Valley girl


Valley girl is a socioeconomic stereotype depicting a class of women characterized by the colloquial California English dialect Valleyspeak and materialism.
Originally referring to upper-middle-class girls from the Los Angeles commuter communities of the San Fernando Valley during the 1980s, the term in later years became more broadly applied to any female in the United States who embodied,, or greater interest in conspicuous consumption than intellectual or personal accomplishment.

In popular culture

In Los Angeles, "vals" were derided for their perceived other-ness in the late 1970s. The phenomenon became nationally known in 1982, when composer Frank Zappa released the single "Valley Girl", with his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit speaking typical "Valley Girl" phrases. Zappa intended to lampoon the image, but after the song's release there was a significant increase in the "Valspeak" slang usage, whether ironically spoken or not.
The 1983 film Valley Girl starring Nicolas Cage centered on a group of "Valley Girl" characters and featured several characterizations associated with their lifestyle.
The protagonist of the 1995 film Clueless, played by Alicia Silverstone, has been described as a caricature of 1990s Valley Girls, though she is actually from nearby Beverly Hills.
In her 2015 memoir entitled Wildflower, actress Drew Barrymore says she talks "like a valley girl" because she lived in Sherman Oaks from the age of 7 to 14.