“She got a whole bunch of nothing in there,” Frank Zappa sings in “Valley Girl,” his 1982 novelty tune and the original source for a certain Southern Californian, well-to-do, teen-bimbo stereotype. Zappa, known for his satirical, experimental compositions, had been inspired to record the song with his kid, who imitated her private-school classmates on the recording. Referring to the region most associated with this vacuous figure, Zappa told David Letterman, “It’s perhaps one of the most disgusting places on the face of the Earth, and I wrote this song about the values of the people in the San Fernando Valley.”
Such scorn remains a common reaction to the Valley-girl archetype. She no longer has to live in California or even be an adolescent, but she still represents a particular kind of frivolous suburbanite encouraged by a consumer society to do little more than shop, party, and tan. Other examples include Cher from Clueless, Elle from Legally Blonde, the Kardashians, and any number of Real Housewives. Yet the Valley girl has always been an overly easy target—and one film, released shortly after the Zappa single, understood that… read more >
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