Film
Nothing has quite influenced and reflected the American zeitgeist like the Hollywood film industry. And it’s easy to immerse yourself in that starry vibe… heck, it’s right under your feet as you stroll along the Hollywood Walk of Fame with its 2,600-plus entertainment names embedded in the sidewalk.
Tour historic studios like Paramount or get a behind-the-scenes look at the Dolby Theatre, home of the Academy Awards. Universal Studios Hollywood combines a working studio with a theme park, where attractions riff on everything from Harry Potter to The Simpsons to The Walking Dead.
In 2019, Hollywood itself will take a bow as L.A. welcomes the Academy Museum, a six-story, 50,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the art and science of moviemaking. Designed by Renzo Piano, it will also feature a theater venue, restaurant and café, along with a huge glass-covered sphere offering panoramic views of the Hollywood Hills.
As you travel throughout the state, you can discover hundreds of other popular filming locations, such as Santa Barbara, known for films like Sideways and 20th Century Women.
Television
Walk in the Louboutin-heeled footsteps of the Real Housewives of Orange County and Beverly Hills, For Better or Worse, or join a live studio audience for the taping of a talk show, game show or sitcom (they’re free!). You can also grab a selfie at a location you’ve seen a thousand times on TV, like the Venice Beach boardwalk, Lover’s Point Park in Monterey County from Big Little Lies, Big Sur’s Bixby Bridge, or Alamo Square in San Francisco, recognizable from its role in the opening credits of Full House.
Music
California is the birthplace of music scenes as diverse as the state itself: the twangy Bakersfield Sound (Merle Haggard, Buck Owens), West Coast Jazz (Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker), Surf Music (the Beach Boys, Dick Dale), Punk (Green Day, X) and Hip-Hop (Tupac Shakur, Kendrick Lamar). Who’s going to join those names in music immortality? You just might catch that act at such legendary nightspots as the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, The Casbah in San Diego, and The Fillmore in San Francisco.
You’ll find the hottest acts in the world headlining the state’s big-time music and arts festivals, such as Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the Inland Empire and Outside Lands in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Or just stock up on vinyl, DVDs and band merchandise at one of the all-time great record stores, Amoeba Music, with locations in Hollywood, San Francisco and Berkeley.
For some international flavor, fans of K-Pop and J-Pop can find music, merchandise, festivals and, yes, karaoke in L.A.’s Koreatown and Japantown in San Francisco. The City by the Bay is also the site of the long-running musical revue Beach Blanket Babylon, famous for its fantastic costumes and topical humor. A bit less flamboyant but with music cred as deep as a vinyl groove, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles features historic memorabilia, interactive exhibits and educational programs covering a wide range of musical genres. It also schedules live performances, films and guest speakers.
Surf & Skate
From Gidget to the Z-Boys, surf and skate culture has been personified by Californians. From the language and styles to the design of the boards themselves, California has made surfing and skateboarding its own. Southern California beaches, including Huntington, Manhattan, Hermosa and Oceanside, host some of the world’s biggest surf competitions, while up in Northern California, the Mavericks big wave competition in Half Moon Bay is the stuff of legend. Los Angeles has also been the site of events like the Summer X Games and Olympian Shaun White’s Air + Style skate/snowboarding/music extravaganza.
For those interested in the history of the sport, there are surf museums in Oceanside, Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz. If you want to take a piece of surf culture home with you, surf and skate shops in locales like Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and La Jolla serve up the goods – ranging from board shorts to the latest board designs – with signature California style.
Geeking Out
With its finger firmly on the pulse of pop culture, San Diego’s multiday Comic-Con is the place to be for fans of sci-fi, fantasy, graphic novels and comic books; it features celebrity panels, film screenings, awards presentations and a massive merchandise concession area. A sister event, WonderCon, takes place in Anaheim, while the like-minded Alternative Press Expo (APE) is held in the Bay Area.
Museum fanboys and fangirls will want to take note of include San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, and the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, dedicated to the creator of the Peanuts comic strip. In search of Big Foot? Look no further than the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum in the mountain town of Willow Creek. It holds a huge collection of all things related to that mysterious forest furry.
Fashion
What’s hip? What’s hot? Just check out the fashions – and the fashionistas – you’ll find on renowned shopping streets like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Robertson Boulevard and Melrose Avenue in L.A., and Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district was once the epicenter for the Summer of Love, now it offers six blocks of shopping bliss including delightfully eclectic boutiques.
The fashion-forward set should also look to see what’s on exhibit at the FIDM Museum and Galleries in Los Angeles. Curated by the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, the rotating shows include an annual salute to motion picture costume designers, featuring pieces from top films.
Disney
No pop culture figure has been more ubiquitous than Mickey Mouse, who first arrived in the public consciousness in 1928. His popularity, along with that of the innumerable Disney heroes and heroines who followed him, has remained undiminished. You can feel the Disney magic firsthand at Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort, Disney’s California Adventure and Downtown Disney, an entertainment, shopping and dining complex.
In San Francisco’s Presidio is the Walt Disney Family Museum, which covers the life and times of Walt Disney himself, and also offers film screenings, classes and presentations with animators.
Pop Art
The East Coast can claim folks like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein but the Golden State is no slouch when it comes to Pop Artists. You’ll find the colorful works of California artists such as Wayne Thiebaud, Edward Kienholz, Richard Pettibone and Edward Ruscha at The Broad and LACMA in Los Angeles, MCASD in San Diego, and the SFMOMA in San Francisco.
Bright, bold murals are also a sign of the times, particularly in concentrated collections at San Diego’s Chicano Park and Balmy Alley in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Parades and Festivals
California hosts three of biggest and wildest Pride Festivals, taking it to the streets in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval is also justly famous for its over-the-top outlandishness and is billed as the largest Halloween party in the world, with hundreds of thousands in attendance. In San Francisco, the annual Bay to Breakers run (first staged in 1912) is a competitive race, but for most of its participants it’s more like West Hollywood’s costume party. Another well-established annual event, New Year’s Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena gets a cheeky tweak with Doo Dah Parade. This fall event features highly creative and zany entries, followed by post-parade parties.
This is just a sampling of California’s role in pop culture; to really understand it, come see for yourself!