It feels good inside to know that you can make your mouth do that
February 12, 2017 3:55 PM Subscribe
Bag your face!! Who is 1982's ultimate Valley Girl?! Join us at the Valley Girl contest live at the Galleria in Encino to find out! Ohmygod!!!
OMG that is like my entire life encapsulated in one video
posted by Hermione Granger at 4:09 PM on February 12, 2017
posted by Hermione Granger at 4:09 PM on February 12, 2017
FACTOIDS: My parents moved me to Encino when I was 8 (ironically, the trucks moved our furniture the day JFK was assassinated and my first day in a new school turned into a 3-day mourning weekend); being located north of Ventura Blvd. (it was in the foothills south of the Blvd. where most of the celebrities lived; our middle-middle-class neighborhood was jokingly called the Slums of Encino) and close to Ralph Williams Ford (the first LA car dealer to be ridiculed by Johnny Carson, years before Cal Worthington - also football star/actor Merlin Olsen put his name on California's first Audi dealership nearby - Ventura Bld. in Encino was best known for its row of car lots before they were replaced by office buildings). When I moved there, the first fully-enclosed mall within 10 miles was over 5 miles to the west, Topanga Plaza in Canoga Park. When I went off to college in 1973, the Galleria had not yet been built; it opened in 1980, at which time I was living in a totally different part of L.A., over 25 miles away, and any attempts to mingle with Valley Girls would've gotten 25-year-old me in serious trouble.
But one thing MUST be stated about the Galleria - it was NOT in Encino. In fact, its official name located it in the next suburb over: THE SHERMAN OAKS GALLERIA. (Sherman Oaks later best known as the setting for It's Garry Shandling's Show).
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:09 PM on February 12, 2017 [9 favorites]
But one thing MUST be stated about the Galleria - it was NOT in Encino. In fact, its official name located it in the next suburb over: THE SHERMAN OAKS GALLERIA. (Sherman Oaks later best known as the setting for It's Garry Shandling's Show).
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:09 PM on February 12, 2017 [9 favorites]
Here we have the young, affluent White woman in her natural habitat: the Sherman Oaks Galleria.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:10 PM on February 12, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by pxe2000 at 5:10 PM on February 12, 2017 [3 favorites]
A co-worker from California told me that 'the Valley' was Los Angeles' version of Queens-racially, ethicnally, and class mixed but terninally uncool...and cool with it.
posted by jonmc at 5:18 PM on February 12, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 5:18 PM on February 12, 2017 [3 favorites]
I would go to a modern staging of this. With women in their mid-40s retro Valley girling. No kids allowed. Please tell me this exists.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:26 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:26 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
Well, there are over a dozen sub-suburbs within The Valley (from North Hollywood to Sylmar to Panorama City to Woodland Hills to Calabasas to San Fernando, the only one that is STILL an independent city of under 25 thousand in a meta-suburb of over 1.5 million, and each one has a semi-distinct personality... except Van Nuys; that place has NO personality. In fact, there are several smaller cities and larger suburbs (like Burbank) that consider it libelous when they're referred to as "part of the Valley".
...but anyone who remembers the 1980s accurately knows that "Real People" was one of the first Fake Reality TV Shows. (Come on, Fred Willard was one of the hosts?!?)
And it must be noted that the most famous of the L.A. radio personalities I wrote for was Gary Owens, who appeared in the clip, but I take no credit for the "slurpee list" joke and don't want to.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:36 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
...but anyone who remembers the 1980s accurately knows that "Real People" was one of the first Fake Reality TV Shows. (Come on, Fred Willard was one of the hosts?!?)
And it must be noted that the most famous of the L.A. radio personalities I wrote for was Gary Owens, who appeared in the clip, but I take no credit for the "slurpee list" joke and don't want to.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:36 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
I would go to a modern staging of this. With women in their mid-40s retro Valley girling. No kids allowed. Please tell me this exists.
It must. We have a have an honest-to-God outdoor roller rink in my city, and every summer night it's entirely populated by people in their fifties who all -- ALL -- still got the moves. They were imprinted at the right teenage year, and those skills remained within.
