Orange Curtain

The Orange Curtain is a local term for the border between Orange County and Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California.[1] It is a sometimes derogatory, sometimes lighthearted term, that is used to describe Orange County's more conservative and suburban population as compared to the more liberal and urban population of Los Angeles.[2][3][4]

The phrase is a wordplay on the so-called Iron Curtain which separated communist and capitalist Europe.[5]

According to Colleen Cotter, "Because [Orange County] has a reputation for political conservatism, people from Northern California especially worry about what happens 'Behind the Orange Curtain'."[4]

Karin Aguilar-San Juan describes the Orange Curtain as being between 1890 and 1950, as "the region's controlling elite also embraced a John Birch-style ideology of white supremacy and small government.[6]

The song "Orange County Girl" by Gwen Stefani uses this term, stating "I guess behind the orange curtain it's not so bad."

References

  1. Dickson, Paul (2006). Labels for Locals: What to Call People from Abilene to Zimbabwe (Revised ed.). HarperCollins. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-06-088164-1. Retrieved 2011-02-10. The term "Orange Curtain" is being used to mark those characteristics, real or imagined, that differentiate Orange County from Los Angeles and the rest of California.
  2. Overley, Jeff (January 4, 2008). "Are we on TV too much?". Orange County Register. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  3. http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/orange_curtain/
  4. 1 2 Cotter, Colleen (2001). Lonely Planet USA Phrasebook: Understanding Americans & Their Culture (Lonely Planet Phrasebooks). Hawthorn, Vic., Australia: Lonely Planet Publications. p. 199. ISBN 1-86450-182-0.
  5. Jennifer Lefurgy; Lang, Robert (2007). Boomburbs: the rise of America's accidental cities. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. p. 165. ISBN 0-8157-5114-1.
  6. Aguilar-San Juan, Karin (2009). Little Saigons: staying Vietnamese in America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. xii. ISBN 0-8166-5486-7.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.