Popular culture in the age of white flight : fear and fantasy in suburban Los Angeles / Eric Avila.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Avila, Eric, 1968-

Series:

American crossroads ; 13.

American crossroads ; 13

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Popular culture--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.

Popular culture.

Public spaces--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.

Public spaces.

White people--Race identity--California--Los Angeles.

White people.

Suburban life--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.

Suburban life.

Suburban life in popular culture--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.

Suburban life in popular culture.

Migration, Internal--California--Los Angeles Region--History--20th century.

Migration, Internal.

African Americans--California--Los Angeles--Social conditions--20th century.

African Americans.

City and town life--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.

City and town life.

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Civilization--20th century.

Los Angeles (Calif.).

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Social conditions--20th century.

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (330 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2004.

Summary:

Los Angeles pulsed with economic vitality and demographic growth in the decades following World War II. This vividly detailed cultural history of L.A. from 1940 to 1970 traces the rise of a new suburban consciousness adopted by a generation of migrants who abandoned older American cities for Southern California's booming urban region. Eric Avila explores expressions of this new "white identity" in popular culture with provocative discussions of Hollywood and film noir, Dodger Stadium, Disneyland, and L.A.'s renowned freeways. These institutions not only mirrored this new culture of suburban whiteness and helped shape it, but also, as Avila argues, reveal the profound relationship between the increasingly fragmented urban landscape of Los Angeles and the rise of a new political outlook that rejected the tenets of New Deal liberalism and anticipated the emergence of the New Right. Avila examines disparate manifestations of popular culture in architecture, art, music, and more to illustrate the unfolding urban dynamics of postwar Los Angeles. He also synthesizes important currents of new research in urban history, cultural studies, and critical race theory, weaving a textured narrative about the interplay of space, cultural representation, and identity amid the westward shift of capital and culture in postwar America.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Chocolate Cities and Vanilla Suburbs: Race, Space, and the New "New Mass Culture" of Postwar America

2. The Nation's "White Spot": Racializing Postwar Los Angeles

3. The Spectacle of Urban Blight: Hollywood's Rendition of a Black Los Angeles

4. "A Rage for Order": Disneyland and the Suburban Ideal

5. Suburbanizing the City Center: The Dodgers Move West

6. The Sutured City: Tales of Progress and Disaster in the Freeway Metropolis

Epilogue. The 1960's and Beyond

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-297) and index.

ISBN:

9786612358470

9781282358478

1282358472

9780520939714

0520939719

9781597348218

159734821X

OCLC:

70720713