Thursday, 10 September 2009
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Currently
L.A. Story
By Steve Martin, Victoria Tennant, Richard E. Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marilu Henner
see relatedThe Stigma of L.A.
Following the train of thought on my last post, I want to blog more about what that girl I knew from high school told me—specifically all those bad things she said about Los Angeles.
She’s not the only person I know with a chip on her shoulder about this city.
When I went to visit Amanda up in Seattle, she noted to me that a couple of her friends were “a little weird about people from L.A.”
“They kind of don’t like L.A,” is what she told me.
And when she introduced me to them as “her friend from College.” I heard them sigh a collective groan. (because they knew she went to school in L.A.)
They were all really nice to me afterwards so I didn’t think too much of it, but I always thought the groan was a little weird.
My friend, Troy, also has something against L.A.; he refuses to visit me, despite my many offers and invitations. He says the people here are “too fake and pretentious.” (I hope he doesn’t mean me) I asked him how he knew that since he’d never been to L.A. before and he said that he met a lot of people from there and “they were all like that…..no offense.”
Personally, I don’t know why all these stigmas are still around. When you’re young and don’t know any better, sure I can see how you might believe certain exaggerations about certain places….!
Ex. When I was ten years old (and lived on Oahu), someone told me that everyone on the mainland, US was taller than everyone in Hawaii, so I believed that everything there was built to meet their much-taller-than-I-will-ever-be needs. Imagine my pleasant surprise to find that was not the case!
….but once we reach a certain age, shouldn’t we all know better than to generalize? (I’m talking to YOU, Troy) Shouldn’t we know better than to judge people by their race, gender, creed, or political affiliation? Or more importantly….where they live?
…..not to put anyone down, but that’s just a very “L.A.” thing to do.
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Comments (5)
You tell 'em Stuart!
Actually, I have heard that before and I think it stems from L.A.'s image as the heart of Hollywood and the Beverly Hills/Brentwood stereotype. Las Vegas gets a lot of it too.Of course it's wrong to generalize, but there will always be the friendly jokes. I find that one of the scenarios that leaves me most dumbfounded is when people joke about a stereotype, and then actually change their behavior based on it. I personally make jokes like "the groan" as often as possible, but rarely treat people differently because of it.
That said, LA absolutely has a cultural distinctiveness that is unappealing to many, including myself. Actually, I find the bay area to have a lot of the same traits, but it's most pronounced in LA. Before I go on, let me emphasize that I am not generalizing. I am referring to trends I have observed and my reasons for believing peoples dislike for LA is not imagined.
Features I consider most prominent and annoying, are (1) an intense consciousness of trends and what is no longer cool. Coupled with that is a sense that California is the most "in" place and other places are not only not with it, but should get with it. I have personally observed on numerous occasions LA (and Bay Area) people complaining about DC clubs and emphatically exclaiming how they would never play this kind of music in California. Notably, CA people are the only ones I have heard of speak this way. But that's just my anecdote. To follow up with another anecdote, during the time I have spent in Southern California, I've gotten the distinct impression that if you don't dress up, people will make you feel it. East coast cities also seem to take this very seriously. In the PNW, by contrast, it is perfectly acceptable to dress almost as casually as in Hawaii most of the time. Used clothes is popular, and there are large segments of the population who deliberately ignore national fashion trends. I have felt like a bum in LA wearing what I'd feel fine wearing in Portland and some parts of Seattle.
(2) LA and the Bay Area have an overwhelmingly urban culture, which they share with other large metropolises in the country. This comes at the expense of an appreciation for the outdoors common to other regions. It's easy to say people in LA love the outdoors as much as everyone else, but in my experience, people do not take advantage of it at nearly the same rate. To many CA people I meet, there is only one kind of fun on a friday night: Pregame, Bar, Club. When I went home two summers ago, CA acquaintances of mine could not possibly understand (over the phone) that I spent my Saturday night home reading because I'd gone hiking earlier in the day and was tired. Why wasn't I out drinking on a Saturday night? Why wasn't I at a club? ... In the PNW, obviously people drink and club, but other interests are more acceptable. There is more of an appreciation for counterculture and subculture, and less pressure to conform.
No one can articulate it definitively, though I'm sure people have tried elsehwere, but we definitely have some understanding of what it means when a person describes another as, "very LA." "He's very LA these days." The image that comes to my mind is almost metrosexual - well groomed, well dressed, drink in hand at some fancy as fuck bar (not a dive), tipping well, and talking about how some lame person keeps following them around or how poorly someone else is dressed or how they got "soo drunk" this one time. An archetype, perhaps, but it means something to people when it's said. Those environments are what I personally can't stand, anywhere, and it has been my experience that LA exemplifies that.
That all said, as much as I dont want to live there, I'd take a job there if I had to. (I would not take a job in Michigan, e.g., no matter how much I had to.) Why? Because I know it's a big city and not everyone is like I described. Unfortunately, with the exception of perhaps you alone, I feel that my Hawaii friends who moved to LA have become inaccessible to me in a small way that has not happened with people who moved to the PNW or other smaller cities. We're still cool, but something's just different.
@C7 - It's true that there are a lot of people that you just described living in L.A. (have you been hanging around my cousins, lately? They live in L.A. and are exactly like this) But I think you can find people like this in just as much abundance (percentage-wise) in HAWAII as you can in Los Angeles. It all just depends on who you hang out with. (I could name a few people from High school)
You probably won't find them in Michigan, though (but then again, never been there)
By the way my invitation to visit/crash at my place is also extended to you, sir. I promise that my friends are of a different breed in L.A.
P.S. - I remember thinking that "very L.A." referred to people who were hollywood agent-types; fast-talking, aramani-wearing and melodramatic. But now it seems like it refers to those metrosexual hipster-types, doesn't it? Weird how stuff like that changes....!
yeah, i hate how people equate LA people to Hollywood types or rich privileged kids.
Heck yes, this is my kind of post.
Part of the problem also is that it's hard to meet new people in LA who are likeminded because this city is so private, and a lot of that has to do with the transportation system.
In any case, LA is far too large for anyone to make the generalization that 17 million people are fake and pretentious. I think only a handful of thousands that give us a bad name and are all in people's faces.