This paper examines Forest Lawn Mortuaries in Los Angeles as a case study in "dark tourism" and macabre marketing. Drawing on Forest Lawn's own promotional materials alongside scholarship on thanatourism and American funeral culture, the paper analyzes how the mortuary chain commodifies death through consumer segmentation, real estate pricing, class-based spatial organization, and cultural programming for the living. The paper situates Forest Lawn within broader trends in cemetery culture since the industrial revolution, connects it to Los Angeles's multicultural death traditions — including Mesoamerican heritage and Chicano Day of the Dead observances — and argues that celebrity, authenticity, and leisure have converged to make death a fully branded consumer experience in Southern California.
"Crypt For Sale: overlooking ocean by private owner" reads the ad. This classified post, floating in the sea of advertising in the megalopolis of Los Angeles, signals just how significant the mortuary market has become — combining funerary services with the delicacies of celebrity thanatourism. It is an understatement to argue that Southern California's cemetery real estate is at a premium. Forest Lawn Mortuaries, located throughout the Southland, reflect precision in consumer segmentation. Much like the planned communities of the San Fernando Valley surrounding them, Forest Lawn's "communities" find comfortable simulacra in the marketing, spatial organization, and classification of the deceased according to branding and segregation resonant with class identification.
Property ownership and its confining boundaries of memory and social contract merge at the most elite location at Forest Lawn — the plot section known as "God's Acre" (Forest Lawn, 2011). In Los Angeles, the prescription for autonomy as private and anonymity as public continues in death as in life. Eternally facing the heavens, the wealthy remain spatially closest to the skies above the smog-covered basin. Those unable or unwilling to pay such prices are sold on the Isle of "Contentment," situated parallel to the 134 freeway.
According to founder Hubert Eaton's proclamation titled "The Builder's Creed," the vision behind Forest Lawn's master plan actively countered conventional associations with death: fresh flowers are encouraged, reproductions of a "natural" landscape are maintained, lawn-mower-leveled markers are standard, and artificial flowers are banned (Forest Lawn, 2011). Immortality is marketed as nothing short of the beginning of a new life.
Forest Lawn's brochure offers a wide variety of "resting places" — a selection of interment property "in all price ranges." A virtual conglomerate in memorial property, the mortuary makes a killing in both ground property and in single and companion lawn and wall crypts, as well as ground plots and niches for cremated remains. Distinguished family memorials are also available to the discretionary client. Prices vary by location, as shown in the table below.
Memorial Property Starting Prices (with Endowment Care)
Covina Hills: $2,000 / $2,300 | Cypress: $2,000 / $2,300 | Glendale: $2,300 / $2,645 | Hollywood Hills: $2,300 / $2,645 | Long Beach: $3,600 / $4,140 | Cathedral City: $6,800 / $7,820
A down payment of 15% is required to maintain the property price within the mortuary's Endowment Care Fund. An agent "ready to assist" solicits the caption on the map of the Forest Lawn grounds, complete with home phone and pager numbers — your future "home" is just a phone call away.
"Everything for the final tribute has been provided . . . undertaking, cemetery, crematorium, churches and flowers may be made conveniently at one location resulting in saving of time and money" (Forest Lawn, 2011).
"Historical transformation of cemeteries since industrialization"
"LA's horror and Chicano roots fuel dark tourism"
"Ancient Olmec, Maya, and Aztec influences at Forest Lawn"
With more efficient technologies in medicine, casket construction, and online community, Forest Lawn Mortuaries markets to a broad demographic. Advertised as a space of interest and leisure for the living, ancient meets rock star in a cosmos of "authenticity" and celebrity — Los Angeles branded in perpetuity.
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