In the final scene of the Hollywood neonoir Chinatown, released in 1974, a character says to the disappointed private detective, “Forget it Jake, its Chinatown.” This enigmatic line is perhaps a comment on the manipulation of a vital resource, water, the key to the story, but implicitly it is a pessimistic metaphor for failure, for inability to change things, that falsehoods, deceit, and corruption would persist, that the truth might not be found, and that it’s futile to try to fix the problem.
Fake News and the Sussexes