It must be the same for Valley girling. I am convinced of this.
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:58 PM on February 12, 2017 [4 favorites]
It must. We have a have an honest-to-God outdoor roller rink in my city, and every summer night it's entirely populated by people in their fifties who all -- ALL -- still got the moves. They were imprinted at the right teenage year, and those skills remained within.
It must be the same for Valley girling. I am convinced of this.
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:58 PM on February 12, 2017 [4 favorites]
I have this vague memory of the first season of Real People being sort of ok.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:48 PM on February 12, 2017
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:48 PM on February 12, 2017
Gary Owens rules everything for all time. Space Ghost 2020.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:24 PM on February 12, 2017
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:24 PM on February 12, 2017
Gag me with a spoon.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:43 PM on February 12, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:43 PM on February 12, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have this vague memory of the first season of Real People being sort of ok.
No.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:37 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
No.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:37 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
My ex-girlfriend and I used to do Valley Girl/Stoner Surfer when we were in college, generally to a blend of laughter/headshaking.
posted by Samizdata at 2:30 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by Samizdata at 2:30 AM on February 13, 2017
Interesting take, jonmc. I always heard the Valley described more like Westchester County: a lot of new money, families, and a tackier aesthetic.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:07 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by pxe2000 at 5:07 AM on February 13, 2017
Yea, coming from Orange County, I always went with: Valley == Westchester, Ventura == Connecticut, OC == Long Island (because we have the beaches and tacky rich people). I always felt sorry for Vals as a kid because living more than 15 minutes from the beach sounded like hell and it was always extra hot there.
posted by dame at 5:36 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by dame at 5:36 AM on February 13, 2017
If you want to cry, go to the 3:20ish mark and listen to what a judge says.
posted by Beholder at 6:46 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by Beholder at 6:46 AM on February 13, 2017
...but anyone who remembers the 1980s accurately knows that "Real People" was one of the first Fake Reality TV Shows. (Come on, Fred Willard was one of the hosts?!?)
Yeah, no.
It was the late 70s/early 80s, and America really was that quirky. Some of us miss it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:18 AM on February 13, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yeah, no.
It was the late 70s/early 80s, and America really was that quirky. Some of us miss it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:18 AM on February 13, 2017 [4 favorites]
(bona fides) I was born and raised in the valley. I was a teenager in the 80's.
The valley is super diverse. Huge areas of poverty and working class. Also, areas of enormous wealth and everything in between. My grandfather and his brothers owned a junk yard on Sherman Way in the 70s. Then he was a mechanic at Whiteman Airport in the 80s. I would have to say that the valley is the best place in L.A. other than (maybe) East L.A. to get real Oaxacan and Michoacan food.
There are areas of exclusively strip malls and there are the Japanese Gardens. There are 3 airports and there is a huge equestrian and huge agricultural areas. There are at least 3 - 4 year universities and at least 3 community colleges.
Michael Jackson had his mansion in Encino and the hills above Ventura Blvd are definitely full of multi-million dollar mansions. That said, I live in Burbank, and a house on my street 3 bed, 3 bath sold for over $1 million this year, so there's that.
Suburbs of the valley include:
Canoga Park
Northridge
Granada Hills
Chatsworth
Sun Valley
Pacoima
Sherman Oaks
Reseda
Panorama City
Van Nuys
Encino
Tarzana
Woodland Hills
Studio City
Universal City
North Hills
Sylmar
West Hills
North Hollywood
Valley Glen
Winnetka
Toluca Lake
Actual cities within the valley are Calabasas (pumpkin in Spanish), Glendale, Burbank and San Fernando.
I hate(d) being called a Valley Girl (I was goth, of course) and Moon Unit was never that kind of valley girl.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:01 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
The valley is super diverse. Huge areas of poverty and working class. Also, areas of enormous wealth and everything in between. My grandfather and his brothers owned a junk yard on Sherman Way in the 70s. Then he was a mechanic at Whiteman Airport in the 80s. I would have to say that the valley is the best place in L.A. other than (maybe) East L.A. to get real Oaxacan and Michoacan food.
