Petroperversity: Engaging with Fossil Fuel Kitsch in Southern California

Abstract: In 1923, oil was discovered in my hometown of Long Beach, California. Soon, it was one of the richest cities in the world. Cut to the present day and Long Beach is a gritty, queer, and racially diverse city, often derided for its high crime, ugly beaches, and environmental injustices—including the highest ozone pollution in the US. What remains are the weathered symbols of its “glory days”—from a liquor store shaped like an oil derrick to a bar named The Petroleum Club. While scholars such as Jennifer Wenzel have suggested that fossil fuels are concealed in everyday contemporary life, that’s not the case here. In this essay, I analyze the strange affects of this scenario. Playing off scholar Stephanie LeMenager’s coining of “petromelancholia”—“the grieving of conventional oil resources and the pleasures they sustained”—I argue for the existence of a more perverse relationality to fossil fuels, encapsulated in kitschy remnants.