PERSONALDEBRIS  

living outside of the united states for the last year or so i’ve missed all the action surrounding the telelvision show The O.C. but apparently it’s coming to dublin and the adverts have been running for a few weeks now. i finally checked out a couple of episodes and visited the website… haha… in short: it’s beverly hills 90210 repackaged and displaced just a further bit south.

but even funnier is the awkward combination of the language of soap-pulp drama combined with the glancing newness of southern california. really… like alluding to the “generations of the O.C.” (um, you mean newport beach) society? - haha… come on… how many “generations” can a city incorporated in 1906 have? i suppose in american contemporary culture two or three are all you really need to start a dynasty. still, there is something catchy about the show, and it does the southern california good life cliche so well. i especially like how everything is so new and removed from context - because even los angeles, with a cultural policy of erasure still has the mythic draw of its forgetfulness and hidden past to focus upon. in the O.C. - a place less known to the rest of the world, and hence carrying less cultural baggage - it’s like a tabula rasa of McMansions, self contained - just like the gated communities everyone lives in - an upscale suburban wasteland free from the cramping and endemic urban crises that plague the city of angels, but also devoid and untouched by the the aura of names like Mullholland, Huntington, Doheny, Chandler, or even the contemporary celebrity lifestyle of ‘Ho’-llywood. in this land without reference the fantasy of california can be (re)played out unencumbered- and this is the brilliance of the choice of location for the show. ironically, all the shooting for the tv program takes place in los angeles county - sometimes a little bit of it too close to home - and familiar territory.

there are some other points too, about the homogenous depiction of orange county (which is actually much more diverse as some people have pointed out) and the local positioning of real-estate hierarchies - with chino and riverside assigned white trash status, and “the LBC” as the source for thugs who pack heat 9mm style. but i revel in these caricatures as i suppose any southern californian would do. they go to TJ under the guise of going to the comic con, and the skate/surf lifestyle is ubiquitous in every coastal region in the state. plus, an ingenious selection of theme song: california, here we come - or is that… california, here i come… appropriation, the one lineage that is unabashedly fitting to the O.C.

this entry was posted 03/10/2004 at 5:05 pm and is filed under LOS ANGELES. you can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. you can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.