ABSTRACT
California is a place encompassing diverse terrain, multiple cultures, a large population, and various meanings within popular culture. California is widely appreciated as a site for significant image creation through the television and film industries clustered in Hollywood. The San Francisco scene was truly important in offering a differing view of life in California in opposition to the exuberance and romance of Southern California. Hedonism is a key ingredient of "Hotel California" as the partners give into temptation within a room decorated with a mirrored ceiling. The Free Speech Movement (FSM) on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley empowered students to take a stand for civil rights and against "faceless bureaucratic machines" and the intensification of fighting in Vietnam. Representations of California in popular music lyrics during the second half of the twentieth century changed quite radically from a distant, romantic paradise to a crime-ridden, drug-abusing misogynistic gang territory.
