Simulacra and salvation

Besides my lifelong hobby of motion sickness, I have many reasons for not attending theme parks—long lines, expensive food, pushy people, etc. But this all changed last week. In Buenos Aires, Ladies and Gentleman, I found hope.

Tierra Santa, or Holy Land, is a Judeo-Christian theme park set in the image of ancient Jerusalem. The park has no rides and hardly any lines. It hasn’t height requirements or ominous warnings for epileptics. Instead, its main attraction is a forty-foot animatronic Jesus that resurrects, every hour, to a crowd of emotional Argentines.

And this was all I needed to know.

Visually, the park is one part Disney’s Aladdin, one part Gladiator—with a cartoonish display of fake palm trees, diminutive minarets, and faux-limestone colonnades. But don’t let that fool you: Tierra Santa is taken quite seriously by its guests, many of whom are nuns and priests and other god-fearing gentry. Visitors of the park can witness some of the Bible’s greatest moments in little over an hour; milestones such as The Last Supper—housed in an intimate, chapel-like setting—and The Birth of Christ, which takes place in the iconic manger, alongside sedate cows and fly-by cherubs. The main event, however, is the Godzilla-sized Christ rising from the calvary mound. With Halleluiah blasting from the PA system, the rotating Savior greets Jerusalem and its guests like any proper emcee. Many are visibly stirred by this. They cry; they sing; they shower Him in bursts of digital flash like some ecumenical paparazzi. Others, such as myself, are quietly incredulous, wondering if this is for real.

And it is. Everywhere you turn there are life-sized effigies of Jesus, The Virgin Mary, Pontius Pilot, and dozens of nameless Roman soldiers—all staging important and surprisingly photogenic chapters from the Good Book. There is also a Wailing Wall, with its cracks and crevices packed tight with written prayers, and a laser show detailing the Pink-Floydish workings of creation. Although Islam is understandably absent, as its laws strictly forbid these forms of representationalism, the park does allow for other players in the piety market such as Gandhi and Martin Luther, who have their own corners in J-town. It seems that the park has something for everyone—even those who just want to chow down on some baklava and catch a quick belly dancing show (we did both). In a way, Tierra Santa is the praying-man’s equivalent to one-stop shopping, an all-you-can-believe buffet of religious iconography—and it will only cost you about five US dollars.

But the park is more than just the sum of its parts. Tierra Santa is officially holy. Having received endorsement from the Roman Catholic Church, the theme park is not only promoting fun, but also promulgating faith. In its quest for verisimilitude, Tierra Santa has its employees dress in Middle Eastern-like attire: Palestinian headscarves, genie pants, rustic sandals, and the occasional sword. This makes for a strangely immersive experience—you feel as if you are navigating the collective imaginary of Christianity, with a little Indiana Jones mixed in for adventure.

But clearly, historical accuracy isn’t one of the park’s virtues—and I’d venture to say that Tierra Santa isn’t all that popular amongst biblical archeologists. The park’s secular neighbors are an airport, a water park, and a driving range. Planes come tearing through the sky at apocalyptic decibels, seconds away from landing;[1] splashing and screaming can be heard from the pools just beyond the creation cave; and large, golf ball-catching nets line Jerusalem’s eastern border. After a short hike up Golgotha, the centerpiece of the park, you’re treated to a panorama of ancient Jerusalem and these anachronistic hinterlands. It makes you think this gravel-strewn city[2] is under siege by the encroachment of time, and that you stand on one of its last dogmatic strongholds. And although Noah’s ark is sadly missing from the park’s exhibitions, at that height, overlooking the churning madness of Buenos Aires, you begin to feel that Tierra Santa is the ark itself, adrift in some other world, bent on its own preservation.

While it didn’t make me more or less a believer, Tierra Santa did give me a lot to think about—and just in time for the holiday season! I’ve never seen any quite like it and don’t think I will ever again. That said, whether its miniature golf or God, we all have our fixes, right? Some just prefer it with a little extra kitsch on top.

[1] While writing this I realized that theoretically, with the right seat and timing, it’s possible to be greeted by a towering Jesus when landing in Buenos Aires. Now that’s just amazing.
[2] This may or may not be the park’s most high-concept exhibit, challenging at every step the would-be, blog-writing heckler—the heckler who is without sin, who is without his own quixotic flaws—to cast the first stone at Tierra Santa.