California provides fodder for the world, there’s no denying it. Sometimes, that fodder is aspirational, and sometimes that fodder serves only to invoke more mockery from the national public. Itself rather laughable, so what does California really care? In fact, it’s every other state that should care quite a bit right now about the fate of this massive piece of land, apparently too massive to keep one liberal ideology unified with so many “red” “ideals” not being met. Hence, this fluke of a recall election designed not only to remove Gavin Newsom, but to provide a major power play to Republican congress members and other assorted right-wing vultures. Should California, once the bluest of the blue states, manage to turn red, it’s true, we’ll only be wishing for Angelyne instead. Who just so happens to be a backup candidate among the forty-six candidates listed (can you say: cluster fuck?).
Angelyne—real name: Renee Goldberg—is no stranger to running for governor. She did it the last time there was a recall in 2003. When, sadly, Gray Davis actually did get recalled in favor of a different “celebrity” besides Angelyne: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Henceforward crowned as the “Governator.” This moment, of course, sealed California’s fate as a kingdom of superficiality. Ruled only by the residents’ perspective of what constituted “clout.” And being that California does so often tend to blaze the trail for what’s to come in terms of trends and policymaking, the state ultimately forecasted the likelihood of someone like Donald Trump being capable of “winning” the presidency. Or even running for a political office at all. Because, if the modern age has taught people anything, it’s not about experience in a field so much as “name (a.k.a. brand) recognition.” Some would argue, in this sense, that Angelyne is a foil for Caitlyn Jenner during this campaign, the former running instead on a “liberal” platform that reads more like a utopian laundry list that someone running for student body president might promise to her fellow classmates. And, in truth, that isn’t so far off the mark of how politics feels today, especially in the Golden State, where no one really wants to be met with the unignorable realities of ever-burning fire, drought and the looming threat of earthquakes at any given moment or location.
They want to be told the type of things Angelyne is “promising,” no matter how absurd. A quick perusal of her “platform” touts such possibilities as “releasing convicts,” “abolishing for-profit jails” and “department of homelessness prevention.” Indeed, to the latter point, Angelyne seems markedly fixed on remedying California’s growing homelessness issue. Something that doesn’t feel like a coincidence considering this is a woman who was born into a homeless existence. And “placeless,” to boot. For the most part, that’s what being in Angelyne’s adopted home of L.A. is as well, characterized by the “sprawl” that Aldous Huxley is attributed with calling “nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis.”
If that’s the case, Angelyne has searched for and found the entirety of that metropolis thanks to her notorious jaunts in a bright pink Corvette that is as much a part of her signature as her oversized breasts and bleach blonde hair. In her seventies at this point, it’s clear Angelyne has actually outdone Madonna in terms of refusing to ever acknowledge a pesky little thing like age or “acting like” whatever that age might be. Having adopted the camp aesthetic—in terms of doing a sendup of the “seductress”—that Mae West, Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe perfected (using the latter’s baby voice as inspiration), Angelyne is a classic Californian example of playing into a stereotype for the sake of not only giving people what they “want,” but never risking too much being expected of a person so supposedly “dumb” and beautiful.
Speaking of “dumb,” Angelyne’s campaign is at least partially another offshoot of her performance art, telling The New Yorker, “I think politics is a dumb circus. I think it has got more of an entertainment interest. I started that!” And it’s true, Angelyne was among the first to lay claim to that derisive phrase “famous for being famous.” A job title that belies something else that has prompted her to run yet again: “I want to elevate the consciousness of everybody’s goodness at heart.” Smacking of Cher Horowitz (a “dumb blonde” who, unlike Angelyne, didn’t seem to want to overly conceal her Jewish background) grabbing all of her father’s overpriced accoutrements to donate to the “Pismo Beach disaster” relief effort, Angelyne is undoubtedly well-intentioned if not totally misguided. That could be said of many Californians and their “initiatives” aimed at bettering this depraved world (a lot of said depravity actually being concentrated in California, by sheer virtue of serial killer percentage alone).
