away long ago, the fact of which is concealed by the artificial beaches occupying their place. But that’s unacceptable for both economic and cultural reasons, and the end result of such erosion doesn’t fit with our mental image or the cultural and local narrative about what exactly Myrtle Beach is supposed to look like. The naturally eroding beaches of Myrtle Beach aren’t good enough for the city’s residents, officials, or tourists. So the beaches are rebuilt into a caricature of what a South Carolina beach ought to be, at least in the minds of those with the political power to reshape beaches in their own image, with all the exaggerated charm a caricature typically entails.
The artificial simulacrum of the beaches of Myrtle Beach call to mind the cultural observations of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, who held that all of America now has this artificial, constructed, narratively reinforced sense of authenticity, such that’s it’s generally impossible to separate the “reality” (if there ever was such a thing) from the artificial and constructed, which can be seen in everything from Disneyland and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles (one of Baudrillard’s favorite examples in his book Simulations), to America’s National Parks in which “nature” (in irony quotes) has been fenced in, propped up, and made visible to tourists from the safety and security of concrete walkways, nearby vending machines, and visitor stations, with nature itself being more of a facade of wilderness than than the long-lost genuine article.
In the end, does the distinction between a so-called natural beach and an artificially reconstructed (ahem, “renourished”) beach even matter all that much? Does it feel any different to walk on a beach of original sand versus a beach of recycled and purified sand? The sand still feels as warm. The sun above still shines as brightly. The nearby myrtle trees (or are they shrubs?) sway just as gently in the ocean breeze. Do these qualities allow the tourists to fully escape the sense that they are walking along plasticine beaches, a nostalgic dip of the toes into an ocean community whose authenticity faded long ago only to be replaced with its exact duplicate in an elaborate bait and switch ploy—a postmodern ploy conceived in the (praiseworthy and socially acceptable) name of conservation and preservation, but with tourism and property values at its core, motivations perhaps invisible even to those who hatched the scheme of “beach renourishment,” as it’s now called in Myrtle Beach—itself a laughably pale and transparently postmodern term—in the first place?
I have nothing whatsoever against the good people of Myrtle Beach, or against the beaches of Myrtle Beach themselves, however recycled and artificially reconstructed or “renourished” they may be. I don’t mean even to imply that the intentions behind beach renourishment are anything other than honorable. But it can’t be denied that artificially reconstructed beaches of recycled sand have an inescapably postmodern quality to them in their attempt to simulate what the long-since-lost original coastline and beaches of South Carolina once were. But, then again, don’t all of the states that make up the “Old South” of the United States have the same postmodern quality of being a mere simulacrum of what once was, something now lost a la Gone With the Wind? Today’s southern charm and hospitality themselves are merely postmodern simulacra of what they used to be, pale shadows of authentic life in the Old South masquerading as the real thing—bless their hearts.
For Further Reading:
Simulations by Jean Baudrillard
Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand (Images of America) by Susan Hoffer McMillan
Lost Myrtle Beach by Becky Billingsley