There are areas of exclusively strip malls and there are the Japanese Gardens. There are 3 airports and there is a huge equestrian and huge agricultural areas. There are at least 3 - 4 year universities and at least 3 community colleges.
Michael Jackson had his mansion in Encino and the hills above Ventura Blvd are definitely full of multi-million dollar mansions. That said, I live in Burbank, and a house on my street 3 bed, 3 bath sold for over $1 million this year, so there's that.
Suburbs of the valley include:
Canoga Park
Northridge
Granada Hills
Chatsworth
Sun Valley
Pacoima
Sherman Oaks
Reseda
Panorama City
Van Nuys
Encino
Tarzana
Woodland Hills
Studio City
Universal City
North Hills
Sylmar
West Hills
North Hollywood
Valley Glen
Winnetka
Toluca Lake
Actual cities within the valley are Calabasas (pumpkin in Spanish), Glendale, Burbank and San Fernando.
I hate(d) being called a Valley Girl (I was goth, of course) and Moon Unit was never that kind of valley girl.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:01 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
FWIW, the co-worker who gave me that description was a young black guy from someplace called Moreno Valley.
/east coaster, California is an utter unknown to me
posted by jonmc at 8:22 AM on February 13, 2017
/east coaster, California is an utter unknown to me
posted by jonmc at 8:22 AM on February 13, 2017
You know these girls' daughters are tweeting about Beyoncé's pregnancy photos right now, right?
posted by pxe2000 at 8:51 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by pxe2000 at 8:51 AM on February 13, 2017
The Valley I live in isn't much like the impression I've been given of Westchester. Among other things, we're twice as large in population in almost half the square miles. As another comparison, we have half a million more people than Dallas (city proper), in 2/3 of the space. It's not any one thing, any more than Dallas is.
It is, to me, really stylistically different from the LA on the other side of the hills, and a lot of that is very 70s-80s Suburban in a way that you do not find in LA proper (or in the oldest parts of the valley, to be fair - Burbank exploded in the 30s-50s and even those neighborhoods that were the cookie-cutter tract developments of their day are bungalow-style, not ranch like where I live in Northridge). When you drive around neighborhoods in my part of the valley, you get the feeling you've been there before. Which you have, if you've watched movies or TV, especially in the 80s-90s.
(Tangent - we watched E.T. about six months ago, and during the sunset trick-or-treating scenes there's a long shot from the top of a street overlooking the valley and I sat up and elbowed my husband and said, "holy shit, that's just up north of Rinaldi Street, where [a guy he used to work for] lives!" Confirmed on IMDB, that scene was shot in Porter Ranch while that neighborhood was still mostly under construction.)
I didn't move to The Valley because it's The Valley, but I was a teenager in the 80s in a state far away and we were fascinated (I guess the whole country got fascinated) by one very specific place having this very specific culture, and now that I live here I get it. LA - Real LA - needs us here in order to be Real LA, and there is much effort put into expressing the ugh. Ugh, you want me to drive all the way to the valley? I had to go all the way to the valley to find a store that still had [thing they had to have], ugh. And we play the part, making sure not to talk the place up too much lest more people come and drive the rents up even higher.
And back atcha, too. You want me to go over the Sepulveda Pass on a weekday? I must like you a lot. I would literally vote for any measure that attempts to fix that nightmare bottleneck. Giant trebuchets on one side and catch-nets on the other? Fine, mail me my ballot and my helmet.
I can totally imagine being a teenager in that moment and how delicious it must have been to participate in the giant middle finger formation that was Valley culture. I would have been a goth here too, and I would have eye-rolled real hard, but also secretly still been like yeah, fuck all y'all snobs and posers over the hill.
