Flyboys, meth, tomatoes and Ron Burgundy

Contemporary films, novels and song lyrics depict San Diego as a diverse land of opportunity, albeit an often seedy or silly one. Here is a breakdown of recurring characterizations.

Beachhead of surf,

drugs and sex

“Vineland”

Surfer undesirables light up the “sinister herb” among the wind-shaped cypresses at the ultraconservative College of the Surf in Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel, corrupting the “wholesome collegians” on the cliff-top campus.

“Traffic”

Bad influences abound in La Jolla, where, determined to protect her 180-degree ocean view and perch in society, do-gooder Helen Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) dutifully adds drug-dealing to her list of community activities in the 2000 movie. (“I’m on the board of my son’s school. I have fundraisers for adult literacy in my home.”)

“Tijuana Straits”

Meth and other toxic chemicals infest Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and the other dusty border towns and waters in Kem Nunn’s 2004 surf noir novel.

“Balboa Park”

The Bruce Springsteen song from the 1995 album “The Ghost of Tom Joad” portrays the fringe of downtown San Diego, with its shadowy underpasses and storm-drain tunnels, as an epicenter of U.S.-Mexico drug trafficking and prostitution.

HQ for global dominance

“Top Gun”

Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) tries to prove himself not only as an unflappable, Ray-Ban-cool aviator but also as the latest in a series of swaggering military docents (Clark Gable, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, et al). His tour in the 1986 movie takes viewers from the cockpits and officers’ club of Miramar’s Fightertown U.S.A. to the bedroom communities hugging the base.

“Floaters”

Oceanfront escapades drive the narrative in Joseph Wambaugh’s 1996 whodunit, which revolves around the inbred Mission Bay yachting scene and the protracted race to win the America’s Cup (or, as detractors call it, The Coma Off Point Loma).

“Bring It On”

An unfriendly navel competition unfolds among suburban San Diego starter mansions in the 2000 movie, wherein Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst), speaking in a spunky San Fernando Valley dialect leads her squad of belly-proud San Diego high school cheerleaders to the national championships.

Theme park

“Anchorman”

Local news personality Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) revels in his mellow community (“San Diego. Drink it in. It always goes down smooth.”) until a new hire with a stellar “heinie” cannonballs into the 2004 movie to disrupt his shallow world of year-round pool parties and chases the city’s biggest story of the year: the birth of a giant panda at the San Diego Zoo.

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”

The once-ubiquitous San Diego Chicken (“the Sir Laurence Olivier of mascots,” according to Spy magazine) gets a cameo role in the locally grown 1978 horror spoof, upstaging J. Stephen Peace -- an actor-writer-producer who would later become a state assemblyman and state senator -- as it stomps on mean-spirited beefsteaks.

-- Pamm Higgins