In Class Writing - Dog Town

I believe that this movie is both an ethnographic study and a work of entertainment because they are both discovering the entire skateboarding scene, however, it’s interesting to watch and it’s necessarily just a documentary.. you get into the lives of the skateboarders and into their stories – therefore, a good source of entertainment. The interview subjects in this film are obvious, the skateboarders; they’re important because they can talk about their subculture perfectly because they are a part of it. They move the story along very well because it’s about their lives and they can really tell it how it is and how they feel about the skateboarding scene. In this movie they had so many attitudes, beliefs, rituals, etc that I found very interesting for their subculture which helps develop it. Some of the things include, believing in freedom out to have a good time, using the moves of their favorite surfers to our skateboards, and their devotion to style – always went big! One of their rituals and beliefs that style was everything, if someone had a bad style they were messing up their scene. Artifacts include skateboards, surfboards, their surf shop, where they skated, etc.

I like the structure of the piece a lot. It goes from surfing to skateboarding, which is an interesting tie because skateboarding and surfing are both sports of agility and balance. I found it interesting that these skateboarders were all about surfing and then found a new sport to enjoy.

I didn’t really hold any stereotypes about skateboarders because in high school, my best guy friend was friends with a lot of them so we would always go to this guy’s apartment downtown, which was down the street from the local skate park and hang out. I mean, people assume that skateboarders are big drug addicts and into graffiti and causing a scene, and some of these hold true for the guys I met, however, how many people are out there partying having a good time? Not just skateboarders!

Maybe it’s just me, but I always believe people when they tell me stories.. therefore, I believe the truth in the story of the skateboarders in this movie. When the Pacific Ocean Park was shut down and ruined, it hit me emotionally because they once traveled there so many times to have fun and then all of the sudden it was ruined. “Everything that was wonderful and fantastic was put to death in this decrepit way…” really hits me because I would be so upset if somewhere I loved to go and had so many memories in was torn to pieces, I’d be devastated. I really like in the movie how they compared the surfers to the skateboarders and how the surfing helped them become skateboarders, because the two really are very closely related except for the fact that one’s on water and one on land.