The Local Surfer - University of Exeter

different way. It is at this point, in the 1950s, that the surfing subculture
emerged in California.
The Beginning of Surfing as a Subculture
After the interruption of the Second World War surfing was able to continue its
influence over California challenging the constraints of 1950s society (Dixon,
2001). Surfers found freedom in the water and fun on the beach where they
could meet other surfers, drink freely, and become involved with California‟s
elite movie and television community (Dixon, 2001). It was because of these
circumstances that the surf movie industry was born, causing an rapid rise in
the popularity of surfing and continuing the progression of surfing as a
subculture. The first of these and probably the most important was the movie
“Gigdet”. Gidget was based on the true story of Kathy Kohner who learnt to
surf in Malibu in the shadow of the local male surfers Mickey Dora, Terry
“Tubestreak” Tracey, Billy “Moondoggie” Bengston, and Bill Jenson (Booth,
1996). George (1991) believes that Gidget “blew the whole thing wide open”
and a fad was born where everyone wanted to be “just like those cats in
California” (George, 1991: 66). Other surfing films such as “Wet and Wild”,
“Endless Summer” and “Ride the Wild Surf” further expanded the popularity
of surfing. On realising the commercial success of surfing within the movie
industry, other mediums began to “cash in” on surfing‟s rapidly growing
popularity. Music developed a new genre called “Surf music” which included
bands like The Beach Boys (from California) singing “Surfin” USA”, and Jan
and Dean doing “the Surfer Stomp” (George, 1991 and Holmes, 1991). Surf
films and surf music combined to jumpstart surfing‟s commercial popularity
and ultimately place California at the centre and launch of a distinctive and
different type of surfing subculture, which then launched from there out to the
world. As George states; “Fashion, music, commercialism-surfing in California
started it all” (1991: 67).
It is worth noting that men dominated the origins of the surfing subculture.
Cook‟s description of Hawaiian surfing in 1778 contains descriptions of women
surfers (Dixon, 1966) and Patterson (1960) believes Hawaiian women frequently
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