The Nightlife of the American Dream

Nightlife often conjures up associations with pleasure and escape from everyday life, but my students really dig into how night and nightlife has long been contested. And today I want to discuss a space that many Americans do not know anything about: Los Angeles' sunset strip. In 1971 on a warm Saturday evening, an orderly queue began to form just after 8.30 p.m. in front of a music venue near Beverly Hills, California. These folks at this nightclub were had neatly presented hair, neatly presented attire. They looked like a mother's dream or orange county safe. The neon marquee above their their head also felt very out of place on the sunset strip.