Dog-town and Z Boys

Surf shop created a new type of surfboard, with a new attitude and a new design to the typical surfbord

Jeff Ho and company created a surf team and changed their look from the typical Hawaiian, beachy look

The POP closed in 1967

It was a place on the ocean where you could ride rides, eat carnival food, and be by the ocean and the beach

In 1965, skateboarding crashed as it was becoming popular

Larry Burdleman redefined a new way to ride waves, by touching the waves as he rode them

All of the skateboarders during this time watched this video and would do everything they could to copy what Larry Burdleman did on water

Style was the most important thing when it came to skateboarding and surfing

All the surfers and skateboarders were unique because they all had their own style and this is what made all of them come together on the zephyr teams, each one of them was unique in their own way

Because of the California drought of the 1970s, skateboarders began to skate in empty swimming pools that resulted from the drought, developing vertical skateboarding

The urothene wheel was created to help skateboarders with their skating and not break their wheels or wipe out as easy with the clay wheels skateboarders were accustomed to


I feel like the piece is entertainment and an ethnography. It looks at the surfing and skateboarding culture in dogtown as a whole and not a little part of the cultures. The movie gives you details about the culture, such as the smell of the town, where they surfed and skated, when they surfed and skated, etc. The movie gave you an in depth look at these particular cultures.

The people that are interviewed are people that were part of the cultures during that time frame. They gave you an in depth look at how skateboarding was when they were in the culture, what the atmosphere was like, where you'd go to surf or skate, etc. The interviewers gave you a better understanding of the culture and made you feel like you were a part of their culture with how descriptive they were with their details.

The attitudes of these subcultures were they didn't care what people thought. They were their own group and you were either with them or against them. They were people who broke the rules and did whatever they could to surf or skate and if you didn't like it, then get the hell out of their way. Some of the artifacts of the subcultures were the urothene wheel they made to improve skateboarding, the graffiti on the boards, which made them unique from any other boards of the time period, etc.

Some of the stereotypes I held about skatboarders was they were smelly, did drugs, broke the law, wear worn down clothes, partied all the time, etc. From watching the movie, I still hold a lot of these stereotypes. From the movie, you could see people drinking, breaking the law, partying a lot, didn't wear the greatest clothes, etc. So the movie didn't really change my stereotyping, but actually made it stronger because of its details and visuals.

I trust what the creator was telling me. The information was factual because of who was interviewed. The movie had interviews from people that lived in the subculture, thus making the information true. I had an average response to the movie. I kind've expected to see drinking, partying, lawbreaking, and the grimy clothes, and this movie strengthened my emotions towards skateboarders. Because of this movie, I still believe a lot of skateboarders are punks and need to lay off the drugs. The piece was constructed in a chronological order. Each scene talked about a development in their subcultures through the years. For example, the skateboards went from clay wheels to urothene wheels, the drought led to the skating of empty swimming pools, the falling down of the POP resulted in more surfing around the area, etc. All of these things were talked about in an order in which they happened to let you know what was going on in both subcultures over a certain time period and what stayed the same and what changed in these cultures over time.