If nothing else, the campaign is another chance for Angelyne to flex her marketing and merchandising skills. Even if the prices for said merch are more than a little obscene ($100 for every item except the face mask and sticker, which go for $30). Is it an indication of Angelyne’s out-of-touchness or a mark of how much she knows her worth? The slogan, “Good Luck California” doesn’t exactly bode well, making it sound more like, “Good luck, you’re on your own”/“Good luck, ‘cause we’re fucked.” But maybe the more hopeful (and accurate) one is, “I have the key to California.” In many ways, there’s no denying that’s true of Angelyne. She does have the key to unlocking much of the nature of the state’s residents: aspirational, creating false origin stories for the benefit of becoming accepted by the capitalist machine and, most importantly, obsessed with external beauty.
And, like most, Angelyne seems to prefer the glitz and glamor of Southern California (filled with its fair share of “red pockets,” mind you), admitting, “God, no. I’ve never been to Sacramento. City Hall? What’s City Hall?” On the one hand, she has her utopian ideals that she’d like to implement, on the other, she’d prefer to just get “the people” to implement them for her—in addition to still driving her gas-powered car (which, obviously, goes in contrast to the supposed plan to eliminate, as much as possible, fossil fuel emissions). Vacillating between the identity of “Renee” and Angelyne, she teeters toward the latter when she coos, “Simply by the virtue of me being governor all other politicians will rise to their highest selves and become honorable. I don’t have time to think about politics I’m so busy making my film and trying to get into office.” But the vestiges of who she once was—the fragile, intelligent Jewess who was “placed” (by way of displacement) in the Fairfax District when her parents finally fled Europe after WWII—lingers in specific platform measures she reiterates. Intermixing the real with the fantastical, Angelyne mimics the core of what every Californian does, whether a transplant or a “native.” We’re creating our own legend, a full-time job that commits us irrevocably to the state.
Alas, Angelyne’s campaign echoes something Michael Strauss, her first husband, married to Renee, said about her when her true identity was revealed in a 2017 article from The Hollywood Reporter. He lamented, “As an entrepreneur, I was sad that she wasn’t ever able to be more [financially] successful. Why didn’t she take it farther? Why not a TV show? She invented this marvelous, crazy, out-of-this-world character but couldn’t fully sell it. I was always a Renee rooter: ‘Come on, girl, take it to the next level!’ But she only had the capacity to take it so far.” That might be true of this second bid to run for governor, but maybe she took something he said to heart, for there is a TV show in post-production (delayed by the pandemic last year) about her life starring Emmy Rossum. It might not come to much, but who knows? Maybe, like most Californians, she’s just trying her luck repeatedly and hoping for the next big “score.” Whether that means more money, more fame or, heaven forbid in this society, more actual happiness, that’s only for the Fates to decide. For California has always been a big proponent of Mama Fortuna. You have to be when your chief trade product is dreams.
Angelyne, like so many who come to California to reinvent themselves, could perhaps never have ended up anywhere else. Poetically, she was born in a camp for displaced persons after the Holocaust. “Displaced” is the very word to describe most of those who transplant themselves here. And now, even those who have lived in CA their entire lives, as they’re told to be “ready at a moment’s notice” when a fire comes. Displacement is the theme of California living. And because of this, it is still regarded as the greatest haven for reinvention. Renee Goldberg chose to reinvent herself into Angelyne. And Angelyne, in turn, has tried to reinvent herself as California’s governor—if not ultimately in practice, then at least emblematically.
One aspect of the campaign, Bubble Bath Day, goads, “Come up to the capitol in Sacramento and give Angelyne a bubble bath… in your dreams!” In more ways than one, to be sure, as it is only in our dreams that Angelyne could 1) ever become governor and 2) live up to the “grand plans” she has for restoring the state to its “full potential.” Yet the fact that Angelyne could have enough confidence—in short, to dare to dream—is a testament to just how much the Californian spirit is still alive. If you can fake it (i.e. fool enough people), you can make it. Just don’t let anyone catch who you really are behind that curtain manipulating the proverbial Wizard of Oz. Or do—because that makes for a great screenplay option as well.