(I still would like for someone to give me the skinny on what the Psychics are a front for, though. Basically every neighborhood block in the valley, even very nice ones, has one house - usually it's slightly nicer than the other houses on the street, like it's had an addition or maybe been torn down and rebuilt entirely, and usually high-end SUVs and sedans in the driveway - with a big painted sign for psychic readings. Is it just a weird tax write-off? Is it money-laundering for the Tarzana Mafia (I have no idea if there's a Tarzana Mafia). What would actually happen if you knocked on the door? What if you got it mixed up with the home daycare that also exists in every neighborhood and has remarkably similar signs?)
posted by Lyn Never at 10:02 AM on February 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
It is, to me, really stylistically different from the LA on the other side of the hills, and a lot of that is very 70s-80s Suburban in a way that you do not find in LA proper (or in the oldest parts of the valley, to be fair - Burbank exploded in the 30s-50s and even those neighborhoods that were the cookie-cutter tract developments of their day are bungalow-style, not ranch like where I live in Northridge). When you drive around neighborhoods in my part of the valley, you get the feeling you've been there before. Which you have, if you've watched movies or TV, especially in the 80s-90s.
(Tangent - we watched E.T. about six months ago, and during the sunset trick-or-treating scenes there's a long shot from the top of a street overlooking the valley and I sat up and elbowed my husband and said, "holy shit, that's just up north of Rinaldi Street, where [a guy he used to work for] lives!" Confirmed on IMDB, that scene was shot in Porter Ranch while that neighborhood was still mostly under construction.)
I didn't move to The Valley because it's The Valley, but I was a teenager in the 80s in a state far away and we were fascinated (I guess the whole country got fascinated) by one very specific place having this very specific culture, and now that I live here I get it. LA - Real LA - needs us here in order to be Real LA, and there is much effort put into expressing the ugh. Ugh, you want me to drive all the way to the valley? I had to go all the way to the valley to find a store that still had [thing they had to have], ugh. And we play the part, making sure not to talk the place up too much lest more people come and drive the rents up even higher.
And back atcha, too. You want me to go over the Sepulveda Pass on a weekday? I must like you a lot. I would literally vote for any measure that attempts to fix that nightmare bottleneck. Giant trebuchets on one side and catch-nets on the other? Fine, mail me my ballot and my helmet.
I can totally imagine being a teenager in that moment and how delicious it must have been to participate in the giant middle finger formation that was Valley culture. I would have been a goth here too, and I would have eye-rolled real hard, but also secretly still been like yeah, fuck all y'all snobs and posers over the hill.
(I still would like for someone to give me the skinny on what the Psychics are a front for, though. Basically every neighborhood block in the valley, even very nice ones, has one house - usually it's slightly nicer than the other houses on the street, like it's had an addition or maybe been torn down and rebuilt entirely, and usually high-end SUVs and sedans in the driveway - with a big painted sign for psychic readings. Is it just a weird tax write-off? Is it money-laundering for the Tarzana Mafia (I have no idea if there's a Tarzana Mafia). What would actually happen if you knocked on the door? What if you got it mixed up with the home daycare that also exists in every neighborhood and has remarkably similar signs?)
posted by Lyn Never at 10:02 AM on February 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
Oh my goodness, Real People! That was our favorite show when I was in Junior High. They were on the air for a year, I think, and then "That's Incredible" premiered on a competing network, and because they did more of the "Yoga master puts himself into a tiny box" thing, they overtook Real People, but I had a soft spot for Real People, for sure.
posted by xingcat at 10:11 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by xingcat at 10:11 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
FWIW, the co-worker who gave me that description was a young black guy from someplace called Moreno Valley.
Heh. Most people from Los Angeles think Moreno Valley consists of 100% white pickup trucks with equal parts Monster Energy Drink/Metal Mulisha stickers.
I've live in Echo Park, so yeah The Valley isn't as hip as Los Angeles, proper. But, the most bland part of Los Angeles is hundreds of levels up the scale from a rural suburb in freakin' Riverside Country like Moreno Valley.
posted by sideshow at 12:11 PM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
Heh. Most people from Los Angeles think Moreno Valley consists of 100% white pickup trucks with equal parts Monster Energy Drink/Metal Mulisha stickers.
I've live in Echo Park, so yeah The Valley isn't as hip as Los Angeles, proper. But, the most bland part of Los Angeles is hundreds of levels up the scale from a rural suburb in freakin' Riverside Country like Moreno Valley.
posted by sideshow at 12:11 PM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by waitingtoderail at 4:00 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]