Even more than New York (City, for the rest of the state is rather nothing to write home about unless you’re Washington Irving), California represents a certain promised land. As such, those who flock there in search of refuge and reinvention as a result of sun saturation and “good vibes” often take it upon themselves to quickly adopt the notion of what “being Californian” has come to mean as a result of mass culture (thank you, Beverly Hills 90210 and The OC).
The latest and most prime example is Lana Del Rey and her cover of Sublime’s “Doin’ Time.” Taken from their 1997 self-titled album–the one that shot them firmly into the mainstream as representatives of “California culture”–the song details a man’s woe over his girlfriend cheating on him. Thus, his relationship makes him feel like he’s trapped in a prison a.k.a. “doin’ time.” And naturally, because she acts as men often do in matters of “monogamy,” he deems her “ornery, scandalous and evil.” Considering LDR has always been somewhat problematic as a feminist (even in her politically charged musings on Lust for Life), it makes sense that she would opt for a song so rife with anti-feminine statements (one is surprised she hasn’t broached on Guns n’ Roses “I Used to Love Her” already). Remade in honor of Bill Guttentag’s new documentary about the band, it’s indicative of a larger issue of grafting not just on Del Rey’s part, but the world as a whole.
While, of course, California isn’t going to turn down the profitable business of scamming transplants into believing it’s all weed and tacos, the fact is, the state’s mythology is the greatest lie ever told. That people choose to ignore that and wear their 40 oz. to Freedom tees like a badge of honor they earned speaks to an even more irritating phenomenon: no one cares that it’s a lie, for they want to believe in it so badly that, for them, it becomes true anyway. They’ve risked too much in coming to the Golden State, after all. Have been brainwashed for so long about its panacea-like qualities that to leave would be utterly unthinkable. So they do what Shakespeare calls “doth protest too much,” constantly talking about how beautiful the landscape is, how freeing the “energy,” how “chill” the people (the greatest euphemism for dumb and complacent ever invented).
Del Rey, who has fostered a career on the aesthetic of California despite being from New York (specifically Lake Placid, before helping to gentrify Williamsburg and then probably experiencing too much PTSD in that town, therefore now rarely returning), is but the latest manifestation of how “effortless” people look to what it means to “be Californian.” Maybe they still hear quintessential Cali girl Cher Horowitz’s speech about the “Haiti-ans” in relation to a dinner party her father had in which some unexpected guests show up, prompting her to realize, “After a while, it was like: the more, the merrier.” Would that people could stop feeling that way about their adoption of California “culture.” Or rather–when it is peddled as Sublime, skateboarding and San Diego–anti-culture.
In contrast, no one is exactly lining up to embody the “spirit of New York,” save for the occasional donning of a Yankees hat or in relishing from afar the suspicious amount of success finagled by singers and rappers from the Bronx (incidentally, LDR spent plenty of time there during her Fordham years, so maybe something in that water rubbed off). Obviously, it’s because the “soft appeal” of California is more inviting to the average person. The one who still wants to feel like they’re making a drastic change in their lives in moving from across the country without the dry anal rape that New York has no qualms with providing. But this is what makes California worse, for it will do the same to you, but passive aggressively. And you won’t even realize it’s happening until it’s too late and as a result of spending years listening to songs like “West Coast” instead of heeding movies like Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Drive.
Del Rey is an amazing talent with, yes, let’s call it the voice of a generation (in turn, this begat the voice of a new generation, Billie Eilish–who is actually from California and it shows). Yet it is her constant exemplification of what it means for California to perpetually be repackaged and repurposed as an end all, be all source of liberty based on a 90s perception that no longer exists that makes actual Californians kind of cringe.
