Mapping Gay L.A.: The Intersection of Place and Politics

Rating:
Summary: Shallow Study
Review: Moira Kenney's Mapping Gay L.A. leaves lots to be desired. If you lived there in the 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's, you'll realize pretty quickly that this is not a map of Gay L.A.; it's a flawed map of and history-lite of just several social service/community agencies prominent during those decades. She bases her obtuse, academic observations (just try reading the first two chapters--don't buy it--get it at the library) on interviews with just a few people from the various eras. It reads as if she just took the word of people she happened to know in L.A. as the end truth--without seeking further others who might help fill in the picture with depth.

That she's wrong on the geographical mapping of where West Hollywood is (and ends) and where the Gay and Lesbian Community Center (the largest of its kind ever, since the 70's to the present) was/is now located, would be too funny, if not so frustratingly incorrect. She's a scholar, right? And this is Mapping Gay L.A.?

For those looking for a richer book that would include descriptions and locations of a host of other GLBT groups and entitites operating during the times Kenney weakly attempts to chronicle, interviews with people who had first-hand experience about the life of gay bars, women's and men's bookstores, cafes, restaurants, what was happening in universities and colleges from the 60's through the 90's, what was happening on Sundays at the softball field, as Saturday night bar-dyes took to the public parks on Sunday afternoons in serious competition and community building all over Los Angeles County for decades, we'll just have to wait.