Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 5

This week’s West Hollywood was incredibly amazing. On Wednesday Oct. 31, Halloween night, along the 1.5 mile strip of Santa Monica Blvd (started from Doheny to La Cienega) was full of people who dressed up in different characters crazily. The streets are closed so people could walk on the streets safely. It is always so exciting for me because I can see the most craziest, eccentric costume ever, amazing group costumes, fun costumes, etc. There are also fantastic live entertainment and food vendors. It’s West Hollywood Halloween Street Party and Carnival. It was like mission impossible to find parking; we couldn’t even find a spot to park until we found a valid for $20 on Robertson. As we started to walk toward Santa Monica Blvd, we saw so many people were walking toward to same direction just like us. My friends and me didn’t dress up for the parade but we still had a lot of fun seeing people dress up crazily. There are bars on the sidewalks where were full of people standing in line waiting. Many of the gay-oriented clubs/bars were located on Santa Monica Blvd in the area between Doheny to Farifax. It is easy to realize that West Hollywood itself is a place where most of the shops, restaurants, and bars are hanging with rainbow flags. This is an area where most of gays, bisexual feel comfortable to stay/live in. I have been to one of the gay bar –Abby before, it was a novelty to me. There are male strippers dancing on the stages, men are dancing with one another and kissing each other. My friends and I had fun that night and we met lots of friendly gay people. According to a 2002 demographic analysis, 41% of the city's population is made up of gay or bisexual men.

Speaking of gay people in the society, even Los Angeles is an area has widely acceptance of race/gender, in fact, most of the people still cannot accept gay in the society. People are scared of them. They are scared of their look, their body because people have stereotype that gay people have the high possibility to get AIDS. I saw people were making fun of gay people outside West Hollywood area. People are scared to shake hand with them because they think they might get AIDS by shaking hands with gays. Gay people in the society are still being treated unequally. Those irrational behaviors and thoughts are the reasons why gay people make West Hollywood as “their” area so they can feel comfortable to live in.