The Orange Curtain is a term that refers to the border between Orange County and Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. It is a sometimes derogatory, sometimes lighthearted term, that is used to describe Orange County's more conservative and suburban population as compared to the more liberal and urban population of Los Angeles. The Orange Curtain is a word play on the infamous Iron Curtain which separated communist and capitalist Europe.
According to Colleen Cotter, "Because has a reputation for political conservatism, people from Northern California especially worry about what happens 'Behind the Orange Curtain'."
Karin Aguilar-San Juan describes the Orange Curtain as being between 1890 and 1950, as "the region's controlling elite also embraced a John Birch-style ideology of white supremacy and small government.
The song "Orange County Girl" by Gwen Stefani uses this term, stating "I guess behind the orange curtain it's not so bad."
Famous quotes containing the words orange and/or curtain:
“I’d take the bus downtown with my mother, and the big thing was to sit at the counter and get an orange drink and a tuna sandwich on toast. I thought I was living large!... When I was at the Ritz with the publisher a few months ago, I did think, “Oh my God, I’m in the Ritz tearoom.” ... The person who was so happy to sit at the Woolworths counter is now sitting at the Ritz, listening to the harp, and wondering what tea to order.... [ellipsis in source] Am I awake?”
—Connie Porter (b. 1959)
“A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)