Surf's Up

So, Pamela Anderson pretty much ruined it for me. Okay, granted I grew up in "So-Cal", which IS known for its big waves, bomb beaches, and blonde bombshells, but SERIOUSLY I'd lived there all my 20+ years, and I haven't seen Pam or Carmen save squat!

I've had several run in's with one particular famous question that has spawned itself from so many movies and television shows, and it haunts me still to this day. One such incident, I will never forget. Back in 2000, I went on a cruise with my Mom. It was just she and I, and I was 14, so hanging out with my Mom every day wasn't the coolest thing to do. I decided to venture out and get involved with the groups/activities they had for kids my age on the boat. I think I was the only kid from California, and everyone else was from the mid-west or the east coast. Immediately, upon hearing where I was from, that dreaded question began to spew from their corn-fed little mouths like the milk from the utters they pulled back home: "So, do you surf?" Ugh! Stab me in my impressionable, self-conscious, little, 14-year-old heart! My reply was always, "Um, Er, well. . . NO, I don't surf. . . " and their looks were always the same: ones of disappointment and confusion.

Now, there is a lot of pressure put on a girl at that age to do, and be, and look a certain way. Growing up in So-Cal, there definitely is a prominent "beach" culture that presides over the whole of San Diego, but it's not all there is. Granted, I grew up going to the beach all the time, spending the days lounging on the sand. My summers were spent participating in programs that prepared young kids throughout SD to become lifegaurds, and ultimately spend the rest of there lives at the beach, but that wasn't ME. While I'd surfed before, it wasn't something I wanted to identify myself with, especially when it was simply another added pressure on young citizens of San Diego, CA. For a young person, I was pretty subversive when it came to what was considered "cool". I've always had a sense of skepticism when it comes to fads and trends, and even at that age I felt that the surf culture was simply a phase, and I knew there were other things out there.

I felt that the ideal of a female San Diegan, was placed in a thin, bronzed, blonde, blue-eyed, big breasted body, prancing down the shores of the Pacific with a surfboard in tote. She probably had some studly surfer/lifegaurd boyfriend and they lived happily ever after as they paddled out into the sunset. . .right, right? NOT. You can imagine my feelings of alienation, being a chubby, hairy, disproportionate mexican girl, with no knack for surfing or any desire to immerse myself in the sand. I had no word in my vocabulary that sounded like "Shaka, Bra" or "Gnarly, Dude!" I mean, while I have been known to throw in an "Awesome" or a "Stoked" or "Rad", those words have been added in the last few years mostly to play off of the novelty that people may see me as, rather than what they really represent.

So what then has perpetuated this stereotype? Why are upper/middle class kids from SD being pigeon-holed into this 'character' that doesn't always play a part in this particular regional location? I can only think back to the days of "Malibu Barbie" and "Saved by the Bell", when kids all over the world were buying up Ken and Barbie boxes, (along with their matching boards, bathing suits, and sunblock) in order to have a piece of that California lifestyle! Girls would swoon over Zack Morris, the mischevious, blonde heart-throb from Bayside High, who was a supposed 'surfer dude'. (But, seriously, when did we actually see Zack surf??) Or, one of my personal faves: the famous, brain dead, surf dude-- Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", who donned the famous uniform that surf rats still wear today: a mexican poncho (from that gnarly, Baja surf trip), checkerboard Vans slip-ons, and a sleek pair of Ray-Bans. And the icing on the cake is when Kelly Slater, pro-surf god, had a stint on popular television show "Baywatch" which glamorized the beach lifestyle, and made Pamela Anderson the poster girl for California girls all over. This pretty much sealed the deal, and forced the final nail into my beachwood coffin.(Yikes!)

This image has been manipulated and reproduced over in over in different types of media, but it doesn't accurately represent the entire California population. There is a marginalized amount of people from Southern California who are in fact interested in other things than the morning surf report. There is a sense of culture that extends past the pretty girls and the endless palm trees. There is art, and intellect, and a community of people that are often times stifled by the heat of the so-cal sun and the sterotypes that stem from it. While I call SD home, and I love it dearly, I prefer to detach myself from it in order to see it for what it is, and see myself for who I am apart from it.

Pamela Anderson? She can bite me!