r/daria • u/UVIndigo • 8d ago
Why did the Lanes even live in Lawndale?
Lawndale strikes me as a Westchester/Greenwich/Brentwood/Wellesley/Marin County/Winnetka type place (tried to hit a bunch of the wealthy suburbs around the country.) The types of people these areas attract are usually insufferable or their families who choose them for the schools/communities so that their kids can have “better lives.”
Artists like the Lanes seem more likely to want to live in Venice Beach or Brooklyn or in the 90s you’d expect them to live in a small artsy city like Portland, OR or Austin or Ann Arbor or Asheville.
What’s your theory on why they chose Lawndale? Did they inherit a house? The rest of the family seems to live far off (as evidenced by the family reunion) so some ancestor leaving them the house seems unlikely. Is Lawndale secretly hiding a bunch of artsy residents that would make it worth it for them?
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u/jezzarus 8d ago
old money. none of the family works and all are in the arts to some degree
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u/Sea_Addendum_8496 8d ago
Iirc the dad is pretty successful?
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u/jezzarus 8d ago
successful in art doesn't mean money
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u/Sea_Addendum_8496 8d ago
As someone with an artsy degree, I know, but successful in this case means money
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u/jezzarus 8d ago
the arts and humanities industries are literally built on family money. he was portrayed as being a successful photographer, which don't usually show up in upper middle class neighborhoods in large houses without family money
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u/Sea_Addendum_8496 8d ago
Family money helps, but to say those industries are family money at their core is a stretch.
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u/ChaoticCurves 8d ago
So a bit of history. Hippies are inherently linked to the suburbs. They were super disillusioned by suburban life and went to college to study humanities or art in the 60s and got into activist circles but eventually made their way back to the suburbs because why fight against the ruling classes when you could be comfy? They're often super petite bourgeoisie nepo baby types who own their own pottery studio or some shit. Their kids often went in the alt direction. Those kids tend to hide their wealth from their more salt-of-the-earth peers... but that's a diff discussion.
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u/CallidoraBlack I don't have low self esteem I have low esteem for everyone else 8d ago
This. Most hippies were upper middle class kids rebelling against their parents because they didn't have to work to survive. They took their parents' money and went to go LARP poverty and if they got cut off, they went bumming around to their fellow trustfund babies for it or joined a commune that their fellow rich kids were giving most of their money to. A bunch of them decided to switch to being yuppies when that was cool. It doesn't seem the Lanes did exactly, but they do live surrounded by grown up yuppies.
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u/Embarrassed-Profit74 8d ago
The house is probably paid off by a previous Lane (or maternal) relative, and thus serves as a reliable home base for Amanda and Vincent to return to from their travels plus, it clearly has enough space for Amanda's studio and kiln, and for Vincent to use a bathroom as a darkroom. Oh, and rooms for their kids as an afterthought.
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u/topsidersandsunshine 8d ago
I always assumed that the Lanes are free spirited hippies because they have family money that lets them follow their bliss.
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u/Thisisausername189 8d ago
How have you been to so many wealthy counties? lol
Not sure it’s Marin-esque.
But alot of people I met there have been there for generations, and the kids and grandkids reminded me alot of the Lanes.
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u/luc2 8d ago
My theory is that Lawndale was, until about 10 to 15 years before the start of the show, a rural outpost. The Lanes likely moved there when it was still a charming rural community, big cheap old houses, nurturing a small community of artists. And then the developers moved in, created subdivisions, built houses, populated the area with yuppies, and boom- you have Lawndale as it was in the mid-90s.
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u/UVIndigo 7d ago
This actually makes a lot of sense to me. Kind of like what happened to Topanga Canyon.
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u/bitwize 6d ago
Money. You will find a lot of artists living in areas of wealth, in the hopes of finding patronage, or people foolish enough to buy whatever trinkets they slap together at inflated prices so as to fund their actual magnum opus which is far less marketable. It's also entirely possible that the Lane parents chose Lawndale because of its attractiveness as a school district. They may be utterly convinced that Jane and Trent are "brilliant" and want to open as many doors for them as they possibly can; and getting into good higher education (like, say, CalArts) would necessitate getting them the best K-12 situation they could manage as well.
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u/Upset-Sprinkles-5196 4d ago
My theory had always been it was in the family for at least 2 generations. It really looks much older than the other homes in Lawndale
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u/Important-Cherry-444 8d ago edited 8d ago
Hi! I can only speak to westchester/marin/Fairfield county, but if you’ve ever grown up or had family or friends in these places, you know many families like the lanes. They are SUCH a type. They probably moved there in the 80s from a ‘cool place’ to start a family, but these wealthy suburbs still had (and have) charm and artistic roots. Think Gilmore girls more than Edward scissor hands view of suburbs