Screaming in the Suburbs
A literal metaphor
“There were screams. They were loud — piercing even double-paned windows. And they were constant.”
-Los Angeles Times, “‘Fast & Furious’ coaster screams rattle quiet neighborhood: ‘Like someone is getting murdered’,” July 24th, 20261.
Like a lot of suburban communities, the San Fernando Valley has been home to considerable dysfunction. Despite the white picket fences and middle-class nuclear families (or perhaps because?), the Valley continues to live out a history of stark gender roles, terrifying racial politics, and aggressive homogeny. These patterns produce a day-to-day rhythm that I’m always trying to analyze and understand further, both within this newsletter and as a valley girl2 myself.
The idea or even aesthetic of suburban horror is not new; but when I read that residents in Toluca Lake3 were hearing ambient screams in their suburban backyards, I had to ask myself if life was indeed imitating art.
